i
Considering Postwar Germany:
British Public Opinion and Debate over the Expulsion
of Germans from Eastern Europe, 1945 – 6
Candidate number: 23913
ii
Summary
There is a growing European-wide anxiety over the development of German victimhood following
the Second World War, and the establishment of a German historical revisionism. Sections of those
Germans who wish to highlight themselves as victims have urged the former Allies to acknowledge
responsibility for the suffering caused in the expulsions from Eastern Europe following the war and
for these to be recognised as part of a “historic constellation” of the twentieth century. This study
discusses the management of a postwar Germany in Europe and the debate undertaken over the
issues of German “collective guilt” and responsibility. It looks towards the German refugees on
which this debate was focused, arguing that the issue has not always been solely of German
concern.
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Table of Contents
Preface. ............................................................................................................................................................... iv
1.
2.
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
Government Responses to the Expulsion and Public Opinion................................................................ 4
Events..... ............................................................................................................................. .............................4
“National mood” and a Change of Leadership in 1945.................................................................................... 7
3.
The Height of Debate over the Expulsion: The Winter of 1945 – 6 ...................................................... 15
The Power of the Press .................................................................................................................................. 15
July – August 1945: The End of the War and the Coverage of Potsdam ....................................................... 16
The Story Breaks ............................................................................................................................................ 19
Expulsions Dominate Debate October – Winter 1945/6 ............................................................................... 22
4.
Victor Gollancz ...................................................................................................................................... 25
Who Was Victor Gollancz? What Did He Do? ................................................................................................ 25
Gollancz’s Literature and the People around Him ......................................................................................... 25
The “Save Europe Now” Campaign ................................................................................................................ 26
A Note on the Importance of the Press and General “Atmosphere” ............................................................ 28
British and European Attitudes towards Germans ........................................................................................ 29
The Notion of Collective Guilt ........................................................................................................................ 33
5.
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................... 35
6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 39
Primary Sources ............................................................................................................................................. 39
Historiography................................................................................................................................................ 39
Institutional Archives ..................................................................................................................................... 39
Newspapers and Contemporary Periodicals .................................................................................................. 39
Candidate number: 23913
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Preface
Ever since the expulsions first occurred there has been considered dispute over the fate of Germany
and the German people. Control was initially out of German hands, as Eastern European states took
the matter into their own, followed by inter-Allied discussions across the tables at Yalta and then at
Potsdam where the extent of German responsibility was decided. The fate of German refugees,
then, was not of a solely German matter, but indeed a fate which the expelled would suffer. Over
time this has naturally shifted to German concern and has, especially since unification in 1989,
become a contentious matter in German and European politics.
Herein I investigate British public opinion and debate over the expulsion, arguing that it
should be treated as part of wider Pan-European debate. The danger of isolating Nazism and the
atrocities caused by it, of which the holocaust was just one, assumes that it was just a blip in a
European history, and by treating it as such there is a danger of viewing it as a solely German path
and is representative of the “German question” – one for others to sit back and judge. As a result
one forgets perhaps that Germany is not the only nation where fascism has reared its head, or that
many of the perpetrators involved in these atrocities were not even German. In order to fully
appreciate these dangers, Nazism and the expulsions both need to be understood in the wider
European context, and the notion of Germans as victims placed in a wider European memory.
In this study I look, firstly, at the debate within the government from the early part of 1945.
Drawing on Foreign Office records and Cabinet papers I investigate government considerations of
the press and general public opinion when trying to negotiate with a stern Russia and a passionate
Czechoslovakia and Poland, and look into the reasoning and legacy of the Potsdam Agreement.
Further to this, I draw on a large wealth of newspaper articles to investigate the development of
discussion within the press. It is possible to witness a growing concern and criticism in the
newspapers as journalists uncover more of the crisis on the Continent in the late summer. It is
argued here that the press were often ahead of the government when questioning the crisis. Finally,
I look in Victor Gollancz’s papers and interesting and provocative literature, examining the powerful
language which he employed and comparing it with more recent notions of German victimhood.
I would like to thank the History department at the University of Sussex for giving me the
guidance and support throughout my Masters programme, especially Dr Paul Betts for his continued
supervision and Dr Claire Langhamer for her help also. I would also like to express my gratitude to
the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick for their assistance with researching the
Victor Gollancz papers. I am also thankful to the National Archives.
I am indebted to Jackie Binding for her long suffering support, for without which this study
would have been impossible. Finally I would like to thank Nicole Elliott for mopping up my constant
grammatical errors – who could’ve thought the apostrophe would have such a story?
Candidate number: 23913
Considering Postwar Germany
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Considering Postwar Germany: British Public Opinion and Debate over the
Expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe, 1945 – 6
[...] we did as Hitler would have done. We annexed, we expelled, we stole: we exhibited an
extreme of national intolerance: we bore ourselves with offensive superiority [...] and was
this the way, I ask, to wean the German people from Hitlerism or the basic ideas of which
Hitlerism is merely one expression?1
Surely the inhuman treatment of Germans by ostensibly compassionate Americans and
Britons constitutes one of the anomalies of the twentieth century.2
1. Introduction
In 2003, Johannes Rau, the eighth president of the Federal Republic of Germany,3 accused the
Second World War Allies of avoiding their responsibility for the deaths of around 2.5 million
Germans following the forced expulsion of millions from Eastern Europe 1945 – 50,4 claiming that
the fate of expellees should be regarded as part of a ‘historic constellation’5 of the twentieth
century, along with the Holocaust. According to Rau, ‘[t]he pan-European catastrophe can only really
be understood in its entire context’.6 The former president’s statement coincided with a row over
the proposal to build a “Centre against Expulsions” dedicated to the expellees, or Vertriebenen,7
with the suggestion of placing it near to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin8 and, as a result, sparked
fierce resistance within Germany and also internationally, not least by the Poles.9 The debate has
been enflamed somewhat by the continued suggestion, in some quarters, that there is an attempt to
create a victim culture within Germany, due to a ‘German historical revisionism’,10 which gained
pace following unification in the 1990s,11 aiming to dissolve German responsibility for the atrocities
1
Victor Gollancz, Our Threatened Values, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1946), p. 92
de Zayas, Foreword in Crimes and Mercies by James Bacque, (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), p. xix
3 From July 1st 1999 until June 30th 2004
4 There are varying estimates at the amount of expellees, ranging from around 10 to as high the 15 million cited by Alfred
de Zayas in Nemesis at Potsdam: the Anglo-Americans and the expulsion of the Germans, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Ltd, 1979).
5 Johannes Rau quoted in http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/German-president-UK-gave-in.2465478.jp 2003, site
accessed 17/01/2009
6 Johannes Rau quoted in http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/German-president-UK-gave-in.2465478.jp 2003, site
accessed 17/01/2009
7 Pawel Lutomski, ‘The Debate about a Center against Expulsions: An Unexpected Crisis in German-Polish Relations?’
German Studies Review, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Oct., 2004), pp. 449 – 468, published by: German Studies Association, p. 449.
8 Ibid., p. 455.
9 Council of Europe: Parliamentary Assembly, ‘Documents, working papers. 2005, vol. 1: Documents 10123, 10135, 10250,
10251, 10322-10380’ Documents: working papers 2005 ordinary session (first part), 24-28 January 2005, Council of Europe
Publishing, 2005, p. 287
10 Melanie Phillips, Europe's victim culture from Jewish Chronicle [online],
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000009.html 2003, site accessed 14/01/2009
11 Karoline von Oppen and Stefan Wolff argue that, ‘a much broader reconceptualisation of the notion of Germans as
victims has taken place since the 1990s’, although they recognise that, ‘[t]here appears to be little agreement as to when
2 Alfred
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Considering Postwar Germany
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committed under Nazi leadership.12 However, since the first suggestions of the transference
emerged during the war there has been sustained criticism against the practice on the grounds of
human rights, but also due to the fear of postwar stability in Europe.
Compared with studies considering Germany and Eastern Europe, the British public response to
the expulsions has, until recently, received little coverage13 and sources on the attitudes in Britain
are not extensive. In order to understand the greater European postwar context, coverage of the
expulsions from a British perspective is also important and it is necessary to examine those
contemporary criticisms alongside more recent debates. Rather than focusing on purely official
responses and diplomatic relations between European countries, this study focuses largely on
reactions to, and interpretations of, British public opinion, with the intention of understanding the
debate in its postwar context and interpreting the lasting legacy that this debate has created.
Particular attention has been paid to comparing the language used in the public realm with studies
of the rhetoric often used more recently by revisionists. This may go some way to understanding
why there remains such a gulf between British and Polish or Czech representations of the moral
standing of Germany14 following the Second World War, and why they continue to strongly resist the
establishment of a centre for the Vertriebenen in Berlin. This study seeks to develop some
understanding of the influence of public language and the link between this and the contention
surrounding the use of the term “ethnic cleansing”.
One argument is that the expulsion of Germans from east central Europe, the crimes committed
against the people and the destruction of their culture ‘their elimination as groups as such, is, and
was, of no interest to anyone not German’.15 This is a generalised argument, and it is also possible to
argue that the issue of German expulsions to external interest is more wide ranging than comments
like this infer, and a particular purpose of this study is to demonstrate that, aside from the
development of more recent debates, the topic was actually of more interest to the British opinion
in 1945 – 6 than is often supposed. Further to the problem of generalisation, there is a danger of
narrowing the debate. It is assumed that by making reference to the activities of the Third Reich as
the discourse on German suffering during the Second World War began to assume a more significant role in public
discourse in Germany.’ Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed., Bill Niven,
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2006), pp.195 – 197.
12 Melanie Phillips, Europe's victim culture from Jewish Chronicle [online],
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000009.html 2003, site accessed 14/01/2009
13 Mathew Frank’s recent study on the British perspective, Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post 1945 Population
Transfer in Context, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), an in depth contextual analysis of the expulsions,
comprehensively demonstrating British official responses, and D C Watt’s, Britain Looks to Germany: British Opinion and
Policy towards Germany Since 1945, (London: Oswald Wolff, 1965), a useful, if a little dated, study of British Foreign Policy,
are two of the most notable to cover British opinion.
14 Elizabeth Wiskemann, Germany’s Eastern Neighbours: Problems Relating to the Oder-Neisse Line and the Czech Frontier
Regions, (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), is often the model cited for highlighting this gulf.
15 Robert M. Hayden, ‘Schindler’s Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers’, Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 4
(Winter, 1996), pp. 727 – 748. The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, p. 730.
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Considering Postwar Germany
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an explanation for the expulsions, then one claims simply, ‘[t]hese people deserved it.’16 In fact the
argument is often more complicated than this, and may not always be an issue of justification. To
state that the Nazis had done these things in the name of Germany does not always insinuate that
Germans “deserve it”, but moreover that the problems were created or, perhaps more accurately,
emphasised, by the notion of Nazi lebensraum and the redeployment of German peoples across
Central and Eastern Europe, previous to the millions of German refugees retreating from the
advance of the Soviet Army, and those that were forcibly expelled. The horror the Nazis created is
part of the context for these expulsions and this context should not be overlooked in the attempt to
make a moralistic argument.
It has already been demonstrated that Government policy was little changed by leading public
figures, including Gollancz and the press.17 Further to this, it is felt that investigation into British
Foreign Policy has been largely exhausted18 and it is necessary to approach the issue from a different
angle. What is new about this study is the exploration of arguments in the British public domain over
German collective responsibility and its legacy. What this study aims to demonstrate is that the
debate over collective guilt developed instantaneously with the end of the war, and that both sides
of the current argument are directly related to the same debate in Britain in 1945 – 6. The intention
here is to examine, consider, and understand the reactions and influences within Britain in general
regarding discussions about the refugee crisis and German responsibility. Firstly, using official
sources alongside discussion within current historiography, this study will examine the debate in
governmental circles, paying particular attention to the processes of the Potsdam Conference and
the influence this would have on British policy makers. This aspect of the study will also consider the
power of British public opinion to form government approaches to the postwar situation, whilst also
examining the extent to which the British line can be criticised. Secondly, representations of the
expulsions in the press will be discussed, reflecting on the British public attitudes towards the
Germans in light of responses to the Potsdam assertion of German responsibility. This will follow
debate up to, and including, the fate of Germans in the winter 1945 – 6. Finally, a case study of
activist Victor Gollancz, including his “Save Europe Now” campaign, will highlight his active reaction
to the postwar situation in Central and Eastern Europe and will consider the language used in his
literature regarding the notion of “Western values” and this contradiction with the application of
German “collective guilt”. Throughout, it is important to understand from all sides the postwar
desire to create stability in Europe.
16
Ibid, p. 747.
