The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.

Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized and helped to carry out the forced relocation of German speakers from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable—between 12,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians, most of them women and children—and the losses horrifying—at least 500,000 people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, while locked in trains en route, or after arriving in Germany exhausted, malnourished, and homeless. This book is the first in any language to tell the full story of this immense man-made catastrophe. Based mainly on archival records of the countries that carried out the forced migrations and of the international humanitarian organizations that tried but failed to prevent the disastrous results, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War is an authoritative and objective account. It examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the expulsions were conceived, planned, and executed and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The book is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing," and it may also be the most significant untold story of the Second World War.

More than 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe were driven from their homes in the wake of WWII, yet barely anyone noticed or remembers Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized and helped to carry out the forced relocation of German speakers from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable--between 12,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians, most of them women and children--and the losses horrifying--at least 500,000 people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, while locked in trains en route, or after arriving in Germany exhausted, malnourished, and homeless. This book is the first in any language to tell the full story of this immense man-made catastrophe. Based mainly on archival records of the countries that carried out the forced migrations and of the international humanitarian organizations that tried but failed to prevent the disastrous results, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War is an authoritative and objective account. It examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the expulsions were conceived, planned, and executed and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The book is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing," and it may also be the most significant untold story of the Second World War.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Monuments Men: "An astonishing account of a little-known American effort to save Italy's…art during World War II." —Tom Brokaw When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles. Brilliantly researched and vividly written, the New York Times bestselling Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler. An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.

The news agency Reuters reported in 2009 that a mass grave containing 1,800 bodies was found in Malbork, Poland. Polish authorities suspected that they were German civilians that were killed by advancing Soviet forces. A Polish archeologist supervising the exhumation, said, "We are dealing with a mass grave of civilians, probably of German origin. The presence of children . . . suggests they were civilians." During World War II, the German Nazi regime committed great crimes against innocent civilian victims: Jews, Poles, Russians, Serbs, and other people of Central and Eastern Europe. At war’s end, however, innocent German civilians in turn became victims of crimes against humanity. Forgotten Voices lets these victims of ethnic cleansing tell their story in their own words, so that they and what they endured are not forgotten. This volume is an important supplement to the voices of victims of totalitarianism and has been written in order to keep the historical record clear. The root cause of this tragedy was ultimately the Nazi German regime. As a leading German historian, Hans-Ulrich Wehler has noted, "Germany should avoid creating a cult of victimization, and thus forgetting Auschwitz and the mass killing of Russians." Ulrich Merten argues that applying collective punishment to an entire people is a crime against humanity. He concludes that this should also be recognized as a European catastrophe, not only a German one, because of its magnitude and the broad violation of human rights that occurred on European soil. Supplementary maps and pictures are available online at http://www.forgottenvoices.net

The Potsdam Conference (officially known as the "Berlin Conference"), was held from 17 July to 2 August 1945 at Cecilienhof Palace, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, in Brandenburg, and saw the leaders of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, gathered together to decide how to demilitarize, denazify, decentralize, and administer Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender on 8 May (VE Day). They determined that the remaining German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary - both the ethnic (Sudeten) and the more recent arrivals (as part of the long-term plan for the domination of Eastern Europe) - should to be transferred to Germany, but despite an undertaking that these would be effected in an orderly and humane manner, the expulsions were carried out in a ruthless and often brutal manner. Land was seized with farms and houses expropriated; the occupants placed into camps prior to mass expulsion from the country. Many of these were labor camps already occupied by Jews who had survived the concentration camps, where they were equally unwelcome. Further cleansing was carried out in Romania and Yugoslavia, and by 1950, an estimated 11.5 million German people had been removed from Eastern Europe with up to three million dead. The number of ethnic Germans killed during the ‘cleansing’ period is suggested at 500,000, but in 1958, Statistisches Bundesamt (the Federal Statistical Office of Germany) published a report which gave the figure of 1.6 million relating to expulsion-related population losses in Poland alone. Further investigation may in due course provide a more accurate figure to avoid the accusation of sensationalism.

The advance of identification technology-biometrics, identity cards, surveillance, databases, dossiers-threatens privacy, civil liberties, and related human interests. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, demands for identification in the name of security have increased. In this insightful book, Jim Harper takes readers inside identification-a process everyone uses every day but few people have ever thought about. Using stories and examples from movies, television, and classic literature, Harper dissects identification processes and technologies, showing how identification works when it works and how it fails when it fails. Harper exposes the myth that identification can protect against future terrorist attacks. He shows that a U.S. national identification card, created by Congress in the REAL ID Act, is a poor way to secure the country or its citizens. A national ID represents a transfer of power from individuals to institutions, and that transfer threatens liberty, enables identity fraud, and subjects people to unwanted surveillance. Instead of a uniform, government-controlled identification system, Harper calls for a competitive, responsive identification and credentialing industry that meets the mix of consumer demands for privacy, security, anonymity, and accountability. Identification should be a risk-reducing strategy in a social system, Harper concludes, not a rivet to pin humans to governmental or economic machinery.