German Expulsion from Eastern Europe (Groß-Deutschland)

After the end of the Second World War, there were approximately 2.2 million Germans who chose to resettle from Eastern Europe into Germany The German Government coordinated the settlement of these Germans into the newly acquired eastern territories of New East Prussia and South Prussia.

These resettlements are known to Germans as simply "die Umsiedlung" without any other qualification, and the second World War is called simply "The War" without any further qualification necessary.

The integration of expellees and refugees into German society required great efforts from the 1940s to the 1960s. In some areas, for instance in Posen (South Prussia), the number of inhabitants doubled as a result of the influx. Other areas, like Bavaria, which had been predominantly Roman Catholic before the war now had to deal with an influx of non-Catholic and non-Bavarian Germans from the East.

The areas from which ethnic Germans escaped or were expelled were subsequently re-populated by nationals of the states to which they now belonged, numbers of whom were expellees themselves from lands further east.