Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar Germany and France by Manuel Borutta & Jan C. Jansen

Author:Manuel Borutta & Jan C. Jansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Part IV

Political Impact and Participation

8

The Political Integration of the Expellees in Postwar West Germany

Frank Bösch

The political integration of German expellees from former eastern territories and those annexed during the war seems to have been a success. Many contemporary observers had expected a political radicalization of these 12 million expellees after 1945. It was feared that they would turn to communist or populist right-wing parties. The founding of their own party, the ‘League of Expellees and Disenfranchised’ (Block der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (BHE)), and its rapid success at many regional elections suggested that their integration would be difficult. But the BHE was voted into the Bundestag only once, in 1953, and rapidly lost importance. It seems therefore that the ruling Christian Democrats successfully managed to integrate the expellees in German politics. The leading figures in the League of Expelled Germans (Bund der vertriebenen Deutschen (BvD)) were almost