During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period German citizens and people of German ancestry were expelled from various Eastern European countries and sent to Germany and Austria. After 1950, some emigrated to the United States, Australia, and other countries from there. The areas affected included the former eastern territories of Germany which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union after the war, as well as Germans in areas occupied by Nazi Germany within the prewar borders of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and the Baltic States. The Nazis  had made plans - only partially completed before the Nazi defeat - to remove many Slavic and Jewish people from Eastern Europe and settle the area with Germans. The post war expulsion of the Germans formed a major part of the geopolitical and ethnic reconfiguration in the aftermath of World War II, that attempted to create ethnically homogeneous nations within redefined borders. Between 1944 and 1948 about 31 million people including ethnic Germans ('Volksdeutsche') as well as German citizens ('Reichsdeutsche') were permanently or temporarily moved from Central and Eastern Europe.