A Terrible Revenge

A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950 is a book by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas about the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Based on testimonials of German civilians and military, as well as many interviews with British and American politicians and diplomats who participated at the Potsdam Conference, including Robert Murphy, the political adviser of General Eisenhower, Sir Geoffrey Harrison (drafter of article XIII of the Potsdam Protocol concerning population transfers), and Sir Denis Allen (drafter of article IX on the provisional post-war borders), the book also describes the crimes committed by the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, at the end of World War II, and cites the condemnation of the expulsions by Bertrand Russell, Victor Gollancz, Bishop Bell of Chichester and other contemporary intellectuals.

The author describes the history of German settlements in Central and Eastern Europe since the 12th century, the impact of the Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain on German minorities left in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the failure of the League of Nations system of minority protection, the outbreak of World War II and crimes committed by the Nazis, followed by the fate of the refugees from the former Eastern parts of Germany (Silesia, East Prussia, Pomerania, East Brandenburg), as well as the fate of German minorities in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

In the book, de Zayas claims that approximately two million Germans died during the post period of 1944-1949, the lowest responsible estimate given based on research.

Table of contents of the book

• Foreword
• The Germans of East Central Europe
• The Expulsion Prehistory: Interbellum Years and World War II
• War and Flight
• Allied Decisions on Resettlement
• Expulsion and Deportation
• The Expellees in Germany - Yesterday and Today
• Epilogue

Printing history

The book originated as a script for a television documentary of the Bayerischer Rundfunk. It is a popular, more accessible rendition of the author's seminal monography on the expulsion (Nemesis at Potsdam, Routledge, German: Die Nemesis von Potsdam. Die Anglo-Amerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen, 14 editions with C.H.Beck, dtv, Ullstein and now Herbig, Muenchen). This shorter introduction to the subject matter was initially published in German as Anmerkungen zur Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten (4 editions during 1986-1996, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-17009-297-9), first printed in English under the title of The German Expellees: Victims in War and Peace (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993, Macmillan, London). The new, 1994 English title, included the then neologism "ethnic cleansing", massively used at these times relating to the crimes committed by Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1990s. The 5th expanded German 2006 edition was titled Die deutschen Vertriebenen (Leopold Stocker Verlag, ISBN 3-902475-15-3). The book ends with 12 historical theses, 14 legal theses and 10 conclusions. The Theses were positively reviewed by Professor Andreas Hillgruber in the Historische Zeitschrift and by Professor Gotthold Rhode in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. See also the review by Dr.habil. Matthias Stickler in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Juli 31, 2006, "Fast ein Klassiker"

The new 2006 English edition with Palgrave/Macmillan is expanded by about 20%. It contains additional information from interviews with the children of the displaced, German expellees who migrated to the United States and Canada, new photos and new statistical tables.

• Alfred M. de Zayas: Heimatrecht ist Menschenrecht. Universitas, München 2001. ISBN 3-8004-1416-3.
• Alfred M. de Zayas: Die deutschen Vertriebenen. Keine Täter sondern Opfer. Ares, Graz 2006. ISBN 3-902475-15-3.
• Norman Naimark: Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth - Century Europe. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2001.
• Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees: The Expulsion of the "German" Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War. Florence, Italy, Europe, University Institute, 2004.

Reviews

"This popularly written but still scholarly study follows the author's other successful books in the fields of history and international law [which] were hailed by historians as well as lawyers as masterpieces of academic craftsmanship. His book.presents in a nutshell the history of the ethnic German population which had settled in the early 13th century in large parts of what is nowadays Eastern Europe." Netherlands International Law Review 1986, pp. 430–431

"This is the story of the ethnic Germans who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some two million died and fifteen million were displaced - driven from their lands by those opposed to anyone and everything German... De Zayas's moving plea is that one's home should be a human right. As frontiers once more shift in Eastern Europe and families flee in Bosnia, he could hardly have chosen a better moment to deliver it." The Times, (London) 18 November 1993.

"Atrocity begins with a euphemism. Under the rubric 'orderly population transfers' the victors of the Second World War drove 15 million Germans out of their ancient homes in an ethnic cleansing far worse than what is happening today in the Middle East or Bosnia Hercegovina ... Western historians have long averted their eyes from the stupendous crime authoritatively described by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas in this grim, essential book. The author has impeccable credentials for this work: a law degree from Harvard, a doctorate in history at Göttingen, mastery of five languages. He has worked in foreign archives and interviewed many survivors for this book, his fourth. For many years he has been a senior legal adviser on human rights to an international organization in Switzerland... The author conservatively takes the lowest available estimate of the deaths: over two million people died in the expulsions...." Ottawa Citizen 16 October 1993.

Criticism

One reviewer argues that de Zayas over-emphasizes the role of the Bund der Vertriebenen (non-governmental association representing the expellees) and its property and territorial claims. It has been noted that no West-East migration occurred when this possibility arose after the unification of the German states, and that practically no Germans have returned to the East after the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania entered the European Union.

The book has also been criticized for its victim-perspective, normally unsuitable for scholarly works, unfavourably comparing it with a more recent book of Detlef Brandes. The 2006 revised and enlarged edition of "Terrible Revenge" with Palgrave/Macmillan takes some of these considerations into account. In the introduction the author notes that a "Terrible Revenge" is a popularized version of his longer monograph "Nemesis at Potsdam" (1-3 editions Routledge, 6th edition Picton Press, Rockland, Maine 2003). See also review of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Other reviews have criticized both de Zayas and Brandes reversely. According to Eagle Glassheim, Brandes does not provide any moral conclusion deriving from violence against civilians due to their ethnic heritage.

See also

• Against Their Will, a historical research book by Pavel Polyan
• Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
• Journey Back to Youth, a 2001 documentary film
• Nemmersdorf massacre
• Soviet War Crimes