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Ethnic Germans in Poland and the Czech Republic: A Comparative Evaluation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Karl Cordell  and
Stefan Wolff
Karl Cordell
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, Politics and Law, The University of Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK, [email protected]
Stefan Wolff
Affiliation:
Department of European Studies and Modem Languages, The University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK, [email protected]
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Extract

This paper seeks to analyze the nature of the German minorities in the Czech Republic and Poland. In order to achieve this goal, the relationship between Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic and Poland with the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany/FRG) forms an essential intellectual backdrop to our main theme. Reference to the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic/GDR) will be made as and where appropriate. As we shall see, tensions simmered between the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany/SED) and the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza Zjednoczona (Polish United Workers' Party/PZPR), and in reality relations between the two sides were poor. Reference will be made to wartime German occupation policy in both Poland and the Czech lands. Due attention will also be paid to the consequent expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia. However, due to limitations of space these themes, that have been exhaustively dealt with elsewhere, do not form part of our main focus of study.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 255 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the British Academy (LRG-35361) in the preparation and writing of this article. They would also like to thank Andrzej Dybczński and Zdenek Hausvater for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article.Google Scholar

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