Replication Data for: Forced Migration, Staying Minorities, and New Societies: Evidence From Post-war Czechoslovakia

Can staying minorities that evade ethnic cleansing affect political outcomes in re-settled communities? After World War Two, three million ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, but some were allowed to stay, many of them left-leaning anti-fascists. We study quasi-experimental local variation in expulsion policies, a result of the surprising presence of the US Army which indirectly helped anti-fascist Germans stay. We find a long-lasting footprint: Communist party support, party cells, and far-left values are stronger today where anti-fascist Germans stayed in larger numbers. Post-war German Communist elites appear to drive this effect as does intergenerational transmission of values among active party members.