Talk:German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe

Better Title ?

Can we get this a better title? This one is not descriptive, nor widely used. --Bejnar 18:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems very descriptive to me. What is its problem and what would be your suggestion for a better title ? --Lysy^talk 19:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The first problem is that this article deals with just Central and Eastern Europe (inc. Eastern Germany). The Germans evacuated from many places during WWII. The second problem is that the article is not about the evacuation of the army, but is about the evacuation of German civilians. I do not have a suggestion, I could not come up with one. I tried to research this, but evacuation turned out to be a poor indexing term. But if there were a name for the plans like "Project Baldr" that would be an appropriate title. --Bejnar 21:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see. I don't think we could have a codename title, as the issue is quite broad. How about adding "civilians" to avoid the confusion ? Then we'd have German evacuation of civilian population during World War II or simpler German evacuation of civilians during World War II. Ideally we should have "German evacuation of German civilians during World War II" to be precise but that's of course too awkward. --Lysy^talk 22:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The key here is what the intended scope of the article is. I disliked the inclusion of Western European countries to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII because, IMO, it diluted the message. In fact, I suspect that the inclusion of Western European countries was actually meant to dilute the message (i.e. to exculpate Eastern European countries by suggesting that other countries did similar things). IMO, the magnitudes were so different in scale as to make them dissimilar phenomena.

Likewise, German evacuation during World War II could refer to military and/or civilians, Eastern and/or Western Europe. I would prefer a limited scope to this article thus suggesting a title such as Evacuation of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during WWII. The rationale for focusing on Central and Eastern Europe is that the evacuation was probably larger in scale (presumably there was no similar scale evacuation of German civilians from Western Germany or even the Sudetenland). Also, there is an important connection between the evacuations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe and the expulsions of Germans from the same areas because the inability to determine how many Germans died during these events is a major point of controversy. --Richard 20:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal "German evacuation of civilians during World War II" still doesn't solve the problem of timing and location. There were German evacuations of non-Germans on a number of occasions during the war, e.g. removal of French from Alsace. This article is about removing ethnic Germans, and it is just about at the end of the war, and it is only about Central and Eastern Europe. Do you have any idea what the project names of the individual evacuation plans were?--Bejnar 20:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the overall plan had any significant name, as it was composed of a number of smaller plans on different levels in different location. Just for avoidance of doubt, the intended scope of the article when I create it, was "German evacuation of German civilians in the end of WW2 in Central and Eastern Europe". Of course too clumsy to make a title. I agree that adding "civilians" to the current title would make it more specific and more correct. I don't agree with you and Richard about the importance of adding "Central and Eastern Europe" as I believe this is redundant. To my knowledge Germans did not undertake any similarly significant evacuation effort elsewhere. The expulsion of French from Alsace can hardly be called evacuation. --Lysy^talk 20:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

Please note the distinction between "expulsion" of French from Alsace and "evacuation" of Germans at the end of the war. These are very different phenomena and should not be conflated.
Even if we do dig up the "project names" of the evacuations, they would not be good titles for this article as this article covers multiple evacuations. Perhaps there could be articles about specific "projects" if there is sufficient material.

The key question is: Do we agree that the scope should be limited to Central and Eastern Europe? Or should we include Western and Southern Europe as well? Look, at the end of the day, we are really talking about the evacuation of Germans from Eastern Germany and Western Poland. That is where the bulk of the German civilians were. Other than those, I don't think there were other substantial evacuations. (I could be wrong, of course.)

Lysy, this points to the need for some quantitative data regarding the number of people evacuated from each region.

--Richard 20:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still, don't you think that mentioning CEE in the title is redundant, as there were no significant German evacuation elsewhere during WW2 ? --Lysy^talk 20:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, maybe. Here's the issue... if the reader is not very familiar with WWII, he/she might expect "German evacuation" to apply to all of German occupied territories from Scandinavia to northern Europe (France, Holland, Belgium) to Italy to Eastern Europe. However, as we know, significant evacuation was only necessary in Eastern Europe and even then, I think, primarily in western Poland and eastern Germany. This point needs to be brought out explicitly in the article. In particular, we need to explain why it was the case. I think the issue is primarily about fear of the Soviet Army. We need to explain why evacuation was necessary in the face of the Red Army's advance and not in the face of the advance of the Western allies. There should be some treatment of the alleged atrocities of the Red Army and the use of those atrocities by the German propaganda machine.

Whether these points are reflected in the title is not as important as long as the points are made in the article text.

--Richard 21:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing a "the"?

Shouldn't the article title be "Evacuation of German civilians at the end of World War II"? The current title doesn't read well without the "the". BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 15:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It may not have read well, but the article is not about "at the end", it is about "during the end". --Bejnar 17:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

during the end of World War II ?

The evacuation started in 1943, I wouldn't call that yesr the end.Xx236 10:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]