suggested readings, websites, and organisations

Click here to suggest a relevant website, book, or organisation, or add your own

Note: we do not support the views, ideology, or public behaviour of any of these organisations

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General Expellee Organisations
Recommended academic resources and record archives
Recommended books, films, and sources
Sudeten/Czechoslovak German Expellee Groups and Records
Prussian/Silesian/Polish German Expellee Groups and Records
Baltic German Expellee Groups and Records
Banat/Yugoslav/Danube Swabian/Hungarian German Expellee Groups and Records
Volga German/Russian German Expellee Groups and Records
Transylvania Saxon/Romanian German Expellee Groups and Records
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General Expellee Organisations and Links

Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung (SFVV) - click here - among the first major scholarly organisations recognised and funded by the German government, and acknowledged by the Poles (but refused by the Czechs)

International Network of Genocide Scholars - click here.

Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen (Centre Against Expulsions, auf Deutsch and in English)

Vertriebene-Frauen.de- focusing on expelled Germans from a gendered perspective, quite a unique source

Bund der Vertriebenen (auf Deutsch)

Haus des deutschen Ostens, München (House of the German East), a state-supported archive in Munich - click here.

Verein für Deutsche Kulturbeziehungen im Ausland (Association for German Cultural Relations Abroad)

Prussian Trust/Preußische Treuhand (auf Deutsch and in English)

Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile - click here.

Die-ostgebiete.de (a reseller of books and products from eastern German history)

Preußischer-Mediensdienst (a German expellee history books reseller)

German World Alliance

European Heritage Library -- many articles with attention to genocide against Germans, Tatars, Ingush, Chechens

The Forgotten Genocide (for sale on DVD), a groundbreaking academic conference in February of 2010 attended by hundreds of scholars, diplomats, and survivors, including the Institute for Research of Expelled Germans

Recommended academic resources and record archives

Journal of Genocide Research, a magazine from the International Network of Genocide Scholars (click here).

Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung (SFVV) - click here - among the first major scholarly organisations recognised and funded by the German government, and acknowledged by the Poles (but refused by the Czechs)

International Tracing Service - an official German government database to track down displaced families of World War II, including Germans, Jews, and other affected peoples

Romanian documents archive- Consiliul Naţional Pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (C.N.S.A.S./National Council for Studying Archives of the [Romanian] Securitate) - click here. Scholars can petition them for records.

Polish documents archive - The Institute of National Remembrance- click here.

Czech documents archive - The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes - click here.

Slovak documents archive - Nation's Memory Institute- click here.

Hungarian documents archive - Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security - click here.

Verband der deutschen sozial-kulturellen Gesellschaften in Polen (Organization of German Sociocultural Societies in Poland) - click here.

German government documents archive for East German STASI records - click here.

The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile - click here.

 

 

Recommended books, films, and sources

Moeller, Robert. War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. ~An excellent book analysing the evolution of an "expellee" identity in Germany. He argues that the German government found an "official history" and came to terms with its Nazi past by co-opting the expellees' emphasis on their trauma and suffering.

Frommer, Benjamin. National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press 2004.

MacDonogh, Giles. After the Reich. New York: Basic Books, 2007.

Naimark, Norman. The Russians in Germany (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997.

Bärbel, Gafert. “Kinder der Flucht - Kinder der Vertreibung 1945-1948.“ http://breslau-
wroclaw.de/wb/media/stammtisch/berlin/20071129_kinder_von_breslau_1945.pdf

Blumenwitz, David. Minderheitenschutz und Demokratie. Duncker & Humblot, 2004. “The Charter of German Homeland Expellees,” Bund der Vertriebenen. http://www.bund-dervertriebenen.de/derbdv/charta-en.php3

Ewert, Erna and Pollmann, Marga. Frauen in Königsberg 1945-1948. Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen, 2000.

Andor, Ingrid. Bread on my Mother’s Table: A Danube Swabian Remembers. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, Inc., 2008.

Gruber, Wendelin. In the Claws of the Red Dragon. St. Michaelswerk, 1988.

Hoeger Flotz, Katherine. A Pebble in My Shoe. Palatine, IL: Pannonia Press, 2005.

