Operation Black Tulip - expulsion of Germans from the West

[Panzermahn]

Hi all

We all know that after WW2, millions of Germans were evicted and deported from the East. But less is known about expulsions of Germans from the West

Wikipedia has an entry for Operation Black Tulip, where at least 3,000 plus Germans were forcibly evicted from Netherlands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Tulip

Also there were plans by the Dutch to annexe German territories after the defeat of Germany in 1945, namely the Bakker-Schut Plan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakker-Schut_Plan

Had not the Western Allies dismissal of these Dutch plans, it would have been an "Oder-Neisse" of the West for Germany where millions of Germans living in these areas would have been forcibly deported, if not Dutchtified.

However the dismissal of the Dutch plans and the Morgenthau plan was not out of humanitarian considerations but in view of new political developments (Cold War) in the late 40s and the Western Allies understood they need a stable West Germany to serve as a bulwark against Bolshevism/communism

[David Thompson]

Panzermahn -- You wrote: (1)

Had not the Western Allies dismissal of these Dutch plans, it would have been an "Oder-Neisse" of the West for Germany where millions of Germans living in these areas would have been forcibly deported, if not Dutchtified.

But it never happened, did it?

(2)

However the dismissal of the Dutch plans and the Morgenthau plan was not out of humanitarian considerations but in view of new political developments (Cold War) in the late 40s and the Western Allies understood they need a stable West Germany to serve as a bulwark against Bolshevism/communism

Source(s) please. You know our rules.

[Panzermahn]

Panzermahn -- You wrote: (1)

Had not the Western Allies dismissal of these Dutch plans, it would have been an "Oder-Neisse" of the West for Germany where millions of Germans living in these areas would have been forcibly deported, if not Dutchtified.

But it never happened, did it?

(2)

However the dismissal of the Dutch plans and the Morgenthau plan was not out of humanitarian considerations but in view of new political developments (Cold War) in the late 40s and the Western Allies understood they need a stable West Germany to serve as a bulwark against Bolshevism/communism

Source(s) please. You know our rules.

Hi David

The second Wikipedia link i provided stated the reason why the Bakker Schut Plan was not implemented:

The large scale annexation was in 1947 rejected by the Allied High Commission, on the grounds that Germany already contained 14,000,000 refugees from the annexations in the east, and that the remaining territory could not handle more refugees. Furthermore, the allies (in particular the Americans) considered it vital to have a stable West-Germany in view of the coming Cold War. All suggested annexations of the Morgenthau Plan were ignored as a result of new political developments.

At a conference of foreign ministers of the western allied occupation forces in London (January 14 until February 25, 1947), the Dutch government (Cabinet Beel I) claimed an area of 1,840 km2. This claim included apart from the island Borkum large parts of the Emsland, Bentheim, the cities Ahaus, Rees, Kleve, Erkelenz, Geilenkirchen and Heinsberg and the areas around these cities.

In 1946, about 160,000 people lived in this area, of which more than 90% spoke German. This plan was a very simplified version of the C-variation of the Bakker Schut Plan. The KVP considered this proposal much too small, while the CPN rejected any kind of reparations in the form of territorial expansion.

The London conference of April 23, 1949, only permitted some less far-reaching border modifications. At 12 o'clock of the very same day, Dutch troops occupied an area of 69 km2, the largest parts of which were Elten (near Emmerich am Rhein) and Selfkant. Many other small border corrections were executed, mostly in the vicinity of Arnhem and Dinxperlo. At that time, these areas were inhabited by a total of almost 10,000 people.

Also, it is a well-known historical fact that the Western Allies permitted the rearmament of West Germany in the form of Bundeswehr due to the development of Cold War where West Germany provided the largest number of ground troops in the case where Warsaw Pact invaded Western Europe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr

Even General Patton realised that the Soviets were the true enemy and thought of rearming German POWs for a potential confrontation with Soviet Union

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Pa ... _criticism

But it never happened, did it?

Yes it did not happened fortunately thanks some of the personalities of the Western Allies who knew that such move wouldn't be productive.

