A Terrible Revenge A Terrible Revenge , subtitled " The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans , 1944 – 1950 " is a book written by Cuban - born American lawyer Alfred - Maurice de Zayas , former research fellow at MPG in Heidelberg , Germany . The work is based on a collection of testimonials from German civilians and the Third Reich military personnel ; and devoted to the expulsion of Germans after World War II from states previously occupied by the Nazis . It includes as well selected interviews with British and American politicians who participated at the Potsdam Conference , including Robert Murphy , Geoffrey Harrison ( drafter of article XIII of the Potsdam Protocol ) , and Denis Allen ( drafter of article IX on the provisional post - war borders ) . The book attempts to describe the crimes committed against the German nation by the Soviet Union , Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary and Yugoslavia at the end of World War II – as perceived by the expellees themselves and settlers brought in " Heim ins Reich " ( Home into the Empire ) from the east . The author begins with the history of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe since the 12th century , the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia , the failure of the League of Nations system of minority protection , the outbreak of World War II and selected crimes committed by the Nazis , followed by the story of refugees from the former Eastern parts of Germany ( Silesia , East Prussia , Pomerania , East Brandenburg ) , as well as the fate of German minorities in Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Poland , Romania , Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union . In the book , de Zayas claims that approximately two million Germans died during the post period of 1944 - 1949 , although most recent research on the subject has put the number at around half a million . Printing history . The book originated as a script for a television documentary by the Bavarian Broadcasting . It was a popular rendition of the author ' s monography on the expulsions called the " Nemesis at Potsdam " ( ) . This shorter introduction to the subject was published in German as " Anmerkungen zur Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten " ( 4 editions during 1986 - 1996 , Verlag W . Kohlhammer , Stuttgart , ISBN 3 - 17 - 009297 - 9 ) , first printed in English under the title of " The German Expellees : Victims in War and Peace " ( St . Martin ' s Press , New York , 1993 , Macmillan , London ) . The new , 1994 English title , included the then neologism " ethnic cleansing " , used at that time in relation to the crimes committed by Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1990s . The 5th expanded German 2006 edition was titled " Die deutschen Vertriebenen " ( Leopold Stocker Verlag , ISBN 3 - 902475 - 15 - 3 ) . The book ends with 12 historical theses , 14 legal theses and 10 conclusions . It was positively reviewed in Germany by Andreas Hillgruber in the Historische Zeitschrift and Gotthold Rhode in the " Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung " . The 2006 English edition was expanded by about 20 % . It contains additional information from interviews with the children of the displaced , German expellees who migrated to the United States and Canada , new photos and new statistical tables . Reviews . " This popularly written but still scholarly study follows the author ' s other successful books in the fields of history and international law [ which ] were hailed by historians as well as lawyers as masterpieces of academic craftsmanship . His book . presents in a nutshell the history of the ethnic German population which had settled in the early 13th century in large parts of what is nowadays Eastern Europe . " " Netherlands International Law Review " 1986 , pp . 430 – 431 . " This is the story of the ethnic Germans who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time . Some two million died and fifteen million were displaced - driven from their lands by those opposed to anyone and everything German . . . De Zayas ' s moving plea is that one ' s home should be a human right . As frontiers once more shift in Eastern Europe and families flee in Bosnia , he could hardly have chosen a better moment to deliver it . " " The Times " , ( London ) 18 November 1993 . Criticism . One reviewer , Rainer Ohliger of Humboldt University argues , that de Zayas over - emphasizes the role of the Bund der Vertriebenen ( non - governmental association representing the expellees ) and its property and territorial claims . It has been noted that no West - East migration occurred when this possibility arose after the unification of the German states , and that practically no Germans have returned to the East after the Baltic States , Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary and Romania entered the European Union . The book has also been criticized for its victim - perspective , normally unsuitable for scholarly works , unfavourably comparing it with a more recent book of Detlef Brandes . The 2006 revised and enlarged edition of " Terrible Revenge " with Palgrave / Macmillan takes some of these considerations into account . In the introduction the author notes that a " Terrible Revenge " is a popularized version of his longer monograph " Nemesis at Potsdam " ( 1 - 3 editions Routledge , 6th edition Picton Press , Rockland , Maine 2003 ) . See also review of the Future of Freedom Foundation . Other reviews have criticized both de Zayas and Brandes reversely . According to Eagle Glassheim , Brandes does not provide any moral conclusion deriving from violence against civilians due to their ethnic heritage .