nazi-soviet population transfers

The Nazi-Soviet population transfers were a series of population transfers between 1939 and 1941 of Germans in an agreement between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Germans were resettled from territories occupied by Soviet Union due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, notably Bessarabia and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, all of which traditionally had large German minorities. These "Germans from outside Germany", known as Volksdeutsche, after spending some time in refugee camps in Germany, were eventually resettled in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany and in Zamosc County, as decided by Generalplan Ost. In most cases they were given farms that were taken away from Poles who were deported from the area. At the end of World War II, most of the German settlers were evacuated by German authorities to avoid reprisals from the advancing Soviet armies.

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