Over twelve million ethnic Germans were expelled from postwar Europe
Evidence
2 Well over twelve million ethnic Germans: around 12.5 to 13.5 million Germans were expelled from or intimidated into leaving other European countries: see Werner Sollors, The Temptation of Despair: tales of the 1940s (Cambridge, MA & London: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2014), 119; for Europe generally, see Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the aftermath of World War II (London: Viking, 2012). — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1530
Displaced persons from the camps often had to wait a long time to go anywhere. Many German soldiers also remained missing; some slowly made their way home, crossing whole countries by foot. They were joined by well over twelve million ethnic Germans expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia and other central and eastern European countries; they too walked to Germany, pushing small wagons and trolleys containing their possessions. The number of people simply trudging around Europe at this time is astounding. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 558
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1530; Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 558
- XREF: connects to: Comparing the Holocaust to postwar German expulsions broke all possibility of dialogue — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 606; Contemporary European racist expulsion rhetoric echoes pre-Holocaust patterns.; Balkan independence movements expelled both Muslims and Jews as alien elements (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Contemporary European racist expulsion rhetoric echoes pre-Holocaust patterns.
#expands(0.72) - Balkan independence movements expelled both Muslims and Jews as alien elements
#exemplifies(0.72) - Poles projected their own collaboration with Germans onto Jews as alleged Soviet collaboration.
#complicates(0.70) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2334