The hundreds of personal accounts in Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien, Band I. Muenchen: Landesverband der Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben; Donauschwäbische Kulturstifting, 1995.

Schulze, Mathias. German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008.

Maeder, Pascal. Forging a New Heimat: Expellees in Post-War West Germany and Canada. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011. - (read an abstract here, with excellent rare statistics of German expellee integration, proportions, etc.)

Burghardt, Klara. Das Häuschen und das Mäuschen. Nationale Lehrbuchverlag/Budapest, 2011. -a children's book written for German schools and lectures in Hungary

KlaraBurghardt.com - a German minourity author and schoolteacher in Hungary writing to promote the German language and acknowledge the enduring presence of Hungary's Germans

Cornelia, Herlacher. "Nikolaus Berwanger – Leben und Schaffen eines Rumäniendeutschen." University of Vienna, 2008. See here: http://othes.univie.ac.at/1017/1/2008-08-20_0100683.pdf

Mirtes, Hans. "70 Jahre Münchner Abkommen 1938 und das Schicksal der Sudetendeutsche." Heimatkreis Mies-Pilsen, Mai 2008).

Sellwood, A.V. The Damned Don't Drown: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Naval Institute Press, 1996.

Wieler, Henry P. The Quiet in the Land. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2006. - original research on the Volga Germans, particularly from a Christian perspective

Niven, Bill. Die "Wilhelm Gustloff:" Geschichte und Erinnerung eines Untergangs. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2011.

Bacque, James. Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950. Vancouver, Canada: Talonbooks, 2007.

The documentary film based on James Bacque's Crime and Mercies. See a YouTube trailer here.

Demshuka, Andrew. "Citizens in Name Only: The National Status of German Expellees, 1945-53." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. ~ an excellent analysis of the overall effects of the expulsions on German society and the difficulty of integration.

Publications of Alfred de Zayas, a prominent human rights scholar considering the German expulsions genocide

De Zayas, Alfred. 2004. “The Expulsion: a crime against humanity.” http://www.meaus.com/expulsion-by-czechs-1945.htm

De Zayas, Alfred. Nemesis at Potsdam: the Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans: Background, Execution, Consequences. London: Taylor & Francis, 1979.

Grass, Günter. Im Krebsgang (The Crabwalk, or In Retrogression). ~ a ground-breaking work discussing the expulsion of Germans as a taboo topic of German and general historical memory. Also included is a polemical discussion of the Soviets' sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, in which over 9,000 civilians and several thousand children were killed during escape.

Tannehill, Evelyne. Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival During World War II.

Walter, Elizabeth. Barefoot in the Rubble. (written by a survivor)

Blanke, Richard. Orphans of Versailles: the Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939. Louisville, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. ~ excellently meticulous analysis of the story of a forgotten minourity in Poland, as well as the process of their independent gravitation towards National Socialism prior to Germany's invasion

Püschel, Rudolf. Anfang und Ende einer deutsch-böhmischen Heimat. Ready-For-Print Publications. (written by a survivor)

Püschel, Rudolf. Expulsion from Czechoslovakia 1945/46. Ready-For-Print Publications. (written by a survivor)

Prokle, Herbert. Genocide of the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, 1944-1948. Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung, 2003.

Brown, MacAlister. "The Diplomacy of Bitterness: Genesis of the Potsdam Decision to Expel Germans from Czechoslovakia." The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1958): 607-626.

Piotrowski, Tadeusz. Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2007. ~ an excellent analysis of the inter-ethnic brutality and collaboration with invaders that equally occurred among Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews alike in the occupation.

Ziemer, Gerhard. Deutscher Exodus: Vertreibung und Eingliederung von 15 Millionen Ostdeutschen. Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1973.

Lumans, Valdis. Himmler's Auxiliaries: the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Janjetović, Zoran. Between Hitler and Tito: The Disappearance of the Vojvodina Germans. S.N., 2005.

Wildmann, Georg. Verbrechen an den Deutschen in Jugoslawien 1944-1948: die Stationen eines Völkermords. München: Donauschwäbisches Archiv/Arbeitskreis Dokumentation, 1998.

Owen, Luisa Lang. Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2003.   

Wolff, Stefan. German Minorities in Europe: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Belonging. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002.

