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Many Germans in Eastern Europe participated either actively or passively in NAZI genocidal or explotive programs to colonize the occupied East. Here there was considerable variation. Many of the Sudeten Germans had been politicized and were more than happy to be 'liberated' by the NAZIs. When the NAZIs entered first the Sudetenland (October 1938) and then, violating the commitments made at the Munich Conference, the rest of what remained of Czechoslovakia (March 1939), the SS had lists of people to be arrested. The Sudeten Germans must have helped compile those lists and added to the long lists after the NAZI occupation. We suspect that many Sudeten Germans worked actively with the NAZIs. The Carpathian Germans were much less politicized. When the NAZIs entered Poland, the SS also came with lists of Poles to arrest. We do not know to what extent the Polish Germns helped prepare those lists. This is a topic that requires much needed research. It is much clearer that once the Germans invaded and the security services in place, many ethnic Germans actively participatedc in the suression of the Polish people. Motives varied, peceived oractual mistreatment under Polish rule, personal grudges, business competition, ethnic hatred, stealing property, suupport of NAZI racial laws, viseral hatred of Poles, and other reasons. The ethnic Germans had local language skills tht were vey useful in the occuption. Not all ethnic Germans partipated in NAZI atrocioties. And what happened to them can not be justified, but the enormity of the crimes committed generated understandavle hostility--passions that are all too human.
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