Mathew Frank, Expelling the Germans; Francis Graham-Dixon, Civilising the Germans : British occupation policy and the
refugee and expellee crisis, 1945-1949 (University of Sussex: PhD Thesis, 2008)
18 As has been highlighted, Matthew Frank’s Expelling the Germans (2008) is the most recent and exhaustive account that
covers British Foreign Policy. Many other sources form the basis of this study and are well referenced.
17
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Considering Postwar Germany
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The study will be based on qualitative research in order to explore the evidence that is
available, making a mature and detailed investigation into the subject matter in order to confidently
inform an extensive exploratory study. Full use should be made of primary and secondary sources to
enable the demonstration of a thorough critical analysis. Employing archival research will be
essential, and extensive investigation through documentation will be rewarding. The wealth of this
particular methodology is that it investigates the rhetoric used in considerations over the
appropriate attitude towards Germany and develops an understanding based on both primary and
secondary sources in order to highlight the contradictions in government policy which tried to
qualify its position as a victor with that of a national Western morality. It also highlights a large, but
it is admitted not all, quantity of literature that was available in the public sphere, drawing on
sources from three of Britain’s largest newspapers and one of Britain’s largest publishing figures,
illustrating the postwar question over responsibility for Europe. Historians such as Bernard
Wasserstein are still prompted to claim that the ‘Volksdeutsche [...] were, for the most part, victims
of a calamity of which they were themselves part authors’,19 noting that a majority came to support
Hitler. However, this only highlights one side of the continued debate when we also consider an
article in the London Times in 1945 which firmly stated: ‘[i]t is surely not enough to say that the
Germans brought these miseries upon themselves’.20 Where, historically, can we place the 12 million
German expellees, including 2.5 million dead, in the context of a sensitive European memory?
2. Government Responses to the Expulsion and Public Opinion
Events
The legacy of the Second World War remains a contentious issue in international relations due
largely to the scope of the matter and nations that the devastating struggle encompassed. As a
result of these complications the war did not end in 1945 but continued and developed into,
eventually, the Cold War, the result of which led to further separate European civil wars, with the
final decline of the Soviet empire. The social upheaval of the Second World War was of a size
unmatched in history, particularly with regard to the focus on social reconstruction and the mass
transference of peoples. As Mark Mazower states in his comprehensive guide to Europe’s twentieth
century, ‘[w]ars invariably displace populations. But this war had been waged specifically to establish
a New Order through extermination, incarceration, deportation and transfer.’21 However, the defeat
of the German nation would not bring an end to the theory of a “New Order”, but would instead
witness the rebirth of others. In the defensive Eastern countries, particularly Poland and
19
Bernard Wasserstein, Barbarism and Civilisation: A History of Europe in Our Time, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), p. 416.
20 The Times, 11 September. 1945.
21 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, (London: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 217.
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Considering Postwar Germany
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Czechoslovakia, expulsion would viewed as the only possible answer to German minority issues, with
the hope of solving the problem of the German aggressive nationalism that had opened the door for
Hitler.22 After considering the limitations to which Britain would be able to control the postwar
expulsions,23 Winston Churchill’s war-time coalition government unofficially accepted the policy of
population transfer in 1942, when it was urged to consider the influential concerns of Edvard Beneš
and debates over how to manage a postwar Germany, notifying the Czechoslovak government that
it did not intend to oppose the idea.24 Beneš would not be content, however, as, ‘until the British
government had revoked the Munich Agreement, he could neither enter into any agreements with
the Poles nor engage in any official discussion about the boundaries and minorities of post-war
Czechoslovakia.’ As a result, ‘[t]he War Cabinet endorsed not only the public declaration on the
Munich Agreement but also the secret resolution on the principle of the transfer of German
minorities to Germany.’25
Churchill was the first to officially support the policy of expulsion in Europe as a means of
dealing with the minority problem.26 Focusing on the expulsion of Germans from Poland, on 15
December 1944 Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons where he stated, ‘“I am not
alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even by these large
transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before.”’27 This
tone contrasts sharply with the words delivered in his now famous “Iron Curtain” speech, made little
more than a year later, where:
[t]he Russian-dominated Polish Government have been encouraged to make enormous and
wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale
grievous and undreamed of are now taking place.28
This apparent contradiction in opinion is demonstrative of a wider debate over the correct
management of postwar central Europe. Despite the perception of a strong anti-German feeling in
Britain, which had supposedly ensured that policy-makers were unable to distinguish between
22
G. C. Paikert, The German Exodus: A Selective Study on the Post-World War II Expulsion of German Populations and its
Effects, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), p. 9.
23 CAB66/26/10, Anglo-Czechoslovak Relations, 2 July. 1942.
24 MacAlister Brown, ‘The Diplomacy of Bitterness: Genesis of the Potsdam Decision to Expel Germans from
Czechoslovakia’, in The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 607 – 626. University of Utah on behalf
of the Western Political Science Association, p. 618.
25 Detlef Brandes, ‘National and International Planning of the “Transfer” of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland’ in
Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), ed., Richard Bessel and
Claudia B. Haake, pp. 286 – 287.
26 Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p. 82.
27 Winston Churchill speaking in the House of Commons, 15 December 1944, quoted in Elizabeth Wiskemann, Germany’s
Eastern Neighbours: Problems Relating to the Oder Neisse Line and the Czech Frontier Regions, (London: Oxford University
Press, 1956), p. 82.
28 Keesing’s Research Report, Germany and Eastern Europe Since 1945: From the Potsdam Agreement to Chancellor
Brandt’s “Ostpolitik”, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), p. ix.
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Considering Postwar Germany
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Germans and Nazis, public opinion was considerably more divided than has been suggested with
regard to the role of the Allies in Germany.29
In 1945 it was the job of the Allies to deal with a postwar Central Europe, and the fallout
from half a century of upheaval and struggle, with issues involving nationality and race. After the
Second World War, Europe was, ‘faced with an intense resurgence of nationalism throughout the
world. In all discussions of postwar territorial settlement, considerations of ethnic status and
interests played a prominent, often disproportionate part.’30 The heightened nationalism of the time
that was to re-emerge, as the Soviet Army advance meant the liberation of many previously
occupied countries, added to the catastrophe; Germans were, often violently, forced from their
homes. Rather than limiting this punishment to Reich Germans, the expulsions also incorporated
people of German ethnicity, or Volksdeutsche, who had been in residence in the Eastern countries
for many generations.31
What was overwhelmingly apparent in the immediate aftermath of liberation was the desire
for revenge or what would often be interpreted as “punishment” by the victors: ‘the legal anarchy
and diffusion of power which characterized the first days of liberation allowed a number of very
different conceptions of punishment to emerge.’32 Revenge and punishment would continuously and
mercilessly become entangled, as the Czechs and Poles, with Russian power behind them, sought to
exact reprisals for the humiliation which they had suffered under the German domination.33 This
manner of revenge would later be manifested in the official Czech policy of expulsion with the Beneš
Decrees of 1945 and 46,34 which, ‘legalised the collective victimisation of the Sudeten Germans’35
would in itself become central to the debate over the notion of collective guilt. The occupied
countries urged the need to cleanse their soil of, what they perceived as, the aggressive German
race and to prevent the minorities from doing any more damage to the dignity of their national
heritage.
The expulsions are often categorised into three stages. The first stage of the expulsion is
regarded as those fleeing from the advancing Red Army; the second, often described as the “wild
expulsions”, or divoký odsun in Czech, refers to the millions who were forced from their homes in
Poland and Czechoslovakia before Allied intervention; the third stage was a result of the Potsdam
29
D. C. Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p.36.
Joseph B. Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe, 1945 – 1955, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1962), pp. 3 – 4.
31 For a comprehensive study on German ethnicity see, German Minorities in Europe: Ethnic Identity and Cultural
Belonging, ed., Stefan Wolff, (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001).
32 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, p. 233.
33 Elizabeth Wiskemann, Germany’s Eastern Neighbours, pp. 89 – 99.
34 Ibid., p.12.
35 Stefan Wolff, ‘Introduction’, in Coming Home to Germany: The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern
Europe in the Federal Republic, David Rock & Stefan Wolff, (Eds.) (Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2002)
30
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Considering Postwar Germany
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Agreement and the official sanctioning of the expulsion by the Allies. The Soviets had lost over 20
million men and had very much been on the receiving end of the racial war waged by Hitler, unlike
the British who had not experienced the same kind of war. Britain’s role as the constant adjudicator
on borders and minority issues is interesting to note,36 and it is due to this association in Britain that
the debate over the expulsions is crucially highlighted and should be observed in order to avoid the
mistake of assuming a single voice. As Donald Bloxham notes in a recent essay, ‘even in the age of
the nation-state we must pay attention to the role of the “great powers” as arbiters of population
removal.’37 The importance of the years 1945 – 6 must be emphasised, as, ‘the future of Germany
remained the key issue [...] for later generations, the years 1945 – 6 came to represent a moment of
promise, before the iron curtain dropped.’38 If there really is a general feeling in Germany that the
British had done nothing to stop the expulsions,39 then it is important to understand the debate that
surfaced at the time over Britain’s responsibility for a postwar Europe.
“National mood” and a Change of Leadership in 1945
As 1945 began it was not yet clear that the end of the war would mark the beginning of a new era
for Europe, and one that would bear witness to a physical division of East and West separated by the
Iron Curtain of Churchill’s famous speech.40 Quite the opposite from the hopes of 1945, Europe
would soon be torn apart by forces outside of its boundaries, with the new dominant power on the
continent not being Great Britain or Germany, but that of the communist state of Stalin’s Soviet
Union. As the rivalry between the United States and the Soviets developed there was a dramatic
shift of balance on the continent and issues of power control became a worldwide subject. For the
occupied countries of Europe, Germany would, perhaps quite naturally, continue to be held as the
ever present and dominant threat to European stability – a suspicion based largely on the history of
aggression associated with the nation, upholding the view of a particular historic German path or
Sonderweg.41 This threat, however, would not be so straight forward for the Western, unoccupied,
countries.
The British authorities in early 1945 were already concerned over Polish territorial demands
and the perceived use of Poland as a buffer state, by the Soviet Union, as a tool to penetrate the
central sphere of influence in Europe that the Western Allies were also struggling to withhold.42 This
36
Donald Bloxham, ‘National and International Planning of the “Transfer” of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland’ in
Removing Peoples, p. 178.
37 Ibid.
38 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, p. 232.
39 Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany, (London: University of
California Press, 2001), p. 70.
40 http://www.historyguide.org/europe/churchill.html, site accessed 09/08/2009.
41 For an enlightening re-examination of the principles of a German master narrative see Konrad H. Jarausch and Michael
Geyer, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories, (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003).
42 Cabinet Papers CAB 66/61/3, Poland’s Western Frontier, 23 January. 1945
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Considering Postwar Germany
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apprehension, it was suggested, was backed up by British public opinion, which was, ‘uneasy about
the proposal that Germany should be required to cede large territories to Poland after the war and
that the German population should be evicted from these areas.’43 The authorities had to look ahead
past the war and consider the importance of this in the postwar reconstruction of Europe. British
opinion in this respect would be a serious risk to the settlement if extreme solutions were pursued.44
After all, it was considered that the British, ‘rather than the United States or the U.S.S.R, were
concerned with the future of Europe,’ and this would be one of the aims of the British government.45
Despite the “national mood” being pro Soviet Union in 1945, supported by the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest Bevin’s, pro Soviet attitude,46 the major concern to Britain was no
longer the threat of a resurgent Germany, but that of the development of the Soviet Union as a new
rival, not only in Europe but also the rest of the World. This concern did develop as it became clearer
that Poland was indeed being prepped as a platform for Soviet influence. The American President,
Harry S. Truman, had proposed that instead of the present Lublin Government, a new all-Polish one
should replace it, one, ‘containing both representatives from the Poles abroad and those within
Poland, which did not in principle challenge any of the broad issues.’47 Despite the agreement to
merge the government of the Lublin Poles with that of the exiled Poles abroad,48 there was one
particular sticking point over the Polish question – that of Poland’s postwar boundaries. There still
were doubts over Soviet intentions in Poland and the lands that Poland desired to the East of the
line of the Oder, which cut deep into Prussian Germany. The Government was also concerned over
public opinion back home in Britain, which, ‘both in Parliament and in the country, was increasingly
critical of the exaggerated territorial demands, which had been put forward by the Lublin Poles.’49
The implications of this redeployment of territory, aside from the suspicion over the
extension of Soviet force deeper in Western Europe, were that:
Vast transfers of population would be involved; it was uncertain whether Poland would be
able to populate and develop territories so extensive, and Germany' s dependence on food
imports would be greatly increased.50
The major anxiety here was the added pressure on food reserves in Germany, and the effect it would
have on food supplied by the Western Allies. They were more than reluctant to pick up the bill for
situations which they saw as being enhanced by the actions of the Soviet Union, particularly as a
43
CAB66/61/3
CAB66/61/3
45 CAB/51/16, Conclusions, 8 February. 1945.
46 Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945 – 1951, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p.240.
