the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

suicides took place, with a total of 6,667
cases being recorded. It was not
uncommon for parents (or mothers left
without their husbands) to kill all their
children and then commit suicide
themselves. In Ústí nad Labem the
increasing number of suicides even led
the police to order the gas supply in the
town to be temporarily cut off. The
reasons for these suicides varied.
Certainly in many cases it was because of
a feeling of guilt accompanied by the fear
of retribution. This guilt did not always
relate to wrongs done to the Czechs. In
many cases Germans had also been
guilty of offences against other
Germans. But probably the largest
number of suicides was connected with
the complete loss of security and
The Implementation of the Transfer
219
Chapter VI
prospects for their lives and fear of the
future. The loss of life among the
German population during the period
that marked the dividing line between
war and peace must also be partly laid at
the door of the German war machinery
itself. In a number of places – for
example in Ústí nad Labem – cases are
recorded where the civilian population or
the capitulating Wehrmacht soldiers
were killed or executed by fanatical SS
Before the transfer some 150,000 Germans (out of a total of 2,500,000) were
concentrated in internment camps, which were later re-named Transfer Collection
Centres, through which all the Germans passed.
groups or at the end of the war by
Landwehr (domestic defence) units that
were hastily constituted and in which the
local civilian population were
forced to serve.
The excesses of “revolutionary
conduct” also frequently came to the fore
in the way the “uncontrolled transfer”