[uberjude]

Actually, Panzermahn, even based on what you cited, humanitarian concerns were a part of the decision-making process for Bakker-Schut Plan:

The large scale annexation was in 1947 rejected by the Allied High Commission, on the grounds that Germany already contained 14,000,000 refugees from the annexations in the east, and that the remaining territory could not handle more refugees. Furthermore, the allies (in particular the Americans) considered it vital to have a stable West-Germany in view of the coming Cold War.

I don't know how valid any of this is, but according to your source, concern regarding the ability of Germany to absorb more refugees seems to have been the primary consideration, or at the very least, a major one.

[Sid Guttridge]

A little context:

Nazi Germany intended to annex the whole of the Netherlands to the Reich and, with this aim, sent a lot of the same administrators there who had enabled the assimilation of Austria into the Reich.

So, even the most extreme version of this Dutch plan was very moderate compared with what Germany had proposed for the Netherlands.

It would be very interesting to know whether the 3,000 German deportees mentioned had identified themeselves with the Reich or the Netherlands during the war years. If the former, deportation after the war doesn't seem either inappropriate or unreasonably harsh.

As far as I am aware, the only western European power to gain territory after WWII was France, which took the heads of several Alpine valleys from Italy. By contrast, Germany got off free in terms of territory, despite overunning most of Western Europe and having plans to annex large chunks of it.

As for "Oder-Neisse", it should be remembered that this was the only territorial punishment Germany suffered as a result of WWII. The main objection to it is the vicious manner of the expulsion of the Germans, not the fact that Germany lost territory as a punishment for its role in WWII.

[David Thompson]

Panzermahn -- What is the war crime supposed to be?

[michael mills]

I suggest moving this thread to the section on post-war occupation of Germany, where it more appropriately belongs.

[PFLB]

Morgenthau Plan went down like a ton of bricks long before 1947. The attribution to the Cold War is fallacious. Like alot of other things on Wikipedia.

[michael mills]

Morgenthau Plan went down like a ton of bricks long before 1947.

It all depends what is meant by the term "Morgenthau Plan".

The written plan submitted to Roosevelt by Morgenthau for his meeting with Churchill at the Montreal Conference, and accepted by the two leaders at that conference, was indeed never implemented in full.

However, large elements were incorporated into British and American policy for the treatment of their part of occupied Germany. Indeed, Morgenthau himself believed and stated openly that the decisions made at the Potsdam Conference reflected closely the spirt of his plan, if not every detail of it.

In 1945, Morgenthau published a defence of his plan in the book "Germany is Our Problem". At the front of the book he included a facsimile of the plan taken by Roosevelt to Montreal, and in an appendix the text of the Potsadam decisions; he invites the reader to compare the two, and claims that the essential features of his plan were adopted, such as the demolition of German heavy industry. (I recommend to PFLB that he read that book; there is a copy of it in the ANU library).

Right from the outset there was opposition to Morgenthau's plan by senior US officials in the military and the Department of State (the latter was annoyed by Treasury intruding onto its patch), and Morgenthau himself was forced to resign. Nevertheless US policy in occupied Germany during the first two years after the end of the was was essentially based on Morgenthau's proposals. At first the policy was very harsh; for example, NGOPs were not allowed to send food parcels to Germany until the beginning of 1946, and US occupation troops were forbidden to give or sell surplus food to the German population, being ordered to destroy it instead.

Because of criticism from US officials stationed in Germany, the harshest features of the policy began to be abandoned from the beginning of 1946 onward. Nevertheless, the Military Government was full of so-called "Morgenthau boys", who tried to ensure the implementation of Morgenthau's proposals to the greatest extent possible. For example, demolition of German industry continued until 1949.

It was indeed not until 1947 that all aspects of the Morgenthau Plan expunged from the US administration of Occupied Germany.

As to the question of whether the advent of the Cold War, and the need to create a strong West German state as a barrier to Soviet expansion, was a factor in the abandonment of all vestiges of the Morgenthau Plan, it is noteworthy that Morgenthau himself, in the above-mentioned book, saw a need to attack the argument for the preservation of a strong Germany as a counter to the spread of Communism. A whole chapter of the book is devoted to arguing that the Soviet Union was not a threat to Europe or the US, no matter how unsavoury its political system, and that Germany remained a potential, such that if it were allowed to become once more an industrial power it could start another war.

