Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans: Survivors speak out.

Lesen Sie dieses Buch
im deutschen Original!

Documents on the Expulsion
of the Sudeten Germans
Survivors speak out.

Original: self-published by the Study Group for the Preservation of Sudeten German Interests, 1951
Edited and with an introduction by Dr. Wilhelm Turnwald.
Translated by Gerda Johannsen, Victor Diodon and Arnim Johannis.
Translation in part © 2002-2024 by The Scriptorium and in part © 1951 by the Study Group for the Preservation of Sudeten German Interests; see here and the individual reports for specifics.
Small location maps for each report were added by The Scriptorium; click them for a more detailed map.

Ancestral German soil in Europe's East!
To those whose final resting place it became,
and to those who in their hearts still call it their own,
this publication is humbly dedicated.

Table of Contents

After the war ended in 1945, one of the most gruesome genocides took place that the history of mankind has ever seen: the expulsion and destruction of the Sudeten Germans. The German government has kept knowledge of this extermination and the huge body of documentary evidence quiet, in other words, this chapter of history is supposed to remain tucked away in the hindmost corners of the Federal German archives, there to gather dust and be forgotten. Its publication is not desired.

The poor souls who were tortured to a gruesome death can no longer tell their story - but the survivors can. Driven into a truncated Germany of rubble and ruins, where the people had enough to do to get their own lives back under control, the Sudeten Germans soon gave up trying to tell of their suffering; they buried the knowledge deep within themselves - but nevertheless their story has not been lost, as it was summarized (at least in part) in a book titled Dokumente zur Austreibung der Sudetendeutschen - Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans - and it is our moral duty to those who were tormented to death, to tell the world about this death march of a people - now that the Internet has made such a publication possible.

Hushing-up these events has resulted in the fact that many members of even their own ethnic group do not know the truth about the expulsion, much less the younger generation of the nation that expelled them. On the contrary, misinformation from sources with vested interests has left the younger Czech generations with the mistaken belief that they were made to suffer injustices and thus have a claim to restitution. They feel that the Benes Decrees and the expulsion were warranted. It's hard so see, however, how this can be justified in light of Czechoslovakia's admission to the European Union. The German government, instead of backing its own people, is on the side of the perpetrators' nation and supports its demands. In times of economic hardship even the expellees themselves send "care parcels" to those people whose parents and grandparents robbed them of their home and all they had. Just one case in point is the extensive aid that was sent when the "flood of the century" wrought havoc in parts of Czechoslovakia because the expellers had neglected maintenance on the Oder River. The expellees have ever dispensed with revenge and are satisfied if they can just pay the occasional visit to their old homeland and the present "owners" of what had been their and their forefathers' own possessions.

An ethnic group that has been psychologically browbeaten into cultural illness for half a century is beginning to beg the murderers of its ethnic siblings for forgiveness. For what, may we ask? Perhaps for the things you will read about here? Think about it.

Everyone has a right to one's homeland, and every people has the right to honor its dead - except for the Sudeten Germans, who evidently have neither.

Scriptorium
July 2002

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Regarding the Translations of these Reports
Introduction
Concerning these Reports

Major cities and towns:

Aussig
1. The explosion on July 30, 1945 - A. U.
2. Eyewitness account of the blood bath of July 30, 1945 -
Therese Mager
3. Massacre - Herbert Schernstein
4. Ill-treatment and murder of German workmen - Max Becher
5. The robbing of a blind man - Franz Habelt
6. Transport of the blind - Martha Rauscher
7. Concentration camps Lerchenfeld and Schöbritz -
Heinrich Michel

Brünn
8. Death march to Pohrlitz - M. v. W.
9. Death march and concentration camp:
an old woman's account - M. K.
10. Death march from Brünn to Pohrlitz - Ed. Kroboth
11. Kaunitz College - Katharina Ochs
12. Kaunitz College - Josef Brandejsky
13. Internment camp Klaidovka - Martha Wölfel
14. Severe maltreatment of German soldiers
returning from Russian captivity - Emil Hulla
15. Luggage allowances for the Brünn transport -
Franz Exler
16. The Kleidovka camp: report about the trial of Jan Kouril
before the jury court of Karlsruhe

Brüx
17. Camp at Maltheuern - Dr. med. Carl Grimm
18. Father and brother were murdered - Anni Wagner

Budweis
19. Coal pit Lignit-Mylovar, maltreatment - Karl Stelzig
20. Maltreatment, rape, murder - A.R.

Gablonz/Neisse
21. Robbed in June 1945 - Bruno Hofmann
22. Fatal maltreatment of an old man - Adolf Vogel
23. Resettlement - Anton Nitsche

Iglau
24. Shooting of women in May and June 1945 - Else Köchel
25. Reign of terror - Franz Kaupil
26. Maltreatment, withholding of personal belongings, father
was murdered - Robert Pupeter
27. State of the luggage in the Iglau camp - Alfred Chlad

Jägerndorf
28. Concentration camp Jägerndorf, severe
maltreatment of a 71-year-old man - Josef Kramlovsky
29. Abuse during transport and in the camp - Johann Korsitzke
30. Attempted rapes - Erika Kunisch
31. Burgberg concentration camp,
maltreatment resulting in death - Olga Arnt
32. Cases of severe maltreatment in the court prison -
Otto Langer, veterinarian

