Heimatvertriebene
From Metapedia
The Heimatvertriebene (German for "expellees") are victims of forced migration of German nationals (Reichsdeutsche) and some ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from various European states and territories during 1945 and in the first three years after World War II 1946-48.
Many Germans fled their areas of residence under evacuation orders of the German government in early 1945, or based on their own decisions to leave in 1945-1948. Others remained and were later forced to leave by local authorities.
The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in areas of today's Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. Others occurred in territories of today's Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region), Lithuania, Slovenia and other regions of Central and Eastern Europe.
This forced migration of ethnic Germans resulted in the transfer of between 13.5-16.5 million people and was the largest of several similar post-World War II migrations orchestrated by the victorious Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Over the course of the sixty years since the end of the war, estimates of total deaths of German civilians have been as high as 4 million. Although the German government's official estimate of deaths due to the expulsions stood at 2.2 million. The debate about the number of deaths and their cause continues to be the subject of heated controversy.
More than half a century later, relations between unified Germany and its East European neighbors remain somewhat difficult due to an often emotional controversy concerning the rights of expellees. Much of the controversy is spurred by contentious demands of some groups of the expellees or their descendants for revocation of expulsion decrees, official apologies, prosecution of perpetrators, or compensation for lost properties.
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