47 CAB65/51/16
48 James L Gormley, From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy 1945 – 1947, (Wilmington, SR Books, 1990), p.29.
49 CAB65/51/16
50 CAB65/51/16
44
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Considering Postwar Germany
9
result of excessive reparation demands,51 and the increased swell of Germans fleeing from the Red
Army in Eastern Europe. Alongside this, public opinion would have to be considered. The use of
population transfer as an answer to postwar chaos was not wholly accepted. In fact, it has been
argued that anti-Germanism in the country was certainly not as strong as has so often been
supposed:
[T]here was remarkably little desire for vengeance […] and contrary to widespread German
belief, the question of eliminating a trade competitor played almost no part at all in the
public mind.52
So, despite strong anti-German feeling during the war, which arguably influenced the approach of
the British government to postwar German reconstruction,53 public opinion in fact “cooled down”
fairly early in 1945, just as Churchill thought it might,54 although its influence still remained. Public
opinion, it was noted, would be even less comfortable accepting this expulsion from territories,
‘which have been German-owned and German-inhabited for hundreds of years.’55
All along it was seen as crucial for both Churchill, and later Bevin, that Britain would not
accede to all points of interest of the Russians. The imminent concern was the balance of power
within Europe and Britain’s weight on the end of the diplomatic seesaw, and it was imperative to
Britain’s future that the country should maintain its standing as a world power, which meant
retaining its influence in Europe. It was clear that any approach towards this goal would have to be
carefully considered and it was suggested that the issue be saved for the Potsdam Conference.56
Preserving a stable balance of power within the Continent was not a new concept to British
political thought, and in truth, ‘British policy had been concerned for centuries, and for at least a
century quite consciously, with the maintenance of an equilibrium of balance of power in Europe.’57
It is this balance that was held in consideration by the Government at all times when approaching
the postwar debating table, and now that the East was to play a larger role in these discussions the
need to retain a level of influence there was crucial.
The matter of considering the wishes of those newly liberated countries of the East was key
to stability and it is worth considering the question of whether the mass expulsions of the Germans
were a result of Soviet high policies, or was it, ‘the logical climax of nationalistic schemes which had
51
James L Gormley, From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy 1945 – 1947, p.31.
Michael Balfour, Survey of International Affairs 1939 – 1946: Four Power Control in Germany and Austria 1945 – 46,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 29.
53 Keith Sainsbury, ‘British Policy and German Unity at the End of the Second World War’, in The English Historical Review,
Vol. 94, No. 373 (Oct., 1979), pp. 786 – 804, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 791.
54 Ibid, p. 796.
55 CAB66/61/3
56 CAB65/51/16
57 Keith Sainsbury, ‘British Policy and German Unity at the End of the Second World War’, p. 787.
52
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such a long tradition in that part of Europe and which the Soviets only exploited for their own
sake?’58 The British policy makers were well aware of Soviet desire to rid the East of German
populations in an effort to stabilise the situation in Eastern Europe, particularly in response to the
enflamed anti-Slav rhetoric employed by the Nazis during the war, which described them as
Untermenschen, meaning sub-humans.59 It was, however, also aware of public opinion at home but
had found itself in a difficult position where it had to accept movements on the ground whilst also
appearing sympathetic to East European nationalism. Nationalisms of the East, particularly those of
Poland and Czechoslovakia, were, to the British government of course, preferable to German
nationalism, as can be seen with the consideration of promoting regional nationalisms in Germany.60
In reality there was little that Britain could do about the question of transfer itself, now that the
Eastern States had Nazism as the excuse they needed to perpetuate a nationalism that had
developed before the Second World War.61
The necessity to maintain the balance in Europe by the British government and to preserve
influence in Eastern Europe made the Polish issue particularly fierce, as the Communist presence in
the country had consistently frustrated the Western Allies by limiting their access there, and further
to this the Soviet zone was off limits to the British.62 It appears that this predicament pressurised the
British Government to initially remain quiet over the expulsions. This was partly due to the wish to
suspend discussion until the Potsdam Conference, but moreover it was to preserve influence in
Czechoslovakia, the only East European country where Britain still had some strong kind of presence
at this stage. Maintaining a measure of influence with the Czech authorities was particularly
important, as the signing of the Munich Pact in 1938 had essentially provided, ‘the starting point for
the Czechoslovak diplomacy of bitterness.’63 As has been noted, Britain had already been making
assurances to Beneš, the exiled Czech president, that they would back the postwar transfer of
Sudeten Germans from the Czech lands to Germany, assurances that Beneš was also able to
manoeuvre from the other Allies.64 Beneš’s political games were successful in attaining a multi-allied
support in postwar German ethnic expulsion. It had been reported to the government that hatred of
58
G. C. Paikert, The German Exodus, pp. 16 – 17.
Ibid, p. 15.
60 In a document entitled ‘Some Observations on the Problem of Germany’ by J. de Blank and copied and distributed by the
National Peace Council, it suggests that, ‘[t]here should, I submit, be resurrection of the autonomous countries of Bavaria,
Baden, Wurttemberg [...] in order to help solve the “German question”. From the Gollancz papers MSS.157/SEN/3/1. See
also D. C. Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p. 37.
61 For an insightful account of the development of Czech nationalism and its relation to the expulsions see Eagle
Glassheim’s ‘National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945’, in Central
European History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (2000), pp. 463 – 486. Cambridge University Press on behalf of Conference Group for
Central European History of the American Historical Association. For further reading of the relationships surrounding the
European “Middle East” see Walter Kolarz, Myths and Realities in Eastern Europe, (London, Kennikat Press, 1946).
62 Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p. 97.
63 MacAlister Brown, ‘The Diplomacy of Bitterness: Genesis of the Potsdam Decision to Expel Germans from
Czechoslovakia’, p. 607.
64 Joseph B. Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe 1945 – 1955, pp. 60 – 61.
59
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the Germans ‘pervades the whole atmosphere of Czechoslovakia,’65 making the expulsions of the
Sudeten Germans, as well as Reich Germans who had settled from 1938, an urgent problem that
would be illustrated in the Beneš Decrees. The reaffirmation of German collective guilt would ensure
that Czechoslovakia was the only democratic country to endorse such a concept,66 and open the
door for later critics to accuse Czechoslovakia of “ethnic cleansing”.67 In an attempt to avoid further
chaos in Europe issues over the expulsion needed to be considered, although these events had
already taken shape when the Potsdam Conference began, and would have to be picked up by the
new Labour Government.
It is important to remember that the Labour Party came to power in the middle of the
Potsdam Conference, which undeniably enhanced the danger of placing them in a weaker position
with regard to exacting a strong influence in the discussions, of which a resolute Stalin had been
present throughout. Churchill himself had already witnessed limited participation at Yalta and then
again at Potsdam.68 It must also be noted, however, that aside from this weaker position the Labour
Government had been elected on the strength of its domestic policies, not its foreign ones. The
Labour Party election campaign was a relatively modest affair, focusing on ‘housing, education,
unemployment, national insurance and other social themes. The emphasis throughout was on
domestic aspects, rather than on the wider questions of world peace and international
reconciliation’.69 It is clear from this that the domestic issues were Labour’s strong point, which
would be of most concern to a nation aiming to throw off the destruction of war. The question
would be whether the Party would go so far as to implement a socialist policy overseas. However,
the Labour Party largely picked up where Churchill had left off and continued through a similar policy
with regard to population transfer:
It was seen as an international problem that did not only affect countries with German
populations and that no unilateral action should be taken until this question had been fully
discussed and international agreement on it reached.70
As had been the case for the Coalition government, ‘the prime postulates of their policy’, were, ‘the
maintenance of the balance of power in Europe and the economic recovery of Britain and Europe
together.’71 This is the key to understanding Labour postwar policy. The Labour Party certainly did
65
FO371/46810, C3675/95/18, Transfer of German population, 5 July. 1945
Timothy W. Ryback, ‘Dateline Sudetenland: Hostages to History’ in Foreign Policy, No. 105 (Winter, 1996 – 1997), pp. 162
– 178. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 173.
67 See Eagle Glassheim, ‘National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing’ for this development.
68 James L Gormley, From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy 1945 – 1947, pp. 9 – 10, 37
69 Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945 – 1951, p.240.
70 Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p. 96 – 97.
71 D. C. Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p. 54.
66
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not lead the public debate on the expulsions but they were most likely in an unfavourable position
anyway.
The Potsdam Conference was a chance for the new Labour Government to demonstrate a
more socialist orientated foreign policy; one that would demonstrate an urge towards the same
social reform that was being heralded on the domestic front. In truth, however, the leadership
continued with the same policies its predecessors had pushed through. The Potsdam Agreement, the
result of the conference held between July 17 and August 1 1945, stated that one of the political
principles of the agreement was to:
convince the German people that they have suffered total military defeat and that they
cannot escape responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves, since their own
ruthless warfare and the fanatical Nazi resistance have destroyed the German economy and
made chaos and suffering inevitable72 (my emphases).
The unwillingness to differentiate between “Nazi” and “German” was a cause for issue, as will be
seen with Gollancz later, and has remained so. However, what is most significant here is the
emphasis on responsibility. In whatever manner postwar Germany would be physically dealt with, it
was the people, not only of Germany but also all ethnic Germans, who must take responsibility for
the aggression, inherent in the German nature, which had been so devastatingly demonstrated. This
attitude of the expelled Germans bearing the responsibility for their burden as a race has continued
to be used as a symbol of victimisation, as, ‘expulsion emphasises victimhood’.73 The Germans thus
exist with their own cross to bear, and, ‘[t]reks westward became a German “path of suffering”’.74
It is clear, then, at least as far as the Allies were concerned, that this chaos was not the
responsibility of the victors. The expulsion was, after all, an undesirable but natural after-effect of
waging “ruthless warfare”, and, thus, largely the Germans own doing. Transfer would continue to be
considered, ‘a necessary step in assuring European peace.’75 The inability to separate Nazi from
German continued a trend developed during the war76 and may be an understandable stance
prevalent throughout misinformed public opinion. However, it was within the Labour Party itself
that there was a general anti-Germanism and foreign policy met with many more complications.
Figures such as Bevin were certainly far from supportive while Hugh Dalton, the Chancellor of the
72
Keesing’s Research Report, Germany and Eastern Europe since 1945, p.3.
Alf Lüdtke, ‘Explaining Forced Migration’, in Removing Peoples, p. 18.
74Robert G. Moeller, War Stories, p.69.
75 FO371/46816, C9292/95/18 A response from Hector McNeil dated 15 December to a letter of protest over the
expulsions.
76 D. C. Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p. 36.
73
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Exchequer, has been described with an ‘obsessive anti-Germanism’.77 In short, ‘the Foreign Office
outlook was distinctly more anti-German than anti-Russian in the aftermath of Potsdam.’78
However, despite the willingness of the Labour Government to appease Russian demands in
1945 – 6, it was due to the British that the transfer was given any air of importance at all at Potsdam.
As has been discussed, the British were in the driving seat as far as official Allied discussion was
concerned when it came to the matter of Czechoslovak transfer. Clearly, there was an issue of doubt
over the reliability of the Americans to assist in discussions with any great degree of support: ‘can
we not now say that the whole question of minorities in Czechoslovakia both German and Hungarian
will be brought up for discussion at the forthcoming Three Power Conference,’ otherwise, ‘[i]f no
one else brings it up we shall no doubt have to do so ourselves, although we should try and get U.S.
agreement beforehand.’79 There is, however, more than a hint of reluctance implied in the language
here, and a further unwillingness to take responsibility for the issue. The reason for this reluctance
though is less of a question of German responsibility and more of a question of the direct relevance
to British interests. The expulsions at this stage were simply of least consequence to the British, and,
‘any unorganised influx of Germans is going in the first instance to affect the Russians and the
Americans’, and so for this reason, ‘they have a greater interest than ourselves in securing an orderly
and organised transfer.’80 The key issue, however, is that despite this unwillingness to accept the
burdens of the subject to any great extent, one cannot evade the fact that, ‘we cannot ourselves
avoid some general responsibility for what is done.’81 The British, therefore, do take on the
accountability of at least the debate over the issue at Potsdam, and, although the chaos may have
been created by the Germans, the Allies were going to have to recognise that they would be in some
part responsible for the postwar situation, regardless of their limitations in preventing it. The
Americans, for their part, ‘have definitely said that they do not themselves propose to take the
initiative in raising the question.’82
There is a sense that, due to the nature of the war, it was inevitable that expulsions from
occupied countries would occur. The Conference would only illustrate an acceptance of this view
and, in truth, ‘[t]he Potsdam Conference was only recognising and seeking to regulate a fait accompli
which it was powerless to stop.’83 The recognition of aggressive nationalism as the driving force
behind the so-called “wild expulsions”, and the desire to solve the minorities problem in Europe,
only further illustrated the weakness of the British government in the face of such supposedly
77
Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945 – 1951, pp. 257, 52 – 53.
