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Memorial Sudeten Germans Augsburg

The memorial to the Sudeten Germans is located in the park near the Congress Hall.

"30000 Sudeten German
expelled people followed
1945 in Augsburg
a new home"

At the bottom hangs a small plate:
"This boulder from the Bohemian Forest was recovered in 1979 by the Sudeten-German regional team Augsburgstadt and transferred to the city of Augsburg for further care."

The Sudeten Germans were approximately three million German speakers who lived in the Sudetenland, the border regions of what was then Czechoslovakia, until 1945.
Hitler dragged them into the Second World War, which ended with their defeat in 1945.
Even during the war, the Czechoslovak government in exile refused to recognize the Sudeten Germans as citizens any longer, henceforth they were regarded as hostile foreigners and therefore subject to deportation.
In May 1945, the government declared that the great victory over the Germans would be used to launch a large-scale national offensive and clear the border area of the Germans.
More than 240,000 Sudeten Germans were expelled. Many were murdered in open massacres or died of exhaustion during the death marches and in the camps.
In Aussig in July 1945, hundreds of German workers, women and children were pushed from the Elbe Bridge into the stream and shot dead in the water. Thousands were convicted as war criminals and either killed or used for forced labor.

In Wittelsbacher Park, several memorial stones commemorate these events.

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Source

  • Text: TracesOfWar
  • Photos: Wim Wouters

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