The First Refugee Crisis

~ Clarissa

Come to think of it, there might be a reason why Germans have such an intense reaction to the word “refugees.” The biggest refugee crisis in human history took place in Germany in 1945-6. Fifteen million Germans were homeless + there were about 9 million displaced persons, and these 24,000,000 people were roaming the devastated country, starving and desperate.

As we all know, if Americans didn’t feel sorry for the pitiful Germans to the point of being willing to give up on de-Nazification and feed them, most of these people would have died.

This might be the memory that is lurking in the background of the current refugee situation in Europe.

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Published by Clarissa

10 thoughts on “The First Refugee Crisis”

  1. It is interesting that your view point is that the Americans saved the day with food when in fact they waited until 1948 to stop restricting food supply incase there was a Nazi uprising. Plenty of offers were made by European countries wiling to supply Germany with food and all were disallowed.

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    1. It’s not my viewpoint. It’s the consensus of all major historians working on the subject.

      What European countries could have fed the Germans given that Europe lay in ruins?

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  2. The post-war treatment of Germans by the Allies was pretty bad:

    AFTER THE REICH is a good compilation documenting the total collapse of the German government and of a German people at the complete mercy of the victors. The book is complete with many first person narratives of the difficult lean years following the end of the European war. The account makes no judgement as to whether the Germans deserved what they got or whether the Allies were too harsh on a people that they, for better or worse, gained responsibility for once an area was overrun. It really becomes a question as to whether or not you view Germany as liberated or conquered.

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    1. They were treated a lot better than they deserved. And a lot better than they treated the people they had very recently conquered.

      And I believe it would be enormously offensive to refer to Germany as “liberated.” Germans eagerly and massively supported their Nazi leaders. They chose Nazism, and there was nothing to liberate them from. Of course, they were conquered.

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    1. I like Adenauer but the article is a bit ridiculous. Americans appointed him because his name started with an A and they were too bored to look any further.

      I’m very surprised that nobody seems to be aware of the Marshall Plan and the American rebuilding of Europe. Maybe I should continue annotating Tony Judt’s book on the blog.

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      1. \ Maybe I should continue annotating Tony Judt’s book on the blog.

        I would absolutely love it. Also, you once promised to write about Stalin and Lenin when you have time. 🙂

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  4. Pfft. I know that Dresden was firebombed and that when the Russians came into Germany there were mass rapes, but I’ve never heard of the post WWII German situation referred to as a refugee crisis. If anything the Germans created a massive refugee crisis with their warmongering.

    If anything the standard line was “punitive sanctions post WWI led to WWII so they decided not to repeat it but instead went with the Marshall Plan”.

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