O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945 – 1951, p. 235.
79 FO 371/46810, C3675/95/18
80 FO 371/46810, C3675/95/18
81 FO 371/46810, C3675/95/18
82 FO 371/46810, C3675/95/18
83 Michael Balfour, Survey of International Affairs 1939 – 1946, p. 122.
78 Kenneth
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natural vengeance. This may well be debated, but, what really places the British in an uncomfortable
position is the official response to the postwar situation. The signing of the Potsdam Agreement
would, in essence, help to perpetuate the feeling that the Americans and British had done nothing to
stop the expulsions,84 no matter how complicated the reality of the issue might be.
There was an awareness of the suffering that the expellees would experience, if not to what
extent exactly, but official acceptance of the expulsions appeared to the British as the only realistic
answer. The Allies agreed that the transfers should be regulated:
If therefore the principle of the transfer of the bulk of the German populations in Poland,
Czechoslovakia and possibly Hungary is accepted, it will be essential that it should be carried
out in as orderly and humane a manner as possible.85
The phrase “orderly and humane” would later be repeated in Article XIII of the report issued at
Potsdam, providing the legal foundation for the expulsion of German minorities. The British
authorities not only recognised their hopelessness in the face of the reality of the situation, but
moreover officially supported the transfers, believing that this was a safer option for solving the
German minority crisis in Eastern Europe. Thus, by legalising the transfer the Allies had placed
themselves in the position of judge and handed out a punishment to ethnic Germans across Europe.
The Allies signed the documents and sealed the fate of the innocent and guilty alike. It was now
officially recognised that the German race was guilty of aggression and war-crimes and would pay
the penalty. Using forced removal as a demonstration of collective guilt illuminates the boundaries
placed around a particular group of people, making them easier to identify and thus enhancing the
feeling of victimisation. The reason being, as Bessel and Haake (2009) rightly state, that ‘whatever
the factors driving forced removal [...] carrying it out necessitated determining who belonged within
an “imagined community” and who did not.’86
The policy of collective guilt so physically being adhered to here is a primary cause of the
freedom of German revisionism to secure such a respectable weight, allowing somewhat biased
accounts to gain credibility by employing such forceful arguments, as, ‘the concept of collective guilt
is repugnant to human dignity and unworthy of any system of justice.’87 Despite the decency of such
statements, the obsession with German victimhood fails to place the postwar situation in the right
context, and in doing so misinterprets the accuracy of historical events.88 The signing of the Potsdam
agreement sealed the legacy that the legalisation of the expulsions would create, and in doing so
belied the depth of debate and inconsistencies over the issue, and instead appropriated British
84
Robert G. Moeller, War Stories, p.70.
FO 371/46810, C3675/95/18
86 Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake, ‘Introduction’ in Removing Peoples, p. 10.
87 Alfred de Zayas, ‘Foreword’, in Crimes and Mercies by James Bacque, p. xix.
88 Bill Niven, ‘Introduction’ in Germans as Victims, p. 16.
85
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postwar policy as an easy tool for German revisionism. Within Britain, the belief was maintained that
the expulsions were the responsibility of those in the East, who had forced a burden that the British
now had to bear, and all that the British could do as a result of Potsdam was to force the Russians,
Polish and Czechs to recognise the ‘undesirability of accentuating the problems of Central Europe by
further forced transfers of population.’89
Although it is possible to argue that British public opinion was, ‘strongly and quite naturally
very hostile to Germany’,90 and it was no doubt influential in this respect, there is a danger of
accepting a perception of public opinion as the rule. Although Churchill may have believed that
‘British public opinion was clearly against a “soft peace” with Germany’,91 it is important to argue
that public opinion was also interested in a fair peace. In short, public opinion was a lot more varied
than may sometimes be assumed. It is also worth remembering that at the beginning of the war
Neville Chamberlain had expressed, ‘we are not fighting against you, the German people,’ believing
that he was merely stating the feelings of many of his countrymen.92 With the British official
response accepting the concept of German collective guilt from the occupied countries, although not
adopting it as official policy, it is now time to consider the press responses to these developments on
the Continent.
3. The Height of Debate over the Expulsion: The Winter of 1945 – 6
The Power of the Press
Throughout this time, the government’s relationship with the press is particularly interesting due to
the transition from censorship that took place during the war period. As the country was nearing
victory, and consequently emerging from the destruction of war, the government would be
particularly keen to maintain a working relationship with the press. The new Labour Government
would also be sensitive to reports in the papers which would monitor closely their approach to
postwar reconstruction at home and on the Continent. Before the election, after all, ‘[t]he
newspaper press, other than the Daily Herald and Daily Mirror, was not pro-Labour, and seemed
obsessed by Churchill,’ and further to this there was anxiety from the Left as, ‘on the Labour side,
and even in the Times, there was a pervasive belief in a red scare, or ‘bogey’ [...] which would
alienate the uncommitted voter from the Labour Party.’93 In order to secure public support, then, it
was essential to win over important areas of the press.
89
CAB128/1, Conclusions of a Meeting of the Cabinet held at 10 Downing Street, 6 September. 1945.
Keith Sainsbury, ‘British Policy and German Unity at the End of the Second World War’, p. 791.
91 Keith Sainsbury, ‘British Policy and German Unity at the End of the Second World War’, p. 796.
92 Michael Balfour, Survey of International Affairs 1939 – 1946, p. 27.
93 Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, pp. 40 – 41
90
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Before the election of the Labour Party to power, however, the influence of the press and its
ability to demonstrate and manipulate public opinion was already of concern for the authorities. A
Foreign Office memo, written on the 9 July, reveals the importance of press reaction and is worth
quoting at some length:
Moreover, the principle itself of these large scale transfers is quite likely to be attacked from
various quarters, not least in powerful organs of the British press such as the Times,
Manchester Guardian etc. Do we in these circumstances wish to incur the “odium” of having
taken the initiative in raising this question? Would it be better simply to have occurred? This
is a very important question of tactics which can only be settled at the highest level.94
This is an excellent demonstration of the perceived power of the press, and of the government
actually employing tactics in order to manipulate more favourable public opinion. It was thus
essential that Britain should raise the question over population transfers at the Potsdam conference
in order to demonstrate a concerted effort to broach the issue.
July – August 1945: The End of the War and the Coverage of Potsdam
In Berlin, in the summer of 1945, the ‘official food ration of 1,240 calories a day was only met by two
thirds,’ and by August, 4,000 people a day had died.95 Despite this concern the press remained fairly
quiet during July and early August of 1945 with respect to the dangerous situation on the Continent,
notwithstanding the fact that Approximately 17,000 expelled refugees a day were pouring into the
British sector of Berlin alone during the early period of July.96 The lack of information open to the
British public was due to a number of reasons; aside from the government’s lack of readiness to act,
the media had missed the refugee crisis for much of the summer, partly due to the ‘“crowding” of
news with the end of the war in the Far East, the restrictions in place during the Potsdam
Conference as well as to a certain reluctance in Fleet Street to foreground the plight of defeated
Germany.’97
The Manchester Guardian was largely consistent in its reporting from an early stage with
regards to criticisms of the expulsions, and would later become one of Gollancz’s major sources.
Early in August 1945 the paper would report on the hunger that was apparent in Berlin: ‘[t]here are
women who take to the streets and offer themselves with a kind of casual hopelessness to anybody
who cares to give them a few scraps of food.’98 The scenes are unfavourably compared with those of
countries who were occupied by the Nazis during the war, and this forces the realisation that, ‘[t]he
94
FO371/46810, C3675/95/18
Michael Balfour, Survey of International Affairs, p. 76.
96 Matthew Frank, ‘The New Morality’ in Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2006, pp. 230 – 256. Oxford
University Press, p. 233.
97 Ibid. p. 233
98 The Manchester Guardian, 1 August. 1945.
95
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demoralisation of Germany, like so many other aspects of the German problem, is European in its
implications.’ It is no longer a German question alone that needs to be answered, but one of a wider
European context. The issue here is still how to accept a postwar Germany and how best to apply
Western liberal theories.
Despite the restrictions of the Potsdam Conference there is inevitably a great deal of coverage
of the discussions themselves. However, little of the reporting in the press refers to the expulsions
apart from making the suggestion of widespread hunger and the flow of refugees into Berlin who are
‘hopelessly caught up in the territorial claims of Poland.’ Judging by this article it is still unclear that
the refugees will soon be of British responsibility, instead it continues to focus on the cause of the
expulsion as being directly linked to Polish territorial demands and so the blame lies solely in the
East. The Manchester Guardian report of 2 August displays concerns: ‘[t]hese refugees are a
problem’, although, ‘their real problem is of political rather than of merely municipal concerns’.99
The refugees are not the main focus of this report and the extent of the problem is not clear,
evidently demonstrating a failure to recognise the extent of the trouble that is developing on the
Continent.
What is noted in some of the reporting, however, is the reaction to that aspect of the Potsdam
declaration which outlines the collective guilt that is to be associated with the Germans. The
Manchester Guardian declared that the agreement, ‘offers the German people a fair chance of
salvation,’100 whereas in the Times on 3 August the paper reports:
[t]he Potsdam conference has imposed rules on Germany which are stern and drastic, but
are framed to allow the German people, after a long period of supervision and gradual
political development, to take their place among the free peoples of the world.101
This uncritical article, after referring to the responsibility issue of the agreement – that of the
German people bringing this on themselves which was discussed earlier in this study – continues on
to explain that, ‘[i]t is laid down that, so far as is practicable, there shall be uniformity of treatment
of the German population throughout Germany’.102 This piece illustrates an unconsidered
acceptance of the responsibility to be borne by all Germans, without making any reference to the
circumstances of German refugees.
However, a report in the Times on 7 August reveals much about the expulsions as the result
of East European nationalism and the construction of a national identity formed against German
aggression. For the Polish, it is ‘“one of the greatest achievements in the history of the Polish nation,
99
The Manchester Guardian, 2 August. 1945.
The Manchester Guardian, 3 August. 1945.
101 The Times, 3 August. 1945.
102 The Times, 3 August. 1945.
100
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the guarantee of real independence and prosperity”’. Similarly, for the Czechs, ‘[t]he expulsion of
the Sudeten Germans, embodies “the greatest diplomatic and political victory ever achieved by our
nation in its long historical fight for existence against the German nation.”’103 One only has to look to
history, then, for proof of German aggressive behaviour and their danger to European stability.
Although the expulsions are the will of the Eastern nations the report does make clear that, as much
the same problem for the Poles, the Czechs have had to wait for, ‘full allied agreement’,104 thus
highlighting, if perhaps unknowingly, British part responsibility for the expulsion. This is one of the
first reports to touch on the repercussions of the Potsdam agreement.
Following this examination of the decisions reached at Potsdam, there is a definite change of
mood in the Times around mid-August when the realities of the decisions made at Potsdam begin to
emerge. An article released on 20 August really begins to probe the manner in which the Germans
were being expelled and how there is obvious doubts over the fragility of the notion of an “orderly
and humane” transfer. It notes that the expulsions are being carried out in conditions which are,
‘bound to raise the gravest doubts as to the practicability of [...] the Potsdam resolution that “any
transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.”’105 The article refers
to the ‘millions of helpless Germans’ pouring into Germany, and in effect very much locating the
Germans in the unfamiliar role of “victims”, emphasised as this is by the predominance of the
refugees being ‘women, children and aged people’. This victimisation of women would continue be a
lasting legacy of the expulsion.106
The real focus of anxiety in the article, however, is the effect this will have on the ‘economic
reconstruction envisaged by the Potsdam Conference,’107 rather than the principle of the expulsion
itself. This echoes many of the concerns shared by the government – as already discussed – when
issues over the logistics of the expulsions are established. Despite the very obvious emphasis on the
economic implications that the number of the expellees will have on the British zone of occupation,
there is reference here to the social and political issues that will continue beyond the current crisis,
noting that ‘vastly more far reaching political and humanitarian considerations are involved.’108
Despite this foresight, however, there is a lack of focus on Britain’s responsibility for the
plight of the expellees. The blame is most often attributed to those physically responsible for the
103
The Times, 7 August. 1945.
The Times, 7 August. 1945.
