Nemesis at Potsdam

The book implies that at the Potsdam Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945) the victorious Allies of World War II took revenge on the Germans, resulting in significant territorial losses in Eastern Europe and the forced transfer of some 15 million Germans from their homelands in East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, East Brandenburg, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia.

On the basis of US and British archival documents, de Zayas shows that the Western Allies were genuinely appalled at the manner in which the Germans were being expelled and that they lodged diplomatic protest notes in Warsaw and Prague—to no avail.

However, some historians have criticized the book contending that de Zayas had not given enough space to the Nazi crimes, that he relied too much on the stories of the German victims and their political representatives, that he is too legalistic in his analysis of the Potsdam conference, and because of the tone of the "moral outrage" expressed by the author.

(Lothar Kettenacker in the "Historische Zeitschrift", John Campbell, Detleff Brandes, and in the Polish and Czech Press: O III Rzeszy coraz sympatyczniej, Trybuna Ludu 30.VII.1980, Nr.

An enlarged German edition, with previously unpublished photographs from the United States Army Signal Corps, facsimiles of documents from the National Archives, Public Record Office, Federal Swiss Archives in Bern, and Bundesarchiv-Koblenz, was published in October 1977 by C. H. Beck in Munich, and had several editions, published under the title Die Nemesis von Potsdam.