Pohl, Otto. Ethnic Cleansings in the USSR 1937-1949. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.

Pittman, Avril. From Ostpolitik to Reunification: West German-Soviet Political Relations Since 1974. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Giesinger, Adam. From Catherine to Khrushchev: the story of Russia's Germans. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan, 1974.

Sheehy, Ann. The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians: Soviet Treatment of some National Minorities. London: Minority Rights Group, 1973.

Schechtman, Joseph B. European Population Transfers, 1939-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971

Wixman, Ronald. Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook. M.E. Sharpe, 1984.

Ahonen, Pertti. 2004. After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945-1990. New York, NY: Oxford Univ Press.

Blacksell, Mark, and Karl Martin Born. “Private Property Restitution: The Geographical Consequences of Official Government Policies in Central and Eastern Europe.” The Geographic Journal, Vol. 168, No. 2 (2002): 178-190.

Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. Hill and Wang, 2001.

Naimark, Norman A. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in XX Century Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Naimark, Norman. Stalin's Genocides. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Grau, Karl Friedrich. Silesian Inferno: War Crimes of the Red Army on its March into Silesia in 1945. Valley Forge, PA: Landpost Press, 1992.

Marrus, Michael Robert. The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War through the Cold War.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002.

"The expulsion of the 'German' communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War." Published for the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, 2004.

Ondřej Matějka's Lost Sudetenland / Zmizelé Sudety.

Glassheim, Eagle. "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945." Central European History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (2000): 463-486.

Eberhardt, Piotr and Owsinski, Jan. Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in 20th century Central-Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.

Marrus, Michael Robert. The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War through the Cold War.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002.

"The expulsion of the 'German' communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War." Published for the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, 2004.

Haug, Werner and Courbage, Youssef. The Demographic Characteristics of National Minorities in Certain European States. Council of Europe, 1998.

 

 

Sudeten/Czechoslovak German Expellee Groups and Records

Karpatendeutsche.de (Carpathian German Association)

Collegium Bohemicum - click here - a joint German-Czech initiative

Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft (Sudeten German Community in Germany)

Mirtes, Hans. "70 Jahre Münchner Abkommen 1938 und das Schicksal der Sudetendeutsche." Heimatkreis Mies-Pilsen, Mai 2008).

Antikomplex - a Czech organisation bringing awareness to the Sudeten Germans

Sudetendeutsches Büro Prag (Sudeten German Bureau in Prague) - click here.

Slovak documents archive - Nation's Memory Institute- click here.

Czech documents archive - The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes - click here.

Sudetendeutsche Jugend (Sudeten German Youth) - click here.

Museum of Carpathian German Culture (in Slovak and German) - click here.

Deutscher Böhmerwaldbund - click here.

Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Bayern (Sudeten German Community in Bavaria) - click here.

Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Österreich (Sudeten German Community in Austria) - click here.

Rudolf-Püschel.com, a survivor, writer, and researcher expelled from Czechoslovakia - click here.

 

 

Prussian/Silesian/Polish German Expellee Groups and Records

Polish documents archive - The Institute of National Remembrance- click here.

 

 

Baltic German Expellee Groups and Records

Sellwood, A.V. The Damned Don't Drown: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Naval Institute Press, 1996.

Niven, Bill. Die "Wilhelm Gustloff:" Geschichte und Erinnerung eines Untergangs. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2011.

Deutsche-Baltische Gesellschaft (the German Baltic Society)- click here.

Association of the Baltic Noble Corporations- click here.

Deutschbaltischer Jugend- und Studentenring (Baltic German Youth and Student Group)- click here.

Deutschbaltische Kulturstiftung - click here.

Deutschbaltische Landsmannschaft in Bayern (Baltic German Community in Bavaria) - click here.

 

 

Banat/Yugoslav/Danube Swabian/Hungarian German Expellee Groups and Records

Burghardt, Klara. Das Häuschen und das Mäuschen. Nationale Lehrbuchverlag/Budapest, 2011. -a children's book written for German schools and lectures in Hungary

Landesverband der Donauschwaben, USA (Association of the Danube Swabians in USA, English and German)- click here.

Gesellschaft für Serbisch-Deutsche Zusammenarbeit (Society for Serbian-German Cooperation) - click here.

Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben (Community of Banat Swabians in Bavaria) - click here.

Hungarian documents archive - Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security - click here.

Kroatisch-Österreichische Gesellschaft/ Hrvatsko-Austrijsko Društvo - click here.

Deutscher Verein ,,Kikinda" in Croatia - click here.

Heimatsortgemeinschaft Tscheb (Hometown Community of Tscheb, for Danube Swabians in general) - click here.

Danube Cultural Society (English) - click here.

Donauschwaben Villages Helping Hands Homepage - remembering our Donauschwaben ancestors - click here.

Austrian Culture Forum in Croatia (Austrijski Kulturni Forum) - click here.

Heimatbuch Molidorf, a collection of memoirs about Molin(dorf) in Serbia and its labour camp - click here.

Das Portal der Ungarndeutschen (the Portal to the Hungary Germans) - click here. Huge database of information.

Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Ungarn (Community of the Germans from Hungary) - click here.

Landesselbstverwaltung der Ungarndeutschen (Organisation for Self-Government of Hungary Germans) - click here.

Vereinigung Ungarndeutscher Akademiker (Union of Hungary German Academics) - click here.

Ungarndeutsches Sozial- und Kulturwerk (Hungary German Social and Culture Works) - click here.

Ungarndeutsche Bibliothek (Hungary German Library) - click here.

Donauschwaben.hu - an online magazine for Danube Swabians (in Hungarian and German) - click here.

United Donauschwaben [Danube Swabians] of Milwaukee - click here.

Molidorf.com - click here. Information about the Banat town of Molidorf, including maps and sources.

Danube-swabians.org- click here. Many sources and organised information on the Danube Swabians.

Banat-books.com- click here. A collection of books and sources.

Hrastovac- click here. Devoted to the history and displacement in the town of Hrastovac/Eichendorf.

 

 

Volga German/Russian/Kazakhstani German Expellee Groups and Records

Wieler, Henry P. The Quiet in the Land. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2006. - original research on the Volga Germans, particularly from a Christian perspective

The Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University - click here.

Volga Germans at webbitt.com - click here.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection - click here.

American Historical Society of Germans from Russia - click here.

Russian Germans International - a Facebook group based in Kansas representing Volga Germans altogether

Deutsch-Kasachstanische Assoziation der Unternehmer, the leading representative of Germans expelled to Kazakhstan.

wolgadeutsche.ru

volgagerman.net

volgagermans.net

Volgaland, Country of the Volga Germans - an organisation promoting political autonomy or greater cultural rights for the Volga German minority in Russia and Kazakhstan

 

 

Transylvania Saxon/Romanian German Expellee Groups and Records

The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities - click here.

Cornelia, Herlacher. "Nikolaus Berwanger – Leben und Schaffen eines Rumäniendeutschen." University of Vienna, 2008. See here: http://othes.univie.ac.at/1017/1/2008-08-20_0100683.pdf

The Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance - click here.

The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile - click here.

Consiliul Naţional Pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (C.N.S.A.S./National Council for Studying Archives of the [Romanian] Securitate) - click here. Scholars can petition them for records.

Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile - click here.

Verband der Siebenbürger Sachsen (official Assocation of Transylvania Saxons, in Saxony, Germany) - click here.

Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (Forumul Democrat al Germanilor din România) - click here.

Siebenbürger Sachsen in Baden-Württemberg (a representative of Saxon emigrants to Germany) - click here.

Evangelical (Lutheran) Academy in Romania for Saxons (Academia Evanghelica Transilvania) - click here.

Siebenbürger-Sächsische Stiftung (Transylvania Saxon Foundation) - click here.

'Sibi-Web', Transylvania Saxons on the Internet (auf Deutsch) - click here.

Siebenbürger-Jugend (Transylvania [Saxon] Youth) - click here.

Siebenbürger Landler (Landler.com, devoted to the Landler Transylvanians) - click here.

Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland (representative in Germany) - click here.

Transylvania Saxons in Köln/Cologne (representing Romania's Germans via the Rheinland) - click here.

Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben (Community of Banat Swabians in Bavaria) - click here.

Landsmannschaft der Sathmarer Schwaben (Community of Satu Mare Swabians) - click here.