Karlsbad
33. Arbitrary arrest - F. Danzer
34. Severe abuse in the camp - Josef Mörtl
35. Karlsbad Court prison, Neurohlau - Hedwig Nao
36. Severe harassment by an administrator - Wilhelm Meindl
37. Abuse of a 65-year-old woman by Czech youths
in the street - Leopoldine Schneider
38. Severe abuse of a police constable - Alfred Müller
38a. Karlsbad, execution of the sexton - Marie Scherzer
39. Karlsbad-Lenitz, severe abuse on the grounds
of a false accusation on July 4, 1945 - Anton Riedl

Kladno
40. Kladno concentration camp, the march to the border,
and rapes - engineer Eugen Scholz
41. Persecution of the Germans from the Protectorate -
Erika Griessmann

Komotau
42. The concentration camp - Ottokar Kremen

Landskron
43. The Massacre on May 17, 1945 - Julius Friedel

Mährisch Ostrau [Moravian Ostrau]
44. Arrest, expulsion, death march - Rudolf Schneider
45. Inhuman brutalities in the
Hanke concentration camp in 1945 - Ernst Schorz
46. The Hanke concentration camp - Alfred Kutschker
47. Severe ill-treatment and murder of prisoners of war -
Heinz Lapczyna

Mährisch Schönberg [Moravian Schönberg]
48. Severe maltreatment in the prison of Moravian Schönberg,
February-March 1946 - Hans Wisur
49. Elderly people maltreated while withdrawing savings
at City Hall - Moritz Hilscher

Olmütz
50. Concentration camp Hodolein: maltreatment, robbery - K. S.
51. Camp Hodolein: Cases of maltreatment and murders - K. S.
52. Camp Hodolein: Shooting of elderly people - Hermine Pytlik
53. The concentration camp, maltreatment - Dr. Hein
54. Camp Hodolein: Withholding mail from England -
Walburga Lindenthal
55. Concentration camps Olmütz and Stefanau,
harassment of elderly people - Hermann Komarek
56. The Hodolein camp, maltreatment - Kurt Domes, engineer

Pilsen
57. Experiences in the district prison of Pilsen -
Oskar Gellrich, Franz Reich
58. Convict prison at Bory, May 1945 to March 1946 -
Karl Oberdörfer
59. A German family's account - Maria Schöber
60. Severe abuse, death, dysentery, typhus, dropsy -
Franz Pilfusek

Prague
61. Events in May and June 1945 - K.F., physicist
62. Prague-Theresienstadt, maltreatment of old women -
Anna Seidel
63. Inhuman atrocities in Prague - Marianne Klaus
64. The fate of German women in 1945 - Helene Bugner
65. The ordeal of an inventor - Johann Schöniger
66. Blood bath in the Scharnhorst School
concentration camp - Hildegard Hurtinger
67. Inhuman atrocities - Alfred Gebauer
68. Prague-Wokowitz, penal camp Kladno - Ing. Franz Rösch
69. Concentration camp Prosetschnitz - Dr. Pohlner
70. The camp at Rusin, the march to Dresden - Hans Freund
71. My experiences in Czechoslovakia, 1945-46 - W. L.
72. The Motol camp - Schreiber
73. Execution of 18 prisoners of war on August 9, 1945 -
Eduard Flach, lieutenant colonel (ret'd.)
74. Prague-Raudnitz - A.W.
75. Prague, 1945-1947 - Dr. Hans Wagner, M.D.
76. Pankratz, mass graves, mutilations - Sebastian Herr
77. The transport of Modrany - border superintendent
of Wiesau

Reichenberg
78. Report about the events of 1945-46 - Emil Breuer
79. Massacre on Tuch Square, May 3, 1945 - T. M.
80. Expulsion of Reich Germans on May 30, 1945 -
Heinrich Ackerhans and 8 other Germans from the Reich
81. Treatment of sick people - Justine Pilz
82. Imprisoned one year for no reason - Franz Fiedler
83. Maltreatment of women - Marianne Chytil
84. Treatment of Jews - Dr. Rudolf Fernegg

Saaz-Postelberg
85. Czech reign of terror - Dr. jur. Franz Freyer, district judge

Teplitz-Schönau
86. Woman brutally abused - Julia Käthe Tseng
87. Maltreatment in prison - A. B.
88. Deportees robbed on June 1, 1945 - Walter Weichert
89. Mental patient murdered - Theresia Wiegand
90. A typical woman's fate - Käte Leitenberger

Theresienstadt
91. Internment camp "Little Fortress" - Dr. E. Siegel, M.D.
92. Severe abuse in the camp - Hans Strobl
93. A prisoner's eyewitness account - Eduard Fritsch

Troppau
94. Severe maltreatment of a woman in 1945 - Elfriede Hanke
95. Collection camp, torture of a sick man in autumn 1945 -
V. Skolaut
96. Cases of severe maltreatment in the camp - Emma Bittner
97. Severe maltreatment in the camp - Rundt
98. Woman fatally injured on or about November 20,1945 -
Alois Leckl
99. Abuse and rape - M. T.
100. Confiscation of a family tomb - Wilhelm Loy
101. Eye injury as result of abuse - Dr. Karl Prokop
102. Concentration camp Schimrowitz, woman maltreated
after giving birth - Maria Weißhuhn

Smaller towns, in alphabetical order:

More from our Archive:

Sudeten German Inferno
The hushed-up tragedy of the Sudeten Germans

Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans
Survivors speak out