Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans
- Author: Alfred-Maurice deZayas
- SKU: 1899
- ISBN: 0897253604
- Our Price:
$29.95
-
Description:
(GERMANY)NEMESIS AT POTSDAM: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans. Revised edition. By Alfred-Maurice deZayas. 70+ photos, maps and illustrations. 320pp. Perfect bound. 1998 (1979).
"His is a lucid, scholarly and compassionate study. Most pertinently he insists that we deny what the lesser histories conspire with us to invent - that there are stopping places in history."- The Times Educational Supplement
"The book should cause argument and controversy. It deserves a wide readership." -British Book News
"One of the greatest tragedies that resulted from the debacle of the Second World War was the mass flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe....It has received relatively little attention from American historians and even less from the mass media, partly because of a lingering feeling that Germans were merely receiving their just retribution for the horrors perpetrated on their neighbors." - The American Historical Review
"If you have ever wondered what might have become of your German relatives who remained in this geographical area of the former German empire, this is a must-read." - Genealogical Society of Carlton County Quarterly
"The lesson from this well-organized and moving historical record is not merely that retribution which penalizes innocent human beings become injustice, but that acceptance of political realities may be a better road to human fulfilment than the path of violence. Alfred deZayas has written a persuasive commentary on the suffering which becomes inevitable when humanitarianism is subordinated to nationalism." - The American Journal of International Law
First published in 1979, and now in its 10th edition in German with several revised editions in English, Nemesis at Potsdam is the moving and horrifying account of the expulsion after WWII of 15 million German-speaking men, women, and children from their ancestral homelands in Eastern Central Europe. Over 2 million innocent civilians, mostly women and child, died during the expulsion - one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century.
A great amnesia has overtaken the children and grandchildren of the Allied participants, especially in the West. But today the German nation of 80 million includes 15 million Expulsion survivors and their children and grandchildren. No understanding of modern Germany will ever be complete without greater knowledge of this ghastly period in Germany's and the Allies' past.
This is an important book on a sensitive subject. it reminds genealogists that not all emigrations are voluntary; and not all immigrants to America came hundreds of years ago. A personal favorite; our strongest recommendation.
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