A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans (Paperback)

~ Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (Author) "German expellees? Who are they?..." (more)
Key Phrases: many expellees, terrible revenge, East Prussia, United States, Red Army (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the first edition:
"De Zayas has uncovered testimony in German and American archives detailing these atrocities, adding a new chapter to the annals of human cruelty. His carefully documented book serves as a reminder that many different peoples have been subjected to ethnic cleansing."--Publishers Weekly
"DeZayas's moving plea is that one's home should be a human right. As frontiers once more shift in Eastern Europe, he could hardly have chosen a better moment to deliver it."--The Times (London)

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

The closing phase and the aftermath of World War II saw millions of refugees and displaced persons wandering across Eastern Europe in one of the most brutal and chaotic migrations in world history.

The genocidal barbarism of the Nazi forces has been well documented. What hitherto has been little known is the fate of fifteen million German civilians who found themselves at the mercy of Soviet armies and on the wrong side of new postwar borders. All over Eastern Europe, the inhabitants of communities that had been established for many centuries were either expelled or killed. Over two million Germans did not survive.

Many of these people had supported Hitler, and for the Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, and surviving Jews, their fate must have seemed just. However, the great majority--East Prussian farmers, Silesian industrial workers, their wives and children--were guiltless. Their fate, sentenced purely by race, remains an appalling legacy of the period.

Alfred de Zayas's book describes this horrible retribution. On the basis of extensive research in German and American archives, he outlines the long history of these German communities, scattered from the Baltic to the Danude, and, most movingly, reproduces the testimonies of surviors from the catastrophic exodus that marked the final end to Nazi fantasies of Lebensraum.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (August 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312121598
• ISBN-13: 978-0312121594
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #598,379 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

154 of 174 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important book about forgotten facts., April 11, 2000

By	brx "brxx" - See all my reviews

Being a (young) German, and not from an expelled family, I was quite unaware of what went on during the last days of the war in Eastern Germany. Nobody tells you about that here. The "Vertriebenen" (Expelled ones) are considered to be very strange and right-wing and do not have much public exposure. Reading this book I was very shocked and touched, understanding the pain and loss of those people. Even worse, they are not even allowed to express what they have witnessed. The Shoah is very well documentated (and rightly so), but this dark chapter of the holocaust on the Germans after the war will soon be forgotten. The book is very well written, very balanced and not biased, the facts are proven and documentated. Reading it, I had the same bitter feeling that I head reading the KZ-Documents F321 and other first-hand recollection of the Shoah: Men are beasts, and there is no cruelty they will not commit if they are allowed to do that. Hitler allowed the SS to kill the Jews any which way they wanted. Chuchill and Roosevelt allowed Stalin and Benez to kill the Germans any which way they wanted. And they all did.

78 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The tragedy of the largest ethnic-cleansing event in history, July 6, 1999

By	Miguel Rodriguez ([e-mail]) (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

Alfred-Maurice De Zayas' book recounts the events that unfolded during the first few-months of 1945 in Germany's historic eastern provinces. This tragedy, that was the extermination of an 800-year old civilization in Eastern Europe, is regrettably an event that still remains an unknown, even in modern western intellectual circles. De Zayas' book decribes the harrowing tale that the 13 million eastern Germans faced: the largest ethnic-cleansing of human beings, the largest maritime evacuation of civilians, and the most horrific naval disasters in history. The book is a monument to the great cruelty and depravity that mankind is capable of, and the little dignity that even moral powers can have for their victims. It is a dedication to the millions that suffered because of their ethnic origin and to the 2.5 million Germans that vanished. Today, the survivors and relatives of these expellees acount for 1/5 of the German population. This book will be intstrumental in understanding the future evolution of Polish-German and Czech-German affairs. A DEFINITE BUY! A+

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harrowing tales of forgotten victims, July 10, 2002

By	Bobby Dillard (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews

This book tells the tale of millions of ethnic Germans who were murdered, deported or otherwise ethnically cleansed from areas in eastern Europe towards the end of World War II and in the immediate years following the Third Reich's final defeat. This story has rarely been touched upon in books until now. The author recounts many first hand narratives of survivors of the violence that was doled out to anyone of German ancestry who found themselves in areas conquered by the Soviet army plus lists evidence gathered by the German Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. Among the horrors the reader will encounter is the savagery dealt out to citizens of the German town of Nemmersdorf which included crucifictions of women and the mass murder of children. The reader will march along ethnic Germans being forced from their homes in eastern Europe and will witness the wholesale murders that befell many.

De Zayas proves that victims know no nationality. I recommend this book for all interested in World War II and the immediate aftermath.