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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:58:06 -0400
From:         George Frajkor <gfrajkor@CCS.CARLETON.CA>
Subject:      Transfer

  Kucera writes:

>
> >Posted on 2 Sep 1992 at 17:01:34 by George Frajkor
> (abbreviated)
>
> >          The whole idea of expelling the Sudenten germans was Benes'
> >own, as he outlines in his books, and it was carried out by the
> >Czechs. In fact the allies all balked at it at first, but Benes
> >persuaded them that a strong Germ,an minority would be another danger
> >to a Slavic state.  Ethnic cleansing is the word we use today.
>
> I never admired Benes all that much until instructed by the teacher. Imagine:
> What a genius Benes must have been; a president of a small country in exile,
> a third of which was about to lose the war on the Nazi side (Tiso's Slovakia)>
+  and still able to persuade Roosevelt (Yalta), Truman (Potsdam), Churchill
> (Yalta), Attlee (Potsdam), Stalin (both-they didn't have elections where he
> ruled) to expel all the Sudeten Germans! All that by himself, brave fellow!


       The following is from "The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans",
Radomir Luza,  New York University Press, 1964.

       p. 233.    "it will be necessary to rid our country of all the
German bourgeoisie, the pan-German intelligentsia, and those workers
who have gone over to Fascism." --  Benes, Jan. 7, 1942
(following pages detail Benes negotiations to get UK and USSR to agree
to "a reduction in the number of Germans.")

       p.240   The reaction (of the Soviet Union) toward the problem
of the Nazi Germans was not negative, but Moscow had not yet reached
any definite conclusions.  ... However, on June 5 (1943)  Bogomolov
called on Minister Ripka and informed him that the Soviet government
was "now definitely in favor of the transfer of the German Nazi
population from Czechoslovakia."

        p.241   But in the summer of 1943, Benes had succeeded in
having the principle of the transfer of the Germans accepted by the
three Great Powers.

          (following pages concern Benes' successive elaborations of
plans for deportation and compensation, Soviet reservations and
questions about what would his attitude be if Germany were socialist
and revolutionary, etc. , especially p.244 where Soviet reluctance is
detailed.  )

     p.245   Benes felt that he had accomplished a great deal in
1943.  (The U.S. and the USSR) regarded the problem of the Sudeten
FGermans as a Czechoslovak internal affair and expressed their
approval of the principle of transfer.... Yet to appreciate the
dimensions of the Benes triumph one needs only to consider the
acceptance of the method of transfer by the Three Powers represented a
basic change of thinking.

        (following pages give more details of new plans by Benes to
deport people.)

     p.246    During the months of December 1944 and January 1945,
Ripka urged Soviet Russia to support the Czechoslovak request of
putting the principle of transfer into the articles of armistice with
Hungary (in addition to Germany).  Ripka wanted thus to establish a
precedent.  At the beginning, Moscow remained lukewarm.
....The Czechoslovak memorandum containing the plan of transfer ...
was delivered to the three  Great Powers on Nov. 23, 1944.  The tenor
of the replies suggested that the Great Powers preffered to discuss
the matter among themselves before arriving at any binding
proposition.

  (following pages go into more details about revisions to the plan,
including Benes fallback position of retaining 800-thousand Germans if
the Powers objected too much to full expulsion, and US position that
transfer be carried out only subject to international agreement and
under international auspices.  Also that it should be gradual, not
instant)

      P. 268 and further deal with actual beginning of explusions,
Soviet insistence that Allies cannot control it and therefore it was a
fait accompli and should be accepted, etc.

            For your information, Luza is a Czech, not a German or
Slovak.  And you have to read between the lines of a somewhat
alibistic book -- for example, he does not mention the murders of
German civilians except in passing.

             I stand by my original posting.  Kucera should now find
references to support his position.

> >Give credit to the Communists -- once they came to power in the
> >CSFR (or whatever its name was then) they actually halted the
> >deportations.


> The Communists came to absolute power in February 1948. All the Germans were
> gone by then.


       Glad you noticed Henry.  That was my point... that the Czechs
acted swiftly and brutally so that by the time the Communists took
power and halted the deportations, the Germans were gone but the
Hungarians remained in Slovakia.
    I stand by my original posting.
>
> >It was not completed when the Communists halted it.  Your impression
> >that it was a Commy idea probably comes from a recent article in
> >Lidove Noviny, which is specializing these days in denying history.

>   The man can read our mind!

         Yes.
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