Empty the Land · Episode 4 of 12 · 19 min
The Decade the World Moved Millions by Force
Between 1930 and 1950 the industrialized state perfected forced removal, and the same governments that prosecuted deportation at Nuremberg signed off on the largest population transfers in history. The episode covers Soviet deportations of kulaks and whole nations, the Potsdam transfer of 12 to 14 million Germans, and the 1947 Partition of India, where no state ordered the removal and 14 to 18 million people moved anyway.
Who's who
- Joseph StalinSoviet leader who ordered the kulak liquidation and nationality deportations
- Lavrentiy BeriaNKVD chief who directed the 1944 Chechen-Ingush deportation
- Winston Churchill+3 more episodesBritish prime minister who backed expulsion of Germans as 'a clean sweep'
- Edvard BenešCzechoslovak president whose 1945 decrees stripped Sudeten Germans of property
- Cyril RadcliffeBritish barrister who drew the India-Pakistan boundary in about five weeks
- Mustafa DzhemilevCrimean Tatar movement leader, deported as an infant
- Raphael Lemkin+2 more episodesJurist who coined 'genocide'
Where it happens
- Chechnya and Ingushetia, North CaucasusAbout 496,000 people deported in a week in 1944
- CrimeaAbout 191,000 Crimean Tatars deported in May 1944
- Potsdam, GermanyWhere the Allies approved 'orderly and humane' transfers
- Punjab and Bengal, South AsiaDivided in 1947 by the Radcliffe boundary award
Timeline
- 1930-1933About 1.8 to 2.1 million 'kulaks' deported
- February 1944Operation Lentil deports Chechens and Ingush
- May 1944Crimean Tatars deported in three days
- August 1945Potsdam Article XIII mandates 'orderly and humane' transfer of Germans
- August 1947Partition; boundary award published two days after independence
- November 1989Soviet Supreme Soviet declares the deportations unlawful and criminal
Still debated
Death tolls are disputed throughout: 15 to 25 percent in archival estimates of Crimean Tatar exile deaths versus about 46 percent in Tatar accounts, and roughly 500,000 to over two million for the German expulsions.
← PreviousCircassians, Armenians, and Deportation as a WeaponNext →1948: The Nakba and the Birth of the Law Against It
Connected episodes in other series
Was It Genocide? Putting the American Record on TrialAs Long as the Grass Grows · Episode 13Also features Raphael Lemkin
The Man Who Wasn't at the WildernessThe Physician to Soldier Pipeline · Episode 2Also features Winston Churchill
Why Truman Refused to Overthrow Iran's MosaddeghTwo Parties, One Coup · Episode 1Also features Winston Churchill