What were the largest forced migrations in European history?

Question

Were these the result of war, religious persecution, or something else? Where did the people go? How many died as a result?

I realize this is a very broad question, even when applied to Europe alone. There have been so many of these events, and suffering of people cannot be compared. I was trying to get a perspective on which ones involved the greatest number (not percentage) of people.

Answer 1

A good question, and it gets to the 'point' right at the start. Folk don't leave 'home' unless there is a pretty strong 'shifting force' applied at the 'back end'. The advantages of being 'home' (such as relationship with crops and resources there and wealth tied up in land ownership, and social relationships) are pretty powerful, and you'd need to be in pretty dire straights to swap those advantages for the uncertainties of a new land (and fighting the existing occupants of the new land for a 'piece of the action').

Sorry to labour that point, but it leads to the this suggestion. Possibly the greatest migration (certainly with the most significance for us) was the Goths out of north-eastern Europe into Roman Gaul, Spain and Italy around 400-500AD. Most historians portray this as the Goths moving into Roman territory to 'partake of the wealth' of Rome, but I tend to see it as due to pressure on the Goths from the rear - by tribes up near the Baltic and Scandinavia who wanted more (and better) land. That's to say that the Baltic-Scandinavian tribes were 'forced' out of their territory by population pressure and scarce resources. In comparison the Goths had plenty of good territory and would have stayed where they were but for the warlike pressure at their rear.

In modern times the Russian 'dislocation' was huge, but it wasn't absolute, and it was relatively temporary. For a huge, permanent, shift go forward a couple of years to the Russian capture of Prussia, that part of Germany that was up on the Baltic. Millions of Germans fled west in the dying days of WWII, and tens of thousands were killed while fleeing on boats (including the largest loss of life in any ship sinking in history...). The ones left behind were (I understand) shipped 'east' by the Soviet occupation forces, again in their hundreds of thousands and disappeared. Altogether a population of ten million Germans were relocated. The Wiki link tells the story pretty well, although it reminds us that 'the Germans only had themselves to blame'.

Answer 2

~For gross population, look into the number of Soviets made homeless between 1940 and 1945. For per capita migrations, you may find a few other options. You didn't specify, so I won't either.


Edit:

My reference to the Soviets was to the 25 million (about 1/4 of the population) civilians left homeless and displaced by the war and notably by the persecution from the Nazi's (and by Stalin, but does that matter) I didn't mean the 15 million dead civilians of 10 million dead troops.

As to per capita groups, I had the Goths in mind, as well as the Tuscarora, the ancient Jews, The Celts, the Gauls, the Saxons, the Bretons, the Franks, the Angles, the Rus and all of the other Teutons shuffled around Europe en masse by their Teuton cousins. Actually, though, the migrations the American Indians forced on adversary tribes for centuries before the Europeans got off the boats were equally brutal and equally all-encompassing. Take your pick, what difference does it really make?

Incidentally, there were only an estimated 11 to 13 million Jews in Europe in 1939, so if 6 million were killed, 10 million were not displaced (unless we count moving them to the ovens and mass graves as 'forced migration') Of the 6 million dead, only about 2.6 million were "killed" (ie, exterminated in the death camps) The rest died in the concentration camps where many of them would have been sent had they not been Jewish. Another 12 million or so died in the camps. As a percentage of population, more Serbs were killed in the death camps and more Roma died in the concentration camps. The modern Jews are not a good example based on the foregoing facts.

I won't comment on Sirburd's cut and paste other than to say it neglects Pre-Columbian North America Asia and Africa entirely, but the question was limited to European history after all ( and, I presume, does not address those migrations the Europeans forced on other continents). If one wants to compare barbarism and atrocity, I suppose it makes sense to limit it to a single culture.

My answer was deliberately oblique and obtuse because I didn't feel like helping the asker cheat with his homework. Now I hope he realizes he's still got some reading to do to be able to support and justify his answer.

