FOR NATION AND GAIN: ECONOMY, ETHNICITY AND POLITICS IN THE CZECH BORDERLANDS, 1945-1948
David Gerlach, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2007
This dissertation investigates the post-World War II expulsion of approximately three million Sudeten Germans from the Czech borderlands and the settlement of nearly two million Czechs and others in their place. While studies of the Sudeten German expulsions and of ethnic cleansing generally focus on violent conflict, I argue that officials and settlers efforts to control confiscated German property and labor overwhelmingly shaped the economic, ethnic and political transformations of the borderlands. I examine the actions of and debates within local governments, called national committees, as well as their interaction with central government organs from 1945 to 1948.
Expulsion, confiscation and settlement created competing objectives in the borderlands. During the summer of 1945, military units and national committees began expelling Germans and seizing their property. While the army prosecuted expulsions, and plundered in the process, national committees strove to manage expulsions and settlement to benefit their communities, for example, attempting to retain German workers for local production. Despite these committees efforts to stabilize the borderlands, widespread looting and the settlers quest for social mobility precluded order. Material gain was often more the goal than the physical removal of Germans. Thus Czechs worked with Germans to find and seize property, and they fought with other Czechs over the spoils.
In addition to local conflicts, expulsion and settlement spurred disputes between Prague and borderland officials, and among political parties. The confiscation of Sudeten German property dovetailed with the Communist-dominated governments land reform and nationalization policies. The Communist Party utilized the distribution of confiscated German farms to win political support in the borderlands, and it allocated confiscated factories to nationalized enterprises. However, the Partys efforts to consolidate and liquidate borderland industries faced considerable resistance from national committees even after it took over the state in 1948. While this dissertation studies the economic motives and imperatives that drove ethnic cleansing in postwar Czechoslovakia, its significance extends to other cases of forced migration in which property confiscation and labor issues played central roles.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04242007-204032 |
| Date | 20 June 2007 |
| Creators | Gerlach, David |
| Contributors | William Chase, Werner Troesken, Ilya Prizel, H. Christian Gerlach, Nancy Wingfield, Irina Livezeanu |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04242007-204032/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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