105 The Times, 20 August. 1945.
106 In his book, War Stories, Robert G. Moeller describes how, ‘women’s suffering came to symbolise the victimisation of all
Germans,’ due to the ‘massive evidence of Red Army rapes, immortalized in the Scheider project.’ See Jörn Rüsen,
‘Continuity, Innovation, and Self Reflection in Late Historicism: Theodor Schieder (1908 – 1984)’, in Paths of Continuity:
Central European Historiography from the 1930s to the 1950s, ed., Hartmut Lehmann and Kenneth F. Ledford, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
107 The Times, 20 August. 1945.
108 The Times, 20 August. 1945.
104
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expulsions, rather than those who legalised it. It is not clear at this stage that there is a strong
debate in the press over the British involvement in the expulsions. However, once again awareness
of the further implications is demonstrated: ‘[t]he situation in Germany is most precarious [...] and if
hunger, disease and chaos become rife in Germany, their effects cannot conceivably be confined to
that country alone.’109 Thus if the situation in Germany turns into a European-wide crisis, Britain will
be forced to assume a measure of responsibility. This is the case demonstrated by Rau and the
Vertriebenen.
The Story Breaks
Although the peak of the debate was arguably active from October to December,110 the press had in
effect begun extensive coverage of the developing crisis earlier in the autumn. It was as a result of
press coverage that the Foreign Office finally decided to look into the developments that were
unfolding before them in the British zone.111 The restrictions on the press that were held in place
over the Potsdam period were now regressing and further light could be shed on the actuality of the
postwar situation in Germany. The story of the refugees broke in the Left-wing papers, ‘on 24 August
1945 when both the Daily Herald, the Labour Party’s mass-circulation newspaper, and the News
Chronicle, a traditionally Liberal but left-leaning daily, headlined the story.’112 The significance of the
story breaking in Left-wing papers was particularly emphasised by the desire of a new Labour
government to receive positive reactions from these quarters, as it already received general support
from large areas of the press,113 and so needed to be seen to be enacting a socialist policy overseas.
The coverage casted off, ‘the caution of earlier reports, these accounts left no doubt that the Allies
were facing a humanitarian disaster in Berlin and bore a moral obligation to prevent it’.114 It has
already been discussed that the Labour Party was elected on the strength of its domestic policies,
whereas, it has been argued, there was, ‘certainly scant sign of anything that could be remotely
termed as “socialist foreign policy” in 1945 – 46.’115
It was not long before associations with the previous cruelty of the Third Reich were being
attributed to the plight of the German refugees. A report from a high dignitary of the German
Church, who is quoted in the Manchester Guardian on 8 September, notes:
109
The Times, 20 August. 1945.
Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, pp. 208 – 9
111 Matthew Frank, ‘The New Morality’, p. 233.
112 Ibid, p. 234.
113 Morgan, Labour in Power, p. 91.
114 Matthew Frank, ‘The New Morality’, p. 234.
115 Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, p. 248.
110
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I know the pains of the non-Aryans. I did bear the tortures of the concentration camps, but
what happens now before our eyes that is beyond everything that ever happened in form or
extent. I am thinking of those taking their lives out of despair.116
This attitude is somewhat repeated in Britain and is strongly flagged up in the Times on 11
September. Referring to the ‘universal chaos of Germany’, the article makes note of the
contradictions of the Potsdam agreement before warning, ‘brutalities and cynicism against which
the war was fought are still rife in Europe.’ The reader is left with no mistake as to what this means
as, ‘we are beginning to witness human suffering that almost equals anything inflicted by the
Nazis’.117 The association of the plight of the refugees with that of the Jews under Nazism is strongly
suggested here in 1945 in one of Britain’s most popular newspapers, and thus the relationship is not
one created by German historical revisionists aiming to perpetuate a culture of victimhood;118 it was
one there already to be used.
It is difficult to reason that an aspect of German revisionism is not influenced by the
language used in Britain itself when reports in the newspapers are considered. It is strikingly
apparent that the notion of an historic constellation is not a new development among revisionists
but is the result of the postwar process of attempting to place into context the devastation caused
by destructive upheaval in Europe over the first half of the Twentieth Century. Reports that
seemingly naturally evoke the relationship between the destruction of the Third Reich and that dealt
to the refugees go further than merely stating the latter as an obvious outcome of the former. The
Allies, it was reported, were forced to meet at Frankfort-on-Main, in order to discuss the crisis,
because around, ‘5,000,000 of these people have been wandering about the Russian-occupied zone
in circumstances of the greatest distress, reminiscent of the sufferings inflicted during the advance
of the Wehrmacht.’119 The victimisation continues, then, irrespective of the race who suffers it.
Reports of the real extent of the crisis developed further in the papers in September 1945
with Norman Clark’s report in the News Chronicle:
Faced with the prospect of disaster overwhelming a whole nation, the Allied Public Health
authorities are ordering burgomasters to take measures ensuring the early burial of the
dead in the winter. Graves are to be dug now which men debilitated by weeks of undernourishment will not have the strength to dig in a few month’s time.120
116
The Manchester Guardian quoted in Gollancz, Europe and Germany: Today and Tomorrow, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd,
1945), p. 18.
117 The Times, 11 September. 1945.
118 M Phillips, Europe's victim culture from Jewish Chronicle [online],
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000009.html 2003,site accessed 14/01/2009
119 The Times, 14 September. 1945.
120 Norman Clark writing in the News Chronicle 14 September 1945, referenced in Peggy Duff, Left Left Left , pp. 16 – 17
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Considering Postwar Germany
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But, as was noted at the time, ‘Norman Clark’s dispatch has not been the only one of its kind. After a
prolonged and total news blackout, there are now a number of reliable reports available, some from
newspapers correspondents, some from returning soldiers, and some from A. M. G. officials, talking
off the record.’121 This report from the Tribune mapped out the real issue of the debate over the
postwar reaction to the Germans, expressing that, ‘conditions now created in both Germany and
Austria [...] are leading to an immeasurable catastrophe.’ It also argues that, ‘much of the misery
prevailing now in these countries is due to the war itself [...] [s]ome of the destruction, moreover,
has been the deliberate work of the retreating German armies.122 However, then somewhat echoing
the Times report of 11 September the account goes on to assert:
If that were all we might say, with a certain degree of complacency, that the German people
have brought it upon themselves, and that they must now suffer, in the same way that other
nations have suffered, the consequences of a war which they failed to prevent. But that is
not all.123
The activities of the Russian Army, the report explained, had made reconstruction in the East almost
impossible.124 The situation in Germany was not therefore the sole responsibility of the Germans,
and this was recognised in the British press, albeit with the focus once again on Russia as the main
protagonist of German expulsion. No matter to what extent Germany was responsible for the war
the German people as a race could not accept sole responsibility for what is happening to them in
postwar Europe. What is missing here, though, is a failure to recognise Britain’s role in signing the
acceptance of population expulsion, preferring instead to focus on the extent to which Russia was in
violation of the Potsdam agreement.
The failure to adhere to the policies mapped out in the agreement was what most reports
picked up on. The policy of an orderly and humane expulsion became more and more fragile as
reports began to pour back into Britain. The Manchester Guardian ran one headline: ‘A New Chapter
in Human Misery’125, where another article suggests that it is doubtful, ‘that the Potsdam clauses
referring to humane conditions for the evacuation of these people are not being respected, at least
by the Poles.’126 The correspondent in Berlin suggested that some facts could be debated, and that
some reports may not be true, but one could not fail to witness that refugees were arriving in Berlin
in a ‘horrible state’, and once they had been forced from Berlin, ‘where they can remain only
121
Reprinted from the Tribune of September 1945 in Victor Gollancz, Europe and Germany, p. 11.
Ibid, p. 11
123 Ibid, p. 11
124 Ibid, pp. 11 – 12.
125 The Manchester Guardian, 12 September. 1945
126 The Manchester Guardian, 12 September. 1945
122
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Considering Postwar Germany
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twenty-four hours unless too ill to move, there is no check on what becomes of them... Most of
these refugees are women and children.’127
Expulsions Dominate Debate October – Winter 1945/6
The organised transfer of around 2 million German refugees from Czechoslovakia and Poland into
the British zone of Germany was reported to begin in October 1945,128 (although the transfer of
Germans from the Poland did not actually begin until 26 February, 1946129) and along with it would
come the peak of the debate about the expulsions which would lead into the coming winter. As in
earlier reports, question marks would continue to be raised in much of the press over the effectual
implementation of the Potsdam agreement, and the breach of an orderly and humane transfer,
which was instead quite obviously violently forcing refugees, who, in a ‘shocking state’, were
entering Berlin, and arousing ‘great feeling in England’,130 and not just amongst the press. In an
article entitled ‘“Ghastly Process” of Expulsions’, reference is made to Richard Stokes, MP for
Ipswich, who, in the House of Commons on 11 October, asked, ‘“[j]ust what does that [the
expulsions] mean in human misery?”’131 The government, it was suggested, had responsibility on
humanitarian grounds, to aid the helpless of Europe, and this meant preventing the Eastern
countries from expelling their populations. This in reality was impossible, but the government
claimed once again that it was doing all it could and they were well aware of the matter. The article
also refers to the ‘conspiracy of silence’ that was suggested to be in place on ‘both sides of the
Atlantic’,132 that prevented the extent of the story from surfacing.
Elsewhere, though, it was being noted that the Czechs were making a genuine effort to
abide by the policies initiated at Potsdam. The Czech government had been asked to refrain from
expelling any more Sudeten Germans for the time being in order not to contribute to the Europewide disaster that was fermenting, and so that they could be transported in a decent manner. In a
conversation with the Czechoslovak Prime Minister, the Secretary of State discussed, ‘the immense
difficulty facing our authorities in the British zone in Germany and [...] why we did not want any
more Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia at the moment.’133 It was important to note however,
that this ‘did not apply to Reich Germans’.134 The Czechs, although frustrated at not being able to
127
The Manchester Guardian, 12 September. 1945 quoted in Victor Gollancz, Europe & Germany, p. 22.
The Times, 8 October. 1945.
129 Michael Balfour explains in Survey of International Affairs, ‘[a]s finally approved by the Council on 20 November’,
6,650,000 persons were to be transferred with 2 million to go to the Russian Zone and the remainder to the British.
130 The Times, 8 October. 1945.
131 The Manchester Guardian, 11 October. 1945.
132 Ibid.
133 FO371/46812, C5557/95/18, Extract from conversation between Czechoslovak Prime Minister and the Secretary of
State, 5 September. 1945
134 FO371/46812, C5557/95/18.
128
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Considering Postwar Germany
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expel their Germans, wished to be, it was reported, ‘“a good member of the family of nations”’,135
optimistic at their new postwar European standing, before the Communists had taken a strong hold.
This article interestingly picks up in this idea of the “family of nations” noting that all nations now
have a part to play in a general European-wide context:
[W]hat is important now is that the Czechs have shown evidence of readiness to consider
their Sudeten German problem as part of the larger problem of Europe, and this “European
sense” is urgently needed today.136
There is an impression of resisting the urge to isolate incidents here; instead, in order to be a good
nation, one has to appreciate their place – and their problems – as part of a bigger picture.
Reports in September were showing that there was a, ‘real danger of epidemics during the
forthcoming winter,’ but the first concern would be with building up resistance in Britain, and it
would be, ‘worth considering some increase in rations in this country [...] even at the cost of making
heavy inroads into our stocks.’137 The danger of widespread starvation on the Continent was greatly
increasing and by this time immense concern was amassing within the Houses of Parliament, which
culminated in a large debate on 26 October, and was subsequently picked up by the newspapers.
The debate made the front page of the Daily Mirror, which reported the divide within the Commons
and highlighted the question over food supply. Some sections of the Commons took care to note
that the well fed agricultural region of the West of the country represented a large section of
Germany,138 although the British zone itself was largely urban. The debate demonstrated, however,
that a strong degree of anti-Germanism was still prevalent particularly within certain sections of the
non-socialist areas of parliament, when Edward Carson, Conservative MP for the Isle of Thanet,
declared: ‘“I do not care two rows of pins what happens to the German people—men, women or
children.”’139 The debate centred around the issue of suggested ration cuts in Britain in order to
alleviate the pressures on the continent. MPs had argued that Britain should send more food to the
Continent whereas Sir Ben Smith, the Minister of Food, had argued that Britain had done all they
could on that front, referring to the worldwide shortage of wheat as a major issue. Aside from this,
the problem lay more with the Russians, and to some extent the Americans, who weren’t playing
ball and who had adopted a “lunatic policy”, according to one MP.140 Lord Winterton claimed that,
135
The Manchester Guardian, 10 October. 1945
The Manchester Guardian, 10 October. 1945.