So it is clear that Morgenthau himself saw the fear of conflict with the Soviet Union as a potential hindrance to the implementation of his plan to reduce Germany to a pre-industrial entity.

In the above-mentioned book, Morgenthau advocates the excision of the western part of Germany and its conversion into an International Zone from which the German population would be expelled eastwards. The book contains a map showing the size of the proposed International Zone, which comprise a swathe of territory running from the Rhine to north of the Kiel Canal, including the Ruhr and the ports of Bremen, Hamburg and Luebeck. MOrgenthau envisaged that territory being resettled by French, Belgian, Dutch and other Europeans, who would provide the workforce for whatever industry and mining remained.

The map also shows the territory between the Mosel and Rhine being ceded to France. Morgenthau suggested that Belgium and the Netherlands also be invited to take whatever pieces of Germany they wanted.

The German population expelled from the International Zone would be resettled in the two rump German states envisaged by Morgenthau, a northern and a southern.

On the other hand, he did not envisage a massive expulsion of Germans from the east. His map shows only East Prussia and Upper Silesia being ceded to Poland; Lower Silesia and Pomerania were to remain part of the North German rump state. Obviously, he considered it more important to expel Germans from the industrialised west than from the agrarian east.

In his book, Morgenthau attempts to prove that the remaining territory of the two German rump states would be sufficient to feed the whole of the German population concentrated in those states, if the urban population were resettled on small subsistence farms, rather like share-croppers settled on marginal land in Tennessee. However, Hoover, after a study tour of occupied Germany, estimated that the policies then being implemented by the Military Government, based on Morgenthau's proposals, would lead to the death by starvation of some 25 million Germans.

[David Thompson]

Let's get back to the Netherlands, and its "Black Tulip" plan. We already have open threads on the Morgenthau Plan.

[michael mills]

Let's get back to the Netherlands, and its "Black Tulip" plan. We already have open threads on the Morgenthau Plan.

There is a clear connection between the Bakker-Schut Plan and the Morgenthau Plan, since the latter allowed for territory in the west of Germany to be ceded to France, Belgium and the Netherlands, if those countries wanted any such territory.

If the Morgenthau Plan had never existed, or if it had never been partially adopted as the basis of US and British policy for the treatment of occupied Germany, then there could not have been any Bakker-Schut Plan.

The only situation under which any government of the Netherlands could have conceived a plan for annexing any German territory was one where the global plan for the treatment of defeated Germany agreed on by the main Allies, the USA, Britain and the Soviet Union, included the possibility of the cession of German territory to other states and the division of the remaining German territory into separate zones.

It is obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the course of events in Germany in the 1945-49 period that it was the final abandonment of all vestiges of the Morgenthau Plan by the US Government that rendered impossible any schemes for the transfer of substantial western German territory to other states, such as the Bakker-Schut Plan.

It should be noted that at the Potsdam Conference, the Western Allies did not agree to the cession of German territory in the East either, and would only accept that the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line were under temporary Soviet and Polish administration, pending a final settlement reached in a proper peace treaty (which in the event did not occur until 1990). The famous Stuttgart speech on 6 September 1946 by US Secretary of State James Byrnes actually foresaw the possibility of the return of that territory to a future independent German state. That shows the extent to which the US Government had come to reject any cession of German territory.

There is another connection between the Bakker-Schut Plan and the Morgenthau Plan. The most extensive version of the Bakker-Schut Plan proposed that the Netherlands should annex German territory up to the River Weser, which would then become the eastern border of the Netherlands. That was clearly based on the Morgenthau Plan, which conceived the Weser River as the boundary between the so-called "International Zone" to its west (from which the German population was to be expelled) and the rump North German state to its east.

Anybody who laid eyes on the map published by Morgenthau in his 1945 book "Germany is Our Problem" would immediately see the conncetion between Morgenthau's proposals for the division of Germany and the Netherlands proposals for the annexation of German territory up to the Wester line.

[Panzermahn]

Apologies for the late reply.

