Former Eastern Territories

Included here are:

Silesia or Schlesien

Various videos about Silesia or Schlesien can be found on YouTube.

East Prussia

With details about the terrible atrocities committed by the Soviet soldiers in the occupation of and subsequent massacres in Nemmersdorf and Goldap in October 1944 becoming more widely known, as East Prussia entered into winter, the "Flight" began in earnest.
Many tried to evade the Russian hordes overland, but when this avenue of escape ended due to the Russian army encirclement, a route west by sea was attempted. For further information focussing on this topic, use can be made of the links given on the page on this Website called Baltic States click here
With the fall of the capital of East Prussia, Koenigsberg (now renamed Kaliningrad), many people died. Just type "koenigsberg 1945" or "Flucht und Vertreibung" into the YouTube search window and there are a number of videos that you can watch [1]

I first read the following words in: "Voices of Loss and Courage: German Women Recount Their Expulsion from East Central Europe, 1944 - 1950" translated, compiled and edited by Brigitte U. Neary and Holle Schneider-Ricks. They are from a poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who was in the Soviet Red Army that caused so much sorrow to the Germans in East Prussia. The words conveyed to me the tragic circumstances that so many German women, of all ages, found themselves facing at this time. I take the liberty in sadly assuming that these few words are indeed the memories of many:

"A moaning, by the walls half muffled:
The mother's wounded, still alive.
The little daughter’s on the mattress,
Dead. How many have been on it?
A platoon, a company perhaps?
A girl’s been turned into a woman,
A woman turned into a corpse…."

West Prussia
The Potsdam Agreement of 1945 granted West Prussia to Poland.
Many German civilians had already fled to escape the Russian advance whilst the vast majority of those that had not fled earlier, were later expelled, losing their homes and most possessions. Germans were also deported to labour camps in the Soviet Union, many to die there.

Pomerania

Sudetenland

East Brandenburg

Bibliography
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