Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Germans and Volksdeutsche fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg (Neumark) and Pomerania (Hinterpommern), which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union.
German expellees, 1946
Refugees moving westwards in 1945
Karl Hermann Frank, Secretary of State and Higher SS and Police Leader in Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (right) was born in Carlsbad, Austria-Hungary (present-day Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic).
Adolf Hitler being welcomed by a crowd in Sudetenland, where the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party gained 88% of ethnic-German votes in May 1938
In Nazi German terminology, Volksdeutsche were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of volksdeutsch, with Volksdeutsche denoting a singular female, and Volksdeutscher, a singular male. The words Volk and völkisch conveyed the meanings of "folk".
Volksdeutsche of Sudetendeutsches Freikorps in Czechoslovakia, 1938
Volksdeutsche of Łódź greeting German cavalry in 1939
Volksdeutsche meeting in occupied Warsaw, 1940
Entry to Volksdeutsche office in Kraków, 1940