137 CAB128/1
138 The Daily Mirror, 27 October. 1945.
139 The Daily Mirror, 27 October. 1945.
140 Tom Horabin, Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall quoted in the Daily Mirror, October 27 1945.
136
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‘“Many unfair charges were made against this country as to what was being done by us for refugees.
Such statements were not true.”’141
It was as a result of the news pouring into England that Gollancz would begin the 2Save
Europe Now” (SEN) campaign, a highlight of the winter being a mass rally at the Albert Hall on 26
November. The fear for the winter of 1945 – 6 was that the crisis will be one that moves from
expulsion to that of extermination,142 not only through starvation but through other destructive
forces that famine brings, such as disease. In September Charles Bray reported in the Daily Herald
that a:
[T]yphoid epidemic is reaching such dimensions in Berlin that the medical authorities are
gravely concerned [...] [t]his is yet another result of the massed expulsion of Germans from
Danzig, East Prussia and Poland.143
This complimented considerations that were being discussed two days earlier by the Cabinet.144 The
devastation of famine and disease threatened to be as crushing as the previous years of war, and all
due to the forced expulsion of the defeated people of that conflict. As the debate gathered pace in
October, certain people were already looking to the winter, and as 12,000 a day piled into Berlin,
where ‘[t]hey die on the platforms, in the sidings, in trains,’ a further concern arose: ‘[m]any of them
are disease ridden and staving. This endlessly moving column brings its daily ration of typhus and
typhoid to underfed Berlin.’145 The danger was that this disease could spread further west.
It is important to appreciate that often this concern over Germany was not necessarily one
born out of sympathy for Germany’s victims, but moreover an appreciation of the need for Britain to
do what was necessary to hold off the threat of disease and create a safe and prosperous Europe,
one that would adopt British liberal values. The real concern was the prevention of the reemergence of a vengeful and powerful Germany. One report, ‘designed as a warning’ spoke out to
‘the good-hearted, sentimental people of impoverished and war-scarred Britain that if they have
tears to shed for Germans they should just hold them back. Do not shed them yet.’146 The headline
for this particular piece claimed: ‘We are winning Germany’s Battle!’ alongside a large image of a
victorious Field-Marshall Montgomery, implying, it appears, that by the will of British good nature
Montgomery was doing the German people a favour by allowing them to live, even after the crimes
they had committed. As the devastation aside from this was brushed over, the British public would
become convinced of another British victory and the debate would begin to subside in 1946,
141
The Manchester Guardian, 27 October. 1945
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/5.vii
143 Charles Bray (writing from Berlin), Daily Herald, September 8, quoted in the Victor Gollancz, Europe and Germany, p. 18.
144 CAB 128/1
145 The Daily Mirror, 2 October. 1945
146 The Daily Mirror, 8 January. 1946
142
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although the first wave of Germans finally arriving into the British Zone from Poland on 26 February
were briefly commented on in the Times, commanding a full 123 words on the subject.
Although the debate did begin to fall away, what these representations in the press do show
is, firstly, that the debate was very much alive and hotly contested on many levels – mainly driven by
the left-wing press – over the necessity of expulsions in reflection, and the manner in which they
were carried out conflicting with the fragile notion of orderly and humane transfers. Secondly, the
coverage would allow argument to be continued by representatives outside of the press and the
government, thus in effect bridging the debate between the two. It would be figures such as
Gollancz who would continue to help set up the enduring legacy of sympathies towards the refugees
that would later be picked up by controversial writers such as Alfred de Zayas, who would note the
importance of such influences to future arguments.
4. Victor Gollancz
Who Was Victor Gollancz? What Did He Do?
Born in 1883, the publisher, activist, and writer Victor Gollancz grew up a witness to the devastating
developments that would come to dominate the Twentieth Century.147 Aside from his humanitarian
views what also makes him an interesting figure to consider with regards to his defence of
Germany’s victims is that he was also a Jew, and so perhaps due to the atrocities caused in
Germany’s name during the war, his sympathies would not make him an automatic candidate for the
German defence. Instead, this context seemingly enhanced his emotional connection to the events
of the Second World War and the struggle for a defence of Western liberal views and the
development of a safer Europe. Propounding largely his defence of Western morality and his faith in
Christianity, Gollancz was reportedly averse to accepting mass judgements,148 and it was this
rejection of mass assumption that greatly enforced his indignation over the futility of shrouding
Germans with the burden of collective guilt, above all as this weight would be carried largely by
women and children, due to the devastation inflicted on the male population during the war, and it
was children in particular who could not be claimed to have been the major perpetrators of war.149
Gollancz’s Literature and the People around Him
During the immediate postwar years Gollancz came to symbolise the campaign in Britain to aid those
German populations who were being expelled from the Eastern European countries, and has
147
The Twentieth Century has more recently prompted titles such as Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent; Eric Hobsbawm’s
Age of Extremes.
148 Peggy Duff, Left, Left, Left, p. 13.
149 Victor Gollancz, What Buchenwald Really Means, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1945), pp. 8 – 9.
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remained a lasting figure of influence for the Vertriebenen aspect of German revisionism since.150 He
was also an often solitary critic of expulsion during and after the war, refusing to draw on such easy
nationalist and racialist boundaries: ‘[t]here is no excuse, in particular, for the continued practice of
mass expulsion on purely racial grounds.’151 This aspect of his views will be considered in greater
depth later. Gollancz’s dedication and extensive literary output throughout the post-war years,
generated through the SEN campaign, heightened the debate over how the German populations
should be treated and how Western liberal values should be applied to Europe’s “new victims”,152
and further to this ignited the question over German responsibility. Questions over the direction of a
new Europe would begin to emerge and by the autumn of 1945, Gollancz would mobilise his
campaign for what he believed was a defence of a safer Europe.
The “Save Europe Now” Campaign
As has been seen, reports of the crisis began in the newspapers in August 1945, but it was the
Norman Clark report of 14 September that Gollancz strongly picked up on,153 and the SEN campaign
was a major attempt by public figures to demonstrate the idea of Western liberal values in order to
reconstruct a new Germany in the heart of Europe. Writing at the height of the debate in 1946,
Gollancz explained that, ‘it is legitimate to speak, not of self interest, but of the preservation of
Western values,’154 and it is through these values, that Germany’s wounds could be cured, ‘by
showing them in practice what liberalism means; but the very depth of the wound demands a
corresponding intensity in our effort to reach it.’155 This notion of an ailment which had spread
throughout Germany is paramount to Gollancz’s literature, where he presents Britain with the
chance to demonstrate its healthy liberalism and produce the “cure” for the fever of fascism that has
gripped the continent.156 This fever, however, was threatening to manifest into an epidemic in the
immediate postwar situation and although already contaminating Eastern Europe and Russia, Britain
now had the chance to prevent this from spreading further.
Gollancz’s invitation to attend a meeting at the Conway Hall on 8 October 1945, expressed great
concern over the expulsions, which were being carried out, ‘with great inhumanity and in
contravention of the Potsdam declaration’, and reveals that the campaign, ‘has already mobilised a
large body of public opinion, and many thousands have expressed willingness to send food and
150
For examples see his influence on Alfred de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam; James Bacque, Crimes and Mercies. Also for a
good exploration of Gollancz’s lasting legacy see John Farquharson, Emotional but Influential; Victor Gollancz, Richard
Stokes and the British Zone of Germany, 1945 – 9.
151 Victor Gollancz, Europe and Germany, p. 13.
152 For a collection of essays discussing German victimhood see Germans as Victims ed. Bill Niven.
153 Peggy Duff, Left, Left, Left, p. 16.
154 Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their fate: The Ethics of Starvation, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1946) p. 42.
155 Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their fate, p. 43.
156 Victor Gollancz, Our Threatened Values, is the most extensive example of theory.
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clothing parcels [...] for the relief of European distress’.157 At the meeting set up by SEN a series of
speeches by prominent public figures set out the intentions of the campaign. It was not only winning
the war that was important now but winning the peace. This was expressed in the writer Barbara
Ward’s speech:
Ultimately, too, it is only by our peace making, by our ability to transcend racialism, to
reassert the principles of dignity and brotherhood of man that we shall prove Hitler to have
lost not only the war of arms but the war of ideals as well.158
Ward was merely echoing what Gollancz had already stated in The Economist on August 11: ‘[a]t the
end of a mighty war fought to defeat Hitlerism, the Allies are making a Hitlerian peace. This is the
real measure of their failure.’159 As the Times article of 11 September would do,160 this direct
association of Allied postwar policy in Germany with the previous fascist regime highlighted a
revolution of fascism, and in doing so rejected the notion of a German Sonderweg by placing the
Allies in the same role. The implications of this association were far further reaching than the
intention of guilt-tripping the Government into stronger action and took on a broader meaning than
the intended aims of SEN, which were to prevent further expulsions and to actively influence the
Government to prevent further starvation in Central Europe, and in doing so force Britain to face the
responsibility of the signing of the Potsdam Agreement.161 Moreover this demonstration of a
humanitarian attitude attempted to awaken in Britain the emphasis on morality over revenge. This
reassertion of dignity and brotherhood had been stripped from the Germans by Hitler, and although
perpetrators of the crime they also became the victims in a collapse of morality.
Gollancz suggested various initiatives for a European Relief Scheme in order to supply food for
the refugees, including the prevention of increasing bread rations in Britain, until the crisis had
passed. In truth, the proposals made by SEN to the Government were rejected,162 and the limitation
of influence of the campaign on the Government has been debated.163 Clement Attlee wrote to
Gollancz to express his negative reaction to the proposals, as they ‘could not make an effective
contribution to the solution of this problem in Europe, even though they might satisfy the
157
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/3
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/5.v
159 Victor Gollancz, Europe and Germany, p. 6.
160 See section ‘The Story Breaks’ of this study. Victor Gollancz would also later refer to this article.
161 MSS.157/3/SEN/1/6/1, Conway Hall, October 8th, 1945, Resolutions.
162 MSS.157/3/SEN/2/6.i. A letter to Gollancz from G S Bishop Private Secretary dated 20th November 1945, lists the
rejections of the proposals, claiming, ‘the Minister cannot help feeling that there is some lack of proportion in the
emphasis which is being placed upon proposals for enabling voluntary contributions of this kind to be made’.
163 Gollancz won a minor victory when Attlee responded to his appeal, ‘there is little prospect of any substantial increase in
the level of home consumption while world supplies are as short as they are now.’ MSS.157/3/SEN/2/14i – iii Both
Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, and John Farquharson, ‘Emotional but Influential’ discuss the limits of the
campaign.
158
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consciences of particular individuals.’164 It may be possible to argue, as Attlee here implies, that the
satisfaction of consciences may be the real drive behind public action, but it does demonstrate
sympathies in public opinion and the Government’s awareness of them. By 1946 Gollancz had
claimed to have collected the names of one hundred thousand citizens who had offered to cut their
existing rations.165 However, Attlee could only calmly express: ‘[t]he government is fully aware of the
strength of public feeling on this subject.’166
A Note on the Importance of the Press and General “Atmosphere”
As an innovative publisher Gollancz would have been well aware of the power of the press and with
his experience he was able to galvanise a great deal of interest in matters concerning Central and
Eastern Europe. As a result he was thus able to stimulate mass public support for his SEN campaign
which would aim to influence changes in government foreign policy. The printed media was an
essential foundation of information for Gollancz and all communication from Europe detailing the
situation in Germany was indeed welcome, no matter the reliability of the source: ‘I am far from
pretending that all these reports are accurate; the reader will know which type of paper he can trust,
and which not. But even when a paper is reporting not facts but gossip, and the gossip is false, such
reports are still often highly significant as suggesting the general “atmosphere”’.167
Representations of this “atmosphere” could be highly descriptive in the correspondence
arriving from Berlin, the result of some greatly stylistic language often sourced by Gollancz. Norman
Clark was perhaps among the most accomplished of creative correspondents:
Those people in the cattle truck, and hundreds who lay on bundles of belongings on the
platform and in the booking hall, were the dead and dying and starving flotsam left by the
tide of human misery that daily reaches Berlin, and next day is turned back to take train to
another town in a hopeless search of food and succour.168
It is interesting to note the poetic manner in which this particular piece is written, potentially
creating a deeply influential image of the scene in Berlin. This is an illustrative example of the Leftwing press that Gollancz used to illustrate the crisis in order to generate sympathy within the British
Public. As has been discussed, the Left-wing press led the debate over Germany, and Gollancz was
quick to establish it as a platform from which to demonstrate his campaign and to moderate British
attitudes towards the Germans.
164
MSS.157/3/SEN/2/8.i
Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their Fate, p.38.
166 MSS.157/3/SEN/2/8.i
167 Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their Fate, p.5.
