Expulsion or Integration: Unmixing lnterethnic Marriage in Postwar Czechoslovakia
Expulsion or Integration: Unmixing lnterethnic Marriage in Postwar Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: After the Second World War the Czechoslovak government's plans to expel the country's Germans met with fervent Czech approbation. Six long years of foreign occupation had forged a national consensus that only the removal of ethnic minorities could ensure the long-term security of the state. In principle, the so-called Transfer was straightforward: any German who had not resisted the Nazis was to be deported. In practice, this process was complicated by an uncomfortable reality: thousands of Czechs were married to Germans. When the government discovered that intermarried Germans could not be expelled without causing harm to their Czech spouses and children, it reacted with policies that were discriminatory, inconsistent, and all too often ineffective. [...]

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