The Expulsion Of Sudeten Germans From Czechoslovak Essay

Post World War Two and the emerging Cold War era may seem to be a topic that has been exhausted by historians. However, there is at least one matter that often gets over looked, as if forgotten by history. The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after the German capitulation at the end of the Second World War is a matter that many historians and history buffs alike have not been exposed to. It is my hope to convey the enormity and seriousness of the event. As well, to highlight that the Czechoslovaks as a whole crossed the line from any victim role they may have acquired during Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia to become revenge driven, often sadistic aggressors.
In choosing a place to begin the story of the German Expulsion from the Sudetenland, it seems the Paris Conference Peace Conference is just as good a point as any. At the peace conference, which ran from January 18th 1919 to January 21st 1920 there were a number of treaties signed, including the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye1. This treaty, signed on September 10th, 1919 by the Allies of World War One and the new Austrian nation, dissolved the Austria/Hungry Empire and set up Czechoslovakia as a free state which included the German speaking Sudetenland. At the time the land was signed over to the Czechs, the German minority had a population of about 3.5 million people, in Czechoslovakia including the Sudetenland. This was about one million more people than the next largest Czechoslovak minority.
After the First World War, Tomas Masaryk, (the first President of Czechoslovakia), chose not to deport the Germans of the Sudetenland, “because he did not want to launch his new nation by embarking on a policy of mass deportation of indigenous populations. Nor did he want to handicap his country by depriving it of German manpower2,” as a great number of factories existed in the German speaking territory.
By 1930, Germans living in Czechoslovakia made up approximately 22.3% of the total...