Volksdeutsche - Legacy

Legacy

The Nazis defined and popularized the term Volksdeutsche, and exploited such peoples for their own purposes. As a result, the term is not much used today.

Instead, ethnic Germans living outside of Germany are called "Auslandsdeutsche", or names more closely associated with their earlier places of residence, such as Wolgadeutsche or Volga Germans, the ethnic Germans living in the Volga basin in Russia; and Baltic Germans, who generally called themselves Balts. They were relocated to German-occupied Poland during World War II by an agreement between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and most were expelled to the West after the war.

Ethnic Germans were among the millions of displaced peoples on the roads of Europe in the years after the war.