EXPULSION

The expulsion from the Sudetenland in 1946
After the end of the Second World War, the German-speaking population was expelled from Czechoslovakia.

Population structure of Czechoslovakia 1930

The official deportation of the German and German-speaking population began in January 1946. During this year, around 2,256,000 people were resettled, mostly to Germany, but also to a small extent to Austria, where finally
 160,000 remained.
Excluded from the deportation were only persons who, based on the presidential decrees known as the “Beneš decrees”, had been demonstrably opponents of and persecuted by National Socialism, e.g.  social democratic or communist resistance fighters.
Skilled workers classified as indispensable were forbidden to leave the country.

For the musical instrument manufacturers in Graslitz, this meant confiscation of their assets and all their property, expropriation of private and company buildings and nationalization of the companies by the Czech state, invoking the Beneš Decree 108.

Order of the District Administrative Commission of Kraslice

Order for expulsion (example)

This fate also befell Franz Sattler, who, taking only a few belongings with all of his family, had to go to the train station in Graslitz on September 15, 1946 and was forced to leave his homeland in a cattle car for Germany in a collective transport.