Answer 3

First, if you force someone to migrate, you don't feed them. Mortality was high.

The 1940's migrations in Europe were the result of the Second World war, not specifically the Soviets. There were massive people movements during the 1920's and 1930's in the USSR, with the start of Stalinism.

The mass deportation of Jews, Gypsies etc by the Nazis (6 million killed but over 10 million moved). After the war, around 40 million people found themselves moving around Europe trying to find somewhere to live (in Germany, for instance, 2 million people died of starvation after the war).

In 1919, after the first European war, the redrawing of national borders led to millions moving again - see the Treaty of Versailles.

Roman Empire saw large numbers moved around and acts of genocide.

Religious Wars during the 15th and 16th Centuries (Spanish Inquisition etc). These deaths went unreported and so there is still a lot of research going on to find out how bad it was.

If you look for countries with a flourishing arts and cultural base base, Dutch Masters, English 17th Century, Germany 17th Century, you will often find a trail back to a forced migration of some religious of political group.

If you include Turkey in Europe, then you should look at the Armenians at the start of the 20th Century.

If you want to look outside Europe, the spread of European Empires always led to massive movements of populations.

Answer 4

THERE WERE MANY FORCED MIGRATIONS IN EUROPE. PROBABLY ONE OF THE LARGEST WAS THAT OF THE TATARS WHO TRAVELED IN GROUPS NUMBERING IN THE MILLIONS.OTHERS WERE THE VANDALS, THE GOTHS, THE HUNS, AND FRANKS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS OTHERS.

Answer 5

http://library.fes.de/library/netzquelle/zwangsmigration/en-22zwangsmig.html

Nationalism, Forced Migrations
and Ethnic Cleansings

From Lausanne to Yugoslavia -
Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansings in 20th Century Europe

A radical answer to the "nationality question" is the expulsion of minorities by the majority in order for them to create a state intended to be a "nation-state". Such forced migrations took place in south east Europe and, in particular, the Balkans, at the beginning and at the end of the last century. During and after World War II; these expulsions were concentrated in

Central and Eastern Europe. At the end of the century, however, forced migrations happened in the Balkans and the Caucasus.

The period until 1925

As early as the 19th century, the Muslim minorities who lived in the Balkans' new nation-states were affected by discrimination and persecution, so that many of them left their homes. Finally, during the Balkan Wars (1912-13), ten thousands of people had to flee their homelands because they were members of ethnic or religious minorities. This policy was officially sanctioned afterwards by a treaty between Bulgaria and Turkey, which provided for an exchange of population in the border zone. Ethnic harmonization of the state was also the goal stated by the new Turkish nationalists who ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 onwards and who proceeded with the deportation of the Armenian minority from 1909. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians fell

victim to violence, pogroms, and hunger.

After the Greco-Turkish war of 1921-22, which was accompanied by expulsions and escape, forced relocations were politics' answer to the "nationality question". Nearly two million people were affected by the population exchange laid down in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). According to estimates, in many countries in the east and south east of Europe, up to six million members of ethnic minorities had to leave their homes under duress or due to pressure in the years after World War I. During that time, shifting populations was often seen as a legitimate, even sometimes the only, means politics had to solve "nationality problems" and to safeguard peace. The great European powers also agreed to the Treaty of Lausanne. These ideas were also espoused by scientists. The Swiss ethnologist Georges Montandon, for instance, developed a concept which provided for the "massive" resettlement of people in order to create nation-states with "natural" borders and without any minorities.

From 1933 to 1948

The next phase during which massive forced relocations of the population took place were the years of and around World War II. This period is covered in greater detail in other articles, therefore only a brief overview will be given here. This period began with the Jewish population's emigration from Germany after the National Socialists' takeover of power and the beginning of discrimination and persecution in 1933. After the Munich Agreement of 1938, several hundreds of thousands of people left their hereditary place of residence in what was, until then, Czechoslovakia, due to actual or feared violence. At the same time, National Socialist Germany signed treaties with a number of states, amongst them Italy and the Soviet Union, according to which the members of the German minority were to be relocated "home into the Reich", not least in occupied territories such as the Bohemian countries or Poland. Thus, this policy was part of the aggressive, expansionist overall strategy displayed by the National Socialists.