168 Norman Clark (writing from Berlin), News Chronicle, August 24th 1945 quoted in Victor Gollancz, Europe & Germany, p.
16.
165
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However, despite Gollancz’s reliance on the printed press to demonstrate to the public the
atmosphere in the British zone, by mid 1946 his impression was less positive. Referring largely to
sections of the Right-wing press, but also some of the Left, he felt prompted to exclaim, ‘[a]ll in all, I
doubt whether there has been a more dishonourable campaign in the whole history of British
journalism.’169 A survey conducted in the Daily Express found a small majority of people as those
who ‘“condemned the policy of feeding Germans while Britain’s rations were so meagre.”’170
Gollancz responded to this 55 percent by describing them as the ‘solid mass of individual
selfishness’171 and was incensed enough to illustrate the cause of this attitude in Britain:
It is the Press I accuse, or the baser part of it: I accuse it of concealing facts, telling lies,
magnifying trivialities, and deliberately appealing to the self-interest and xenophobia which
are latent in almost everyone.172
It was clear for Gollancz that the British Public was ignorant primarily due to being starved of the
facts, and he wrote a response to the Daily Express in order to feed them. His reaction was not
published, however.173
What Gollancz may have overlooked too quickly here, though, is that the result was actually
demonstrative of a significant divide in public opinion. That 55 percent were against feeding the
Germans at the expense of themselves only a year after a hugely destructive war, one that
witnessed huge anti-German propaganda in the media,174 followed by disturbing images returning
from Germany, suggests a more varied reaction. After all, there was, it is possible to argue, a high
level of anti-German feeling in Britain at this time, especially after the revelations of Nazi
atrocities.175 However, concentrating on this anti-German sentiment fails to reveal the division in
public opinion towards the fate of the Germans. It is this sympathy, not with the Germans, but with
their fate, that is ultimately more important in assessing public reactions to the manner of the
expulsions from Eastern Europe. As Frank notes in his reference, 1,000 copies of Gollancz’s, What
Buchenwald Really Means, were being sold daily into August, 1945.176
British and European Attitudes towards Germans
Aside from this divide within Britain, what is interesting to note is the belief in a psychological gap
and difference in attitudes between Britain, and those in European countries which experienced Nazi
169
Victor Gollancz, Our Threatened Values, p. 132.
The Daily Express quoted in Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their Fate, pp. 19 – 20.
171 Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their Fate, p. 19.
172 Ibid, p. 19.
173 Ibid, p. 19.
174 Robert Mackay, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War, (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2002), p. 169.
175 See D. C. Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p. 115; and Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p. 142.
176
Ibid., p. 142.
170
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invasion first hand.177 Reactions in Poland and Czechoslovakia demonstrate a particular vehemence
when presented with the suggestion of actions representing a hint of German victimhood, viewing
demands such as the construction of a memorial to the expellees or the claim of a right to their
homelands as “proof” of German revisionism.178 This fear is inextricably bound up with theories of
guilt and collective guilt, a term which was not officially accepted by Britain at Potsdam,179 but one
that was, as has been noted, officially adopted by the Czechs with regard to the Sudeten Germans in
the Beneš Decrees which illustrated the Czechoslovak view of Germans as colonisers and as the
Czechoslovak national enemy.180 As Matthew Frank’s recent study suggests:
Any outline of the main factors that had a bearing on the fate of German minorities in eastcentral Europe after the war must begin with the attitude of Czechs and Poles, in exile and
under occupation, towards the prospect of again harbouring German minorities in their
midst – minorities who were perceived as having assisted in the destruction of interwar
Czechoslovakia and Poland.181
The first hand experience of the Nazi terror, and the lingering fear of a German “fifth column” within
the East,182 goes some way to explaining the “gulf” in attitudes between the East and West. Elizabeth
Wiskemann from an early stage discussed the difference in attitude, between Britain and Europe,
towards the Germans:
The Continent today, because Britain was never occupied by the Nazis, imagines that British
daily life has hardly been affected by the war. And the British, for the very same reason,
have still no conception of the cost, moral and physical, of a Nazi occupation.183
The aggressive nationalism flaring up against German minorities within the borders of the Eastern
countries left Western governments in occupation of Germany with little choice but to accept the
expulsions as inevitable; they were moving along regardless. As has been discussed, Beneš, for
example, had been exiled in Britain during the war years conspiring towards Allied acceptance of the
transfer.184
The intensified will to rally to an identity based on anti-German sentiment would be hard to
reason against if contesting the notion of population transfer. This was expressed to Gollancz in a
177
Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p. 99.
David Rock and Stefan Wolff, Coming home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern
Europe in the Federal Republic. p. 10.
179 Hansåke Persson, ‘German Refugees After 1945: A British Dilemma’, in Refugees in the Age of Total War, ed., Anna C.
Bramwell, (Oxford, Routledge 1988) p. 179.
180 Eagle Glassheim, ‘National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945’, p. 465.
181 Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, pp.42 – 3.
182 Elizabeth Wiskemann, Germany’s Eastern Neighbours, pp. 104 – 105.
183 Elizabeth Wiskemann quoted in Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, p.223.
184 Joseph B. Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe 1945 – 1955, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1962), p.60.
178
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letter from the, pro-Russian, Konni Zilliacus MP185 dated 1 October 1945, where he attempts to
reason that protests on the grounds of humanity are not so readily accepted in the formerly
occupied countries as they are in the Britain and in truth, ‘after the things the Nazis have done to
them [...] we are not really in a position to blame them for it.’186 This thus highlights the dilemma
between a moderation of views and an acceptance of the reality of attitudes in the East European
nations. Although willing to understand the sentiments of the occupied countries,187 it was not
enough for Gollancz to just accept it. It was up to Britons to export their humanitarian culture to
Europe and to resist the vengeance emerging from the East.
It was noted that the Russians had gone a long way in creating the problems in Europe but
the important thing to realise was that, ‘[w]e may not be able to alter what happens in the Russian
zone, but we can at least disclaim responsibility for it’.188 This disclaiming of responsibility was also
later that year emphasised by George Orwell in the Tribune: ‘[i]n so far as the big public in this
country is responsible for the monstrous peace settlement now being forced on Germany, it is
because of a failure to see in advance that punishing an enemy brings no satisfaction’.189 Orwell also
explained Britain’s lack of passionate desire for retribution, explaining that, ‘[a]ctually there is little
acute hatred of Germany left in this country, and even less, I should expect to find, in the army of
occupation’, going on to describe his encounter with a Belgian journalist, ‘like nearly all Frenchman
or Belgians, he had a very much tougher attitudes towards ‘the Boche’ than an Englishman or an
American would have’.190 Although possibly a rather optimistic assumption from Orwell it does
nonetheless demonstrate the belief in many quarters that public opinion in Britain was far more
moderate than the formerly occupied countries.
In a reaction to the issue of economic control visualized by the Potsdam discussions of
August 1945, printed in The Economist in August, Gollancz expressed an awareness of the enduring
attitude in Britain that would outlast the Potsdam discussions:
It is certainly impossible as part of a treaty which public opinion in the Western world will
find increasingly hard to defend [...] the joining of a bad territorial and a bad economic
settlement to a cumbrous and exacting system of Allied occupation and control seems
precisely designed to create in a few years’ time a revulsion of feeling in the West compared
with which the revulsion against Versailles will be as nothing.191
185
Kenneth O Morgan, Labour in Power, p. 65.
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/17
187 Victor Gollancz, Europe & Germany: Today & Tomorrow, (London, Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1945), pp.12 – 13
188 Ibid, p .6.
189 George Orwell, originally printed in a letter ‘Revenge is Sour’, in Tribune, 9 November 1945. The Collected Essays,
Journalism and Letters: Volume 4, (London, Penguin Books, 1958), p. 21) Sort this footnote out.
190 Ibid., pp. 21 – 22.
191 Ibid, p. 4.
186
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This argument thus aimed to force the public to recognise the previously failed peace settlement of
the First World War in order to highlight the futility of once again creating the same conditions in
Europe that arguably led to the Second World War.
In Gollancz’s publication, Our Threatened Values, published in the summer of 1946, there is
a great deal of emphasis on the notion of “personality”, which is how he identifies the individual.
Through “liberalism” – which Gollancz describes in this sense as a wider term than “socialism” and
meaning ‘liberal and humanistic socialism’ – the personality is protected, as it is liberalism that can
preserve itself by ‘flowering into socialism.’192 Thus, the aims of socialism can preserve the
personality, which although may be the aims of the Soviet Union it is not the practice. Nazism aimed
to destroy the individuality of the personality as ‘it is in fascism, of course, that contempt for
personality reaches its final expression; for it passes beyond contempt and becomes hatred.’193 The
danger in the immediate postwar context is that Nazism is seen as an isolated phenomenon, and of a
particularly German path. For Gollancz:
Nazism was not an isolated phenomenon; it was merely the final expression, so far, of
tendencies which had for a long time been growing stronger. Those tendencies are still at
work; some of them are more widespread than ever; and even here in England there are
disquieting signs that respect for personality, which we have guarded, and in spite of
everything still guard, more devotedly perhaps than any other people, is growing weaker.194
Despite the patriotic tone here there is a very real concern over the international attitude towards
personality – be it towards Jews, Germans or Russians. The problem needs to be understood as a
whole, then, meaning that the German question can only be dealt with in its entire context in order
to understand the details. To isolate Nazism within the German question is to assume that this
destruction of the personality was a one-off and undermines the realism of the twentieth century.
The movement of peoples in particular cannot be isolated. The expulsions from the East are
directly related to previous movements within the Reich during the war years, and the brutal way in
which minorities were victimised.195 To isolate the expulsion is to refute Gollancz’s plea for the
recognition of personality by assuming a general punishment must be dealt. In a response to a
Christian Church delegation on 13 September 1945,196 it is interesting to note Attlee’s almost
exasperated attitude towards the events of the mid twentieth century.
192
Victor Gollancz, Our Threatened Values, (London, Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1946), p. 19.
Ibid., p. 15.
194 Ibid., p. 16.
195 Bill Niven, ‘Introduction’ in Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed., (London,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 15.
196 For an exploration of the British Churches and the expulsions see Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans, pp. 153 – 163.
193
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We have had it on a large scale throughout Europe in these years of war: masses of people
are thrown up and you get a stream going one way and a stream going another way.197
It is remarkable to consider Attlee describing this almost as if it is a “historic constellation” of
transferred peoples. There is a sense here, though, that it is an inevitability of the nature of this war
– one emphasised by the postwar expulsions. However, while there is a sense of the historic
constellation in Attlee’s language it still falls in line with the Wasserstein argument, previously
discussed, of German part-authorship, and although there is a general perception of a much wider
issue the blame is still very much centred on the Germans as a people and a desire to see them take
responsibility as a race, albeit with a less personal vengeance than the Eastern countries. As Attlee
claimed, he was reluctant to blame anybody, ‘but you cannot ravage a Continent like this [...]
without paying the penalty, and that is what is happening now in Europe.’198 What this may show is a
less personal attitude than that found within the previously occupied countries, referring to the
“Continent” illustrates an example of detachment. However, while Attlee is reluctant to lay the
foundations for accepting collective guilt he nonetheless does so by insisting that the Germans as a
people must take responsibility for their crimes. The emphasis on expulsion as a punishment
continues, then, as a race rather than individuals is being punished. It is this notion of collective guilt
that remains such a contentious issue. If the Germans must accept responsibility as a race it is easier
for revisionists to draw comparisons with the plight of the Jews.199
The Notion of Collective Guilt
Guilt, then, was central to the issue of policy towards the defeated Germans but how could guilt be
applied to a nation or a race of people? In other words, how convincing is the application of
collective guilt? The Beneš Decrees of 1945 – 6 legalised the ‘collective victimisation of Sudeten
Germans and gave amnesty to anyone who committed a crime in the course of their expulsion’.200
The continuation of these decrees remains an issue for expellees trying to reclaim an understanding
of their past, whereas Czech resistance is largely based on the fear that the Sudeten Germans wish
to reclaim their property and a right to settle.201
In What Buchenwald Really Means (1945) Gollancz outlines how sections of the press have
shown how Nazi atrocities during the war and the perceived lack a resistance to Hitler contributed to
the charge of German guilt, but for Gollancz the camps such as those at Buchenwald actually prove
197
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/1.i
Ibid.,
199 Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany, (London, University of
California Press, 2001), p.81.
200 Stefan Wolff , ‘Introduction’, in Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern
Europe in the Federal Republic, p.12.
201 Ann L. Phillips, Power and Influence after the Cold War: Germany in East Central Europe, (Plymouth: Roman & Littlefield,
2000), pp. 85 – 86.
