Forgotten Context: German Communities & the Highest WWII Death Percentages in Europe
Priory of Salem, Institute of Peace Studies
Forgotten Context: German Communities & the Highest WWII Death Percentages in Europe
IMPORTANT BACKGROUND FACTS regarding the higher percentages sacrificed in those zones during WWII:
Pre-war Poland had about 1 million German Citizens living there according to the Poland Census of 1931, all with their own institutions and German-language schools etc. They were remnant institutions of the German Monarchs (Princes, Dukes and Kings) as actual sovereign national territory (ie Brunswick had all the Piast blood, as did early princes of the Kiev-Rus etc). This sovereign governance by said Germany-based Dukes were maintained for over 1,000 years, which are still claimed in international law to this day. Brunswick always claimed independence from the Emperors (as is in the heraldry as rights of arms of pretention outside of said domains). These 1 million were just the remnants which survived the Marxist overthrow and were as smaller Islands from what they once were in Poland.
Pre-war Ukraine had about 1.5 million Germans.
Pre-war East Prussia (Kaliningrad) had about 3 million Germans (100% German population) and remained German. It wasn't claimed as Soviet Territory till after 1945, and the de-Westernization (disguised as de-nazification) campaigns of this region began at the end of WWII really, and have not ended.