‘Evacuation’ (from the Latin evacuare, ‘to empty’) refers to the removal of people from an area. In some cases, terms such as ‘clearance’ or ‘clearing’ are also used as alternatives.

The term ‘evacuation’ refers to a form of migration that is often carried out under duress and is prompted by an emergency situation in a particular region (threat of war, breakdowns of technical infrastructure, natural disasters). This migration usually takes place on the understanding that it is a temporary measure and that those affected will be able to return. In many cases, the process of an evacuation is virtually indistinguishable from that of flight or forced resettlement. In addition to the aim of situation-driven, temporary migration, Johannes Großmann and Fabian Lemmes identify three further characteristics of ‘evacuation’: It is an administratively initiated measure; it usually affects the ‘own’ population of the state initiating the evacuation; and for those affected, there is often an ambivalence between it being a protective measure and a coercive one. Both authors identify the protection of the population as one of the objectives of an evacuation, but also the facilitation of military operations, the safeguarding of resources vital to the war effort, and the removal from the affected region of sections of the population that may be unreliable towards the ruling state.^[1]

History is replete with examples of war-related evacuations, such as the evacuation of Moscow during Napoleon’s Russian campaign in 1812 or the partial evacuation of frontline areas during the First World War (e.g. in East Prussia in 1914). The term has also been used in connection with serious nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima, as well as during the defusing of bombs dating from the Second World War in German city centres.

With regard to the history of Germans in Eastern Europe, the term ‘evacuation’ is primarily used to describe the war-induced, which were mostly enforced during and towards the end of the Second World War, of so-called‘ethnic Germans’from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, as well as the population from the former German eastern provinces. However, the specific migration process referred to varied in the contemporary usage of the term. For instance, the National Socialists initially used it to refer to the clearance of the German-French border region in 1939–40, and later, in some cases, to the deportation of Jews. During the course of the Second World War, the term was also applied to the relocation of people displaced by bombing from major German cities. In 1943, Nazi propaganda again sought to avoid the term ‘evacuation’ – which had connotations of an emergency situation – and to replace it with ‘repatriation’, ‘clearance’ or ‘clearing out’.

English: evacuation; French: évacuation; Polish: ewakuacja; Czech: evakuace; Slovak: evakuácia; Russian: ėvakuacija.

The evacuations carried out by Nazi Germany began in 1943 with the ‘repatriation’ of Germans from Russia, which took place in parallel with the Wehrmacht’s retreat. Initially, the main actors involved were those responsible for Nazi ethnic and resettlement policies, such as the Central Office for Ethnic Germans, which contributed its experience and objectives. This organisational link demonstrates that the evacuations at the end of the war must also be viewed within the context of the Nazi resettlement agenda that had been in place since 1939. From 1944 onwards, evacuations of sections of the German population from Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia followed. As Soviet troops advanced, the Nazi authorities, from autumn 1944 onwards, triggered the flight of the German population from the eastern regions of the German Reich (primarily East Prussia and Silesia), usually at short notice. These evacuations, which continued until the end of the war, were often carried out under duress: in many cases, those affected refused to leave their homes. This applied, for example, to the major cities of Königsberg/Kaliningrad and Breslau/Wrocław, which had been declared ‘fortresses’; at the beginning of 1945, their inhabitants – with the exception of those directly involved in the defence – were evacuated by force and, in some cases, to destinations that remained unclear. Contrary to what many of those involved claimed after 1945, most of the evacuations were not organised but chaotic. The majority of those affected were women, children and the elderly.

It should not be forgotten that in many places, the murder of Jews or political opponents was carried out in parallel with the evacuations.

After the end of the war, many of those evacuated attempted to return to their home towns. However, those who succeeded in doing so were, in most cases, later forcibly resettled on the basis of the Potsdam Agreement.

Even today, many accounts remain vague when it comes to contextualising the evacuations of 1944–45. This includes situating them between the Nazi ‘Volkstum’ policy on the one hand and the events of flight and expulsion on the other, as well as taking into account military and political developments in South-Eastern Europe. In historiography, the evacuations are usually categorised as part of the events of flight and expulsion. However, intentions and contexts must be taken into account in order to be able to place these migratory processes in their historical context beyond the aforementioned categorisation. Firstly, this involves the fact that during the final year of the war, evacuations took place not only in the East but also on the Western Front (e.g. the evacuation of the city of Aachen in September 1944), which raises the question of their objectives. The plans drawn up by the Nazi authorities also reveal that the aim was not solely to protect the civilian population; in many cases, the recruitment of labour and the removal of materials were of great significance. With regard to the evacuations from East Central and South-Eastern Europe – which have received far less attention than the events in the former German eastern provinces – the overall developments in the countries concerned must also be taken into account. For example, the Slovak State, which collaborated with Germany, planned extensive evacuations in the east of the country, which is why it can be assumed that there were a number of parallel, mutually influencing refugee movements.

The role of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi administration has also frequently been the subject of debate in the past. Whilst older publications suggest that the Wehrmacht did everything in its power to protect the German civilian population, more recent studies show that priority was given not to ensuring the safety of the evacuations, but to continuing the war.^[2] Recently, the question has also been raised as to what extent the decision to carry out the evacuations was the right one at all. It is true that attention has been drawn to the atrocities committed by Soviet soldiers against civilians in regions overrun by the front. Eva Hahn and Hans Henning Hahn argue, however, that the evacuations triggered chaotic conditions and led to a large number of casualties.^[3] The general consensus of most other studies, however, is that it was not the evacuations themselves, but rather their often hasty and poorly organised implementation that caused the suffering of those fleeing.^[4]

• Götz Aly: ‘The Final Solution’. The Mass Transfer of Peoples and the Murder of the European Jews. Frankfurt am Main, 1995.
• R[ay] M. Douglas: ‘Ordinär Überführung’. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War. 2nd edition, Munich 2014.
• Johannes Großmann/Fabian Lemmes: Evacuations in the Age of the World Wars. State of Research, Concepts and Perspectives. In: Ibid./Nicolas J. Williams/Oliver Forcade/Rainer Hudemann (eds.): Evacuations in Europe during the World Wars. Berlin 2014, pp. 11–34.
• Eva Hahn/Hans Henning Hahn: Expulsion in German Collective Memory. Legends, Myths, History. Paderborn 2010.
• Ian Kershaw: The End. Fighting to the Last. Nazi Germany 1944/45. Munich 2013 (original English edition 2011).
• Michael Schwartz: Ethnic ‘Cleansing’ as a Consequence of War: Causes and Course of the Expulsion of the German Civilian Population from East Germany and Eastern Europe 1941 to 1950. In: Rolf-Dieter Müller (ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War 10/2: The Collapse of the German Reich in 1945. The Consequences of the Second World War. Munich 2008, pp. 509–656.

[1] Großmann/Lemmes: Evacuations in the Age of the World Wars, p. 16 et seq.

[2] Kershaw: The End, p. 289.

[3] Hahn/Hahn: Expulsion in German Memory, pp. 262–292.

[4] Kershaw: The End, pp. 167ff. and 256.

Martin Zückert: Evacuation. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2017. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32812 (accessed 4 September 2020).