The time of World War II was marked by the deportation and mass murder of Jews in particular, but also of other groups such as the Sinti and Roma , living under German rule. Especially from the east of Europe, millions of forced laborers were transported to Germany.

In the Soviet Union, members of a number of ethnic minorities (Germans, Caucasians, Balts, Poles, Crimean Tatars, and others) accused of harboring sympathies for the enemy were deported to the Central Asian Republics. In these cases, the dissolution of social structures and the safeguarding of Stalinist rule was the most important rationale behind the relocations, which on the whole probably affected more than three million people.

Finally, there were huge migratory movements in Europe after the end of the war. Millions of former prisoners of war, forced laborers and concentration camp inmates (displaced persons) were sent back to their countries of origin. Many surviving Jews left Europe altogether and resettled in the newly founded state of Israel or in the United States. With the consent of the Allies, a number of probably far more than ten million ethnic Germans had to leave their settlement areas in the east of Europe and relocate to Germany or Austria. In East and South East Europe, numerous resettlement activities also took place, which affected, amongst others, Magyars, Ukranians, Byelorussians, Finns, and Italians. The largest group were the more than two million Poles taken from the former eastern part of Poland, which now was annexed to the Soviet Union, to the western part of the country, which formerly had been part of Germany. Most of the forced migrations executed or tolerated by the state were explicitly justified by stating that territorial claims on settlement areas made by ethnic minorities were to be ruled out in the future.

Migrations during and after the Cold War

During the Cold War, the trend to ethnic homogenization continued, but mostly was the result of individual decisions to emigrate and only in exceptional cases was an official state policy goal, as in Bulgaria. German "late emigrants", Jews, Turks, other Muslims, Hungarians, Armenians, Greeks, and other ethnicities emigrated from many countries of East and South East Europe.

After the collapse of the "Iron Curtain", which was accompanied by improved possibilities to travel, this trend continued and even increased. The former Soviet Union also saw the beginning of new migratory movements, mostly driven by members of the Russian diaspora relocating to Russia from the newly independent states.

The new expulsions - Yugoslavia and the Caucasus

New wars and armed conflicts also brought the phenomenon of expulsions back to Europe and its fringes. The expulsions took place against the backdrop of the most recent wave of nation-state creation, which dissolved the last of the large European multinational empires, the Soviet Union, which until then had held together by means of the autoritarian system of rule. Smaller multi-ethnic states such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia split up into smaller states. Unlike most previous nation-state foundations, however, it is quite remarkable that a relatively large number of them was created without any war - historically speaking, this had been the very rare exception until that point.

The conflicts in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Chechnya resulted in the flight of hundreds of thousands of people. During the civil wars which raged in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo) between 1992 and 1999, mass flight, expulsions, and massacres took place right on the European Union's "doorstep". The cynical term "ethnic cleansing", which, however, precisely conveys the concept behind the phenomenon, was widely used in media coverage. Once more, the historic context was the formation of new nation-states, motivated by an ethnically defined nationalism. Depending on the military situation, Croats, Serbs, Albanians, Roma, and Muslims were affected - with the latter, their religion was used as a means to determine their "ethnic identity", the only characteristic which distinguished them from the Catholic Croats and the Orthodox Serbs. According to estimates, more than two million people were affected.

The civil wars, expulsions and particularly the prospect of having to accommodate more refugees led to military NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. In this context, it should be noted that, on the one hand, such interventions are problematic and controversial under international law, but on the other hand that, as opposed to earlier decades, forced migrations are not considered a means to conflict solving which are promoted or even tolerated any longer, but meet with repudiation and resistance - at least in Europe.

Gerrit Schäfer