-
70 years on…
As everyone most certainly knows, this year is 2015. 7 May 2015 marks the official surrender date of German forces, some 70 years ago.For those who focus on 1945 as the end of WW2 in Europe, it was. Sadly, 1945 was not just an ending; it was also the beginning of the total destruction and removal of a ~600 year old way of life, a culture, and the homeland for millions of Eastern Germans. In the years following 1945, some 12 to 14 million people were forcibly removed from their homes and expelled from the recently surrendered German Eastern provinces. To place these events into a reasonably balanced historical context,…