End of War May 8, 1945

May 8, 1945: How Manfred Schirmacher survived the escape and expulsion after planet War II



Reading time: 4 minutes

80 years ago, erstwhile planet War II ended, the Allies liberated Germany from Nazi dictatorship. Millions of Germans fled west. Manfred Schirmacher was then 7 years old.

Manfred Schirmacher survived planet War II


He was a kid at the time, but Manfred Schirmacher can't get free of his memories: "To this day, I remember how the bomb fell behind us, and the car with the horses and people sank in the ice," says the 88-year-old. At that time, in February 1945, he was 7 years old and fled on ft with his household through a frozen flood close Könivetsky in East Prussia. A fewer days earlier, they left their village Postnicken.

The invading russian army cut off land routes and the boy, his parent and twelve-year-old brother are on their way, as hundreds of thousands of others, horse and wagon, on foot, transported by trucks, freight trains, ships across the Baltic Sea to the west. The war rages everywhere: there's a shooting going on, low-flying planes racing over the routes, bombs falling all the time.


The household manages to get a seat on the whale ship "Walter Rau". As a child, as Schirmacher recalls, "it was a wonderful experience for me erstwhile I saw many ships in the convoy." But after a good feeling, fear rapidly appears. Ships are attacked by a submarine, but they escape. another ships, specified as Wilhelm Gustloff, are hit and drowned; Thousands of refugees die.


End of war and surrender in 1945.

"Walter Rau" yet moors in Copenhagen, which is inactive occupied by the German Wehrmacht until the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. "On 28 March, we were allowed to land," says Schirmacher with a muted voice, "I got an extra hard-boiled egg from the Red Cross due to the fact that it was my eighth birthday."

Like Schirmacher and his family, millions of people embarked on a journey 80 years ago: they fled Western and east Prussia, Pomerania or Silesia from the war launched by national socialist Germany. Members of the Red Army, liberated Poles or Czechoslovakians besides avenge Hitler's time of business and brutal extermination campaign. Many Germans in the East die from bombs, famine, cold and disease. There are murders, shootings and rapes.

There are different data on the number of victims among German refugees and displaced persons:

"We presume that more than 600,000 to a million people died as a consequence of escape and expulsion," says Gundula Bavendamm, manager of the Escape, Exile and Reconciliation Documentation Centre in Berlin. Over 1.5 million lives are considered unexplained, while another sources frequently talk about 2 million victims.

Poczdamska Conference 1945

A fewer months after the end of the war, in August 1945, the Allies made a decision at the conference in Poczdamska to "ordered resettlement of the German population" from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. As a consequence of escape and displacement, the homeland loses a full of more than 14 million Germans from east lands and the German-inhabited regions of Sudeten, Romania and Hungary. 12.5 million of them scope the area west of Odra as refugees and displaced persons.

"About two-thirds of them displaced arrived in the western business zones," explains Bavendamm. 1 3rd went to the business region of the USSR, and so later to the erstwhile GDR. But my countrymen's reception wasn't friendly. "In 1945, there was no “a culture of hospitality” in either the East or the West," explains the historian. Postwar society fought for survival, cities were destroyed. "And although the Germans came to the Germans, they experienced alienity, for example due to different dialects and customs," he describes the situation of Bavendamm.

However, while in the GDR the alleged "residences" were called "exiles" and the dictatorship had to be silent about suffering and experience, the alleged Landsmannschaften was in force in the national Republic of Germany, and the policy provided compensation in the form of equalisation of burdens. "And the displaced people who had to start over with their industriousness contributed to the economical recovery in the East and the West," says Bavendamm.

Manfred Schirmacher stayed in Denmark for another 3 years in camps which were taken over by the Danish government after the war ended. It was not until 1948 that the household received approval to emigrate to Neustadt, Schleswig-Holstein, where the father found work in the meantime.