198
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the opposite. The fact that thousands of Germans were dying in these camps for being against the
state, the evidence, ‘far from proving that all Germans are vile and that the whole German people is
“collectively guilty,” proves the opposite.’202 Gollancz used the SEN campaign to eagerly
demonstrate the futility of the notion of collective guilt. In an interesting passage in his pamphlet,
Leaving Them to Their Fate: The Ethics of Starvation, Gollancz diverts briefly from the debate over
rationing to reflect on the guilt charge:
Abandon utterly the concepts “Germany” and “India.” “Germany” and “India” simply do not
exist. Remember instead what does exist – so many millions of individual human beings like
you and me, living in Germany and India, and with precisely the same potentiality for
suffering as yours and mine. Until that truth is not merely intellectually grasped but
emotionally lived with, a sane solution of the world’s problems is impossible. And if you
cannot get out of your mind the question of “guilt,” which in fact is totally irrelevant in this
connection, realise at any rate that no one but a lunatic could regard German children up to
thirteen years of age – those born, that is to say, after Hitler came to power – as “guilty” of
anything whatsoever.203
The words are designed for a British audience who would perhaps be more receptive to such
theories. Whereas in the East this pleas would surely have much greater difficulty breaching the
defensive and insecure nationalism of the formerly occupied countries that had steadily been
defining themselves against Germans and aiming to cement their national standing by expelling the
perpetrator from their lands. This is an excellent example, however, of the attempt to move the
British public away from the notion of collective guilt that was influencing Poland and
Czechoslovakia, and an effort to moderate the views of the British public in the hope that a safer,
secure and more moral Europe would survive. Re-education in Germany would be central to British
occupation policy and it was important, then, to re-educate the German population to avoid further
complications – a healthy Germany is a healthy Europe.204
There were certainly limits to Gollancz campaign however. As has been discussed, and has
been covered previously, the influence on governmental policy was perhaps at best, minor. Perhaps
his influence was more pronounced in Germany, as one argument states: ‘he was seen in a rather
different light in contemporary Britain. Above all, he was accused of being sentimental and naive,
and far too uncritical of German sources.’205 This perhaps best demonstrates the wider argument
within Britain, where those concerned over the welfare of Germans refugees could be presented as
“sentimental”. However, as has been witnessed within the press and even sometimes within the
government itself, this sentimentality was not a rare occurrence. Gollancz was, in fact, often the
202
Victor Gollancz, What Buchenwald Really Means, p. 6.
Victor Gollancz, Leaving Them to Their Fate, p.24.
204 D C Watt, Britain Looks to Germany, p. 71.
205 John Farquharson, ‘Emotional but Influential’, p. 512.
203
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bridge between the public and the government. The Foreign Office received letters of protest from
the public that were as a direct consequence of Gollancz’s campaigning. Referring to the SEN
campaign, one letter expresses the need to differentiate between Nazis and non-Nazis, urging the
government to recognise that many of these refugees are not ‘the Party’ and that they are mostly
German is ‘irrelevant’.206 This response was of concern to the authorities as they recognised, indeed,
that Gollancz’s campaign was successful in, ‘“alarming and depressing the population.”’207
It is interesting to note the changes that the SEN campaign was trying to make. There was a
definite attempt to create a bridge between Britain and Germany in order to save Europe, or indeed
cure it and nurse it back to health. This is not only important in showing examples of some of the
moderate views in Britain (if even only for the benefit of Britain), but also goes some way in
highlighting the insecurities in Europe over the British urging a “soft peace”. Moreover, what is also
interesting to consider is that Potsdam contributed to the acceptance of heightened nationalism in
the East, and this is what figures such as Gollancz and Orwell were trying to argue against. Expulsions
were clearly not the answer to stability in Europe, and if the British could do nothing to stop them,
then surely they could absolve themselves of the responsibility of legalising it and turning Potsdam
into a guarantee of ‘annexation, expulsion, spoliation, and economic enslavement.’208
5. CONCLUSION
This study has investigated the debate in Britain over the expulsions of Germans from Eastern
Europe in its postwar context, with the intention of arguing that there was a considered attempt,
firstly within the media and later within governmental circles, to discuss the rightful place of postwar
German refugees within a new Europe. It has sought to illustrate the influential rhetoric that was
being employed at the time, and to show the effect that it has had on more recent debates as is
demonstrated in various recent studies. It has focussed on the importance of the expulsions to
European stability and the dilemma of demonstrating British liberal values whilst attempting not to
impose a “soft peace”. It has discussed how the expulsions have become both a symbol of division as
well as unity.
This study has illustrated the divisive qualities of the postwar debate in Britain over the
treatment of German refugees in a postwar Europe that was to be reconstructed around them. And
although it may well be true that, ‘from many a British perspective, those Germans who had
survived were guilty by association’,209 this was by no means the case for all. It has argued that
206
FO371/46816, C9292/95/18, a letter to Mr Touche MP from Mr H Peschmann, 28 November. 1945.
FO371/70888 quoted in John Farquharson, ‘Emotional but Influential, p. 509
208 Victor Gollancz, Our Threatened Values, p. 95.
209 Francis Graham-Dixon, Civilising the Germans, p. 4.
207
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debate in this country was, for a relatively short period, quite hotly contested within the public
sphere.
This study has challenged the logic of isolating German history outside of a pan-European
context by exploring the often underestimated complications in the postwar question over European
reconstruction, focussing on three key areas of the debate.
Firstly it has studied the debate within the British political sphere focussing on how the
government, foremost, feared Russian influence deep into Europe. This was the most important
issue for the government to consider. Deliberation over refugees only became apparent when the
authorities attempted to judge the weight of public opinion and the main elements of the printed
press. Initially the Government did not believe that the expulsions would be a problem that would
concern them, but in the interests of national popularity they decided on the necessity to broach the
issue. It was when they realised the strain this would have on the British zone, and when the press
brought to their attention just how bad the situation was, that they felt the need to act, although
their ability to make a difference is for another debate.
It has also been highlighted that the gulf between western and eastern attitudes, whilst
explainable, were maintained by a Left-wing press that began 1945 largely in support of a new
socialist government and was keen to see these domestic socialist policies demonstrated on the
European front. It is clear that Britain above all at least desired a moderate course compared with
that of Russia: ‘Russia had very strong moral claims to restitution and rehabilitation. If we were
unable to steer her into more moderate courses, it might be necessary for us to let her go her own
way after stating her own point of view.’210 The study has probed the issue of responsibility and
collective guilt that was applied to the Germans, first by the expelling Eastern countries and later by
the legalisation of expulsion by the western powers in the agreement that resulted from the
Potsdam discussions. This legalisation places Britain in a central role to the pan-European
devastation across Europe in the twentieth century, and it has been argued that, ‘Potsdam was only
the last act of the European tragedy which resulted from the Nazi dream of a Third Reich.’211
Secondly, the developing attitudes of the press have been considered. By measured research
through some of Britain’s largest and most influential papers, particular attention has been paid to
the detail and scope of the arguments displayed therein. The press steadily developed awareness of
the European crisis as reporters were able to uncover more information. It has been shown that the
power of the press brought the crisis to the attention of Government authorities, who were sensitive
to public opinion in Britain, and were keen to maintain influence with the press. This resulted in a
210
CAB 61/51/16
Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans: A Study of Czech-German Relations, 1933 – 1962, (New York: New
York University Press, 1964) p. 280.
211
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balancing act between British national standing and Eastern nationalism. And although the press was
initially slow to respond it did in fact lead the debate over expulsion and brought the issues to the
attention of the government. One of the most important aspects of the press was that it provided
information for public figures such as Victor Gollancz who would build on these sources to bolster
his “Save Europe Campaign” and leave a lasting legacy. It has been seen that the accuracy of
newspaper reports can be questioned, but the fact that the expulsions were so extensively covered
is representative of the importance of the crisis within Britain.
Thirdly, the literature and papers of the biggest singular public influence in Britain over the
expulsions, Victor Gollancz, have been exploited to interpret a well documented area of the
discussion. Although the work of Gollancz was no doubt important in maintaining awareness
amongst the public, by studying his private papers it is possible to gain a better understanding of the
influence he had at the time. Whilst discussing the problem with British society one letter written to
Gollancz by David G. Allen of Common Wealth, dated October 5th, perhaps best demonstrates the
British attitude in stating:
The ignorance and apathy of our good British public to the present conditions in Europe is
something which has got to be overcome before any effective action can come about and, as
on so many other occasions in the past for equally good causes, you are stepping into a
political vacuum in a manner quite beyond admiration.212
“Ignorance” and “apathy” is an interesting interpretation of British public opinion. Although
this demonstrated perhaps, that public opinion was not always with Gollancz, it does offer us an idea
of how influential he could be. This kind of support allowed Gollancz to continue to be as vocal and
as well respected as he was, and suffice to say he has been ‘popular in Germany since’, and that his
actions in support of Germans, ‘make clear how much Gollancz and his friends were contributing to
Anglo-German friendship.’213
It is noted that this study has only gone someway into investigating the extent of the legacy
of the debate in Britain but the author is aware of the limits of this part of the study. To study in
depth the complex and ever evolving issue around legacy would be another study altogether, and
would benefit highly from following this one. The study presented here is intended to create the
foundation for such a study, which would inevitably benefit from the use of German and European
sources in an attempt to develop from a singularly British angle into something of a wider context.
The benefits of a study focussing purely on Britain are, it is felt, invaluable in aiding to understand
wider issue. A study of the same debate in other countries would also compliment this. One must
212
213
MSS.157/3/SEN/1/94
John Farquharson, ‘Emotional but Influential’, pp. 511 – 512.
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comment however on the aspects of legacy that are covered in this text. John Farquharson has
described the like of Victor Gollancz as “Emotional but influential”214, and this quite accurately
describes the wider debate, and not just Gollancz’s contribution to it. Gollancz was certainly
influential then and now, and he has to take some of the responsibility for those areas of German
revisionism that use him to support their argument. However, the language in the press –
particularly that of the left-wing press were, in part, the cause of a German victimhood when the
postwar situation was turned on its head.
The expellees lay at the heart of a divided Germany, and by extension a divided Europe. By
paying special attention to language used in public debate it has been highlighted how the British
media and public figures such as Gollancz have associated victims of the expulsions with those of the
Third Reich, placing these atrocities into the same pan-European question of postwar
reconstruction. It has been demonstrated that concern over where to place the millions of expellees
in a pan-European memory is not a debate that has only been entertained by the Germans.
Moreover, it has been important to establish that placing the expulsions in a European-wide context
also means establishing the direct connection with the Third Reich, not merely to state that “they
deserved it”, but to demonstrate a clear understanding of the events of the mid-twentieth century.
If the expulsions are to be part of an historic constellation which likens the plight of the expellees to
that of the Jews, then this constellation must also take account of the atrocities of the Third Reich as
a catalyst of both. This is not to say that all Germans are responsible or have always been perceived
as much. It has been shown here that large sections of the public were, for whatever reasons,
uncomfortable with the repercussions of Potsdam.
The expulsions remain a lasting legacy of a divided postwar Europe, with very different
attitudes and experiences influencing the approaches taken with regard to Europe’s unwanted
Germans. However, despite these differences there was apparent unity. The division within the
debate was a microcosm of the debate between the victorious nations but the victorious, however,
came to agree and sanction the legalisation of the expulsions. This is the real crux of the argument
when it comes to British responsibility. An investigation into public opinion shows that there was not
an overwhelming majority in support of the expulsions and an answer to European stability.
However, public pressure came too late into the debating chamber and the charge was already
made. The British could not have done anything to stop the expulsions, but by signing the agreement
it placed them in a position of responsibility that revisionists will not let go with time.
214
Ibid.
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6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
The National Archives, Public Record Office (Kew, London)
The Mass Observation Archive (University of Sussex)
Victor Gollancz papers (Modern Records Centre, Warwick University)
Historiography
Bacque, James. Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation 19441950. Canada: Talon Books, 1997.
Connor, Ian. Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2007.
Wasserstein, Bernard. Barbarism and Civilisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Frank, Matthew. Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in
Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Gollancz, Victor. Germany Revisited. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1947.
Keesing's Research Report. Germany and Eastern Europe since 1945. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1973.
Lieberman, Benjamin. Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe. Chicago: Ivan
R. Dee Publisher, 2006.
Marrus, Michael. The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century. New York: OUP,
1985.
Neary, Brigitte U. and Holle Schneider-Ricks. Voices of Loss and Courage: German Women Recount
Their Expulsion from East Central Europe, 1944-1950, Rockport: Picton Press, 2002.
de Zayas, Alfred M. A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 19441950, Revised Edition. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006.
Institutional Archives
Newspapers and Contemporary Periodicals
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