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

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.

Important and often ignored truths concerning the ugly side of the allied victory over NAZI Germany. De Zayas presents a very much needed perspective into the suffering experienced by ordinary Germans during and after the war - specifically in the former German provences of East Prussia, Silesia and Pommerania, as well as the Sudeten and Donauschwaben Germans.Not a pleasant read when one hears testimony after testimony of heinous acts of revenge perpetrated by the Poles, Russians and Czechs - esp. the murderous gang rapes which were seen as an almost just reparation for the crimes of the German nation. De Zayas does an equally admirable job in questioning the "moral high ground" of the allies in prosecuting German millitiary leaders for "war crimes" involing making war on civilian populations, while at the same time they incinerated 100,000+ cilivians in Dresden, sank German refugee ships in the Baltic containing upwards of 8000 cililian passengers fleeing the Russian advance (Wilhelm Gustloff), and sent attack planes to machine-gun fleeing German cililians at Dresden and Danzig (Frische Nehrung). A BALANACED view you won't get from "cut and paste" historians or Hollywood --- in whose perspective no one but the allies were killed or suffered, only British civilians were killed in air attacks, and all Germans are non-persons screaming "schnell" and "actung."

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.

The book presents evidence of the explusion from territories their families had inhabited for centuries. The author does not gloss over nor excuses the crimes planned and executed by the Nazi government during WW2, and I found this to be very reassuring. After reading the book, I went and did more research, and found that there were other authors also writing books that present some of the facts that are contained in Mr. De Zayas' research (for example, John Sachs' book on Polish concentration camps for Germans). I even found books at Rutgers University library (from the 1950's)that detailed the Allied plans to resettle millions of expelled Germans from Poland and the (current) Czech republic within the four occupation zones of postwar Germany -- these details were negotiated by the victorius western powers and the Soviet Union. I applaud this and other efforts to inform the public of the truth, regardless of ideology. It is a reminder that, after all, the blood we all spill is exactly the same shade of red ...

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+