Actually, Panzermahn, even based on what you cited, humanitarian concerns were a part of the decision-making process for Bakker-Schut Plan:

The large scale annexation was in 1947 rejected by the Allied High Commission, on the grounds that Germany already contained 14,000,000 refugees from the annexations in the east, and that the remaining territory could not handle more refugees. Furthermore, the allies (in particular the Americans) considered it vital to have a stable West-Germany in view of the coming Cold War.

I don't know how valid any of this is, but according to your source, concern regarding the ability of Germany to absorb more refugees seems to have been the primary consideration, or at the very least, a major one.

At first glance, you may be correct. It does look like a humanitarian concern on the part of the Western Allies to dismiss the Bakker-Schut plan. However, Germany at the end of of WW2 has de facto ceased to become an independent sovereign nation and she is under the administration of the Allied Control Council. So the feeding of the refugees has become Allied responsibility. If the Bakker-Schut plan was implemented it would actually taxed the resources of the Western Allies to which was already having tough times trying to feel refugees, DP (which is why Eisenhower cleverly obfuscated the definition term of POW and declared that German soldiers were to be "Disarmed Enemy Personnel", therefore freeing the responsibility of the Western Allies under the Geneva Convention to take care of them) and other foreign workers roaming around in Germany. Therefore in first glance, it looks like humanitarian concerns but further examination upon this issue indicates that the taxing of resources of taking care large numbers of refugees from the East were the primary reasons that the Western Allies dismissed the territorial ambitions and irredentism of the Dutch

There were widespread hunger especially in the winter of 1946/47 and even a British writer was shocked to see German children received less calories than POWs.

Panzermahn -- What is the war crime supposed to be?

David, I been looking over the Geneva and Hague Convention but it seems nothing has been said about post-war expulsions. I know that there are things such as population transfers (eg. Greek and Turkey in the 20s) but it has to be agreed beforehand by both parties but not sure about expulsions. De Zayas is a supporter of rights to homeland and in his opinion, the expulsions of Germans from the east constitutes crimes against humanity.

The other thing would be possible attempts of cultural genocide seeing the attempts of Dutch-tification of German places

[David Thompson]

Panzermahn -- You wrote:

David, I been looking over the Geneva and Hague Convention but it seems nothing has been said about post-war expulsions. I know that there are things such as population transfers (eg. Greek and Turkey in the 20s) but it has to be agreed beforehand by both parties but not sure about expulsions. De Zayas is a supporter of rights to homeland and in his opinion, the expulsions of Germans from the east constitutes crimes against humanity.

The other thing would be possible attempts of cultural genocide seeing the attempts of Dutch-tification of German places

According to the Wikipedia article you cited on Operation Black Tulip, the expulsion was of German citizens residing in the Netherlands:

The 25,000 people living in the Netherlands with German nationality (who often had Dutch wives and children) were branded as 'hostile subjects' (vijandelijke onderdanen). They were to be evicted in three groups in reverse order of entry. The first who had to leave were those who came after the start of the war (mostly factory workers), then those who came after 1932 (including political refugees, some of them Jews) and then the rest, many of whom were economic refugees from the 1920s.

We're not talking about the expulsion of Netherlands nationals here. Foreigners, such as those described in the Wikipedia article, who live in another country are merely resident aliens who have a revocable permission to live and work there for as long as the sovereign permits it. They can be expelled at will, individually or en masse, since they only live in the host country on sufferance. If the host country goes to war with their fatherland, they can all be rounded up and interned in camps until a peace treaty settles the issue. It was that way in 1945-46, and it was that way for hundreds of years before that.

[uberjude]

Panzermahn, you're missing the obvious--if the Allies weren't concerned about the humanitarian needs of the prospective Black Tulip refugees, they wouldn't have been concerned about feeding them in the first place. The very fact that they were prepared to accept the responsibility to feed them is the humanitarian concern. Otherwise, they could have said "expel them and let them starve, since we won't be feeding them." Again, the evidence you present actually is contrary to your argument.

[Orlov]

Hello,

I read about plans by the Dutch to annexe German territories after the defeat of Germany in 1945, namely the Bakker-Schut Plan in monography S. M. Plokhy "Yalta: The Price of Peace"
bestreg
Orlov