He was educated as an agricultural machinery engineer, later became an engineer and yet worked at a pharmaceutical company in Bergkamen for 40 years. His wife, Helga, besides escaped from today's Poland as a child:

"In January 1945, I ran distant with my parent and 3 siblings from Nakel in Western Prussia," says 87-year-old. There's inactive a phase of escape in her mind. In Küstrin, the household was accommodated in an anti-aircraft shelter while fighting continued outside. During the ceasefire, the girl saw through the open basement door, a "burning Russian" rolling down the stairs as described. "Sometimes I dream of seeing it." He's talking.

The Schirmachers were active in the activities of regional associations and Protestant church – she in support of women, he in the church choir. They traveled respective times to their old homeland. Her 2 sons participated in the nationwide competition "History of Germany" in the scope of describing escape routes. They besides organized transports with humanitarian aid to their parents' household sides in the areas of present-day Poland and Russia.

----------

80 years ago, erstwhile planet War II ended, The Allies liberated Germany from the Nazi dictatorship. Millions of Germans fled west.

"I think 1 of the problems is that Germany never truly considered adequate how the war affected Poland or how it affected today's generations of Poles. There are always words that we gotta learn from the past, we gotta make certain that it never happens again, and that is why we can never go against Russia and so on. But there is no akin reasoning in relation to Poland or Ukraine” He emphasizes.

in Copenhagen, which is inactive occupied by the German Wehrmacht until Nazi surrender Germany on May 8, 1945

millions of people embarked on a journey 80 years ago: they fled Western and east Prussia, Pomerania or Silesia before the war launched by national socialist Germany. Members of the Red Army, liberated Poles or Czechoslovakians besides avenge Hitler's time of business and brutal extermination campaign. Many Germans in the East die from bombs, famine, cold and disease. There are murders, shootings and rapes.

subjugating the occupied nations of the vigilante's gems, by default - the cruel 1 to distance the size of his own crimes and again stressing that Germany did not do it, only Hitler. and "National Socialist Germany"

About German crimes briefly and not about: "time of business and Hitler's violent extermination campaign", but with "avengers" expanded with decimals: "died of bombs, hunger, cold and disease. There are murders, shootings and rapes"

"In 1945, there was no “a culture of hospitality” in either the East or the West," explains the historian. Postwar society fought for survival, cities were destroyed. "And although the Germans came to the Germans, yet they experienced alienity, for example due to different dialects and customs"

In the national Republic of Germany, the alleged Landsmannschaften was in force and the policy provided compensation in the form of equalisation of burdens. "And the displaced people, who had to start over, contributed industriously to the economical recovery in the East and the West,"

another chance to wipe out the fact that Germany started a war on the spoils in Poland and that it did not "industry"But stolen goods, debt relief, pro-economic policy, and of course - no compensation for his crimes towards Poland and not only decided on the financial welfare of post-war Germany.

They besides organized transports with humanitarian aid to their parents' household sides in the areas of present-day Poland and Russia.

By Wikipedia for Poles About 600,000 russian soldiers were killed during the fighting in Poland.

In the final phase of planet War II, SS guards pursued alleged death marches of concentration camp prisoners for 2 purposes: they withdrew evidence of their crimes in concentration and extermination camps before Allied troops, eliminating victims and trying to preserve at least part of the prisoners' work for another camps.

Prisoners who were not fit to leave were frequently shot in mass. any of the camp was set on fire by the SS before it left. any death marches ended with disasters specified as the sinking of Cap Arcon, or a massacre, like in Isenschnibber Feldscheune in Gardelegen or in Palmnicken.

After the end of the war in 1945, more than 15 million Germans began to be displaced from the east (Eastern Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, Neumark) and the south east (Sudety, Danube, Swabia, Besarabia). In many death marches Germans were driven out of their hometowns.

The most celebrated is the death march in Brno, which was attended by 27,000 participants and 5,200 killed, as well as the death march of the Komotau (Sudety) people to Saxony.