Schweinfurt, Bavaria, Germany — Central Europe

Schweinfurt German Expellees' Memorial

Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, November 21, 2016

1. Schweinfurt German Expellees' Memorial Marker

Inscription. {The marker consists of a plaque and an inscription on the monument on which the plaque is mounted.}

[Plaque:]

In dankbarem Gedenken an die Aufnahme von über 32.000 Heimatvertriebenem aus dem Sudetenland, Nieder- und Oberschlesien, West- und Ostpreussen, Pommern, dem Banat, Siebenbürgen, der Heimat der Donau Schwaben, und der Deutschen aus Russland nach dem 2. Weltkrieg in das von Bomben zerstörte Schweinfurt und im Landkreis Schweinfurt [English translation:]

In grateful remembrance of the reception after World War II in bomb-damaged Schweinfurt and its surrounding county of the more than 32,000 persons expelled from their homelands in the Sudetenland (Czech Republic), Lower- and Upper Silesia (Poland), West and East Prussia (Poland, Russia, Lithuania), Pomerania (Poland), The Banat (Hungary), Siebenburg (Romania), the homelands of the Danube Swabians (Serbia, Romania), and Germans from Russia.

[Monument inscription:]

Wir gedenken der Millionen Deutschen Toten durch Flucht Vertreibung Internierung und Zwangsarbeit

[English translation:]

We commemorate the deaths of millions of Germans who died from expulsion, internment, and forced labor.

Erected

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2014.

Topics. This memorial is listed in this topic list: War, World II.

Location. 50° 2.498′ N, 10° 13.88′ E. Marker is in Schweinfurt, Bayern (Bavaria). Memorial is on Schultessstrasse just east of Schillerplatz. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Schweinfurt BY 97421, Germany. Touch for directions.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Panzer-Regiment 4 Memorial (here, next to this marker); Schweinfurt Romany Memorial (within shouting distance of this marker); Schweinfurt Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial (within shouting distance of this marker); Anno 1726 (about 120 meters away, measured in a direct line); Städt. Sparkasse / Municipal Savings Bank (approx. 0.3 kilometers away); Professor Theodor Fischer (approx. 0.3 kilometers away); Ehemalige Rückert-Buchhandlung / The Former Rueckert Bookshop (approx. 0.4 kilometers away); Raven Hotel / Hotel zum Raben (approx. 0.4 kilometers away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Schweinfurt.

More about this memorial. The marker is located in Alte Friedhof Park, about 3/4 of the way back, on the left.

Also see . . .
1. The Changing relationship between expellees... (Institute for Research of Expelled Germans). ... From the spring of 1945
Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, November 21, 2016

2. Schweinfurt German Expellees' Memorial Marker - Wide View
until the close of 1948, with varying degrees of direct involvement, the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States orchestrated the expulsion of virtually all ethnic German minorities from Eastern Europe. By the end of the expulsion programs, more than 10,000,000 German-speaking civilians had been removed, with as many as 5,000,000 more fleeing prematurely due to fear of reprisals against the local populations after the brutal war crimes of the Third Reich. Falsely depicting the ethnic German communities as universally pro-Nazi agents of pan-German irredentism, their diverse ideologies were ignored in the interest of attaining modern, homogenized ethnic states free from all remnants of “foreign hegemony.” Before their deportation, hundreds of thousands more were forced into compulsory labor to rebuild the nations that Germany had decimated, dismissing the fact that most of these diasporic communities' ancestors had not even seen Germany for centuries. Nearly all of the 1,084,828 ethnic Germans in the USSR were shipped on trains to the wastelands of Kazakhstan to perform forced labor alone before the German armies had a chance to reach them, with some estimating as high as a 30% death rate. Rather than targeting SS volunteers or confirmed Nazi collaborators, the German ethnic identity itself
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was singled out for removal. The post-war governments, in their aspirations to forge fully-sovereign states on a unified ethnic basis, completely remapped the demography of Europe. In total, at least 473,013 expellees may have died in transit due to hypothermia, starvation, and to a lesser extent direct violence. The Red Cross and the West German government cited as many as 2,200,000 deaths.... (Submitted on December 1, 2016.)

2. Heimatvertriebene (Wikipedia). Heimatvertriebene (German for "expellees", literally "persons driven from their home countries") are those around 12 million German citizens (no matter of which ethnicity) and ethnic Germans (no matter of which citizenship) who fled or were expelled after World War II from parts of Germany annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union (today Russia), and from other countries (the so-called einheitliches Vertreibungsgebiet; i.e. uniform territory of expulsion), who found refuge in both West and East Germany, and Austria.... (Submitted on December 1, 2016.)

Additional keywords. migration refugees resettlement

Credits. This page was last revised on January 28, 2022. It was originally submitted on December 1, 2016, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California. This page has been viewed 238 times since then and 9 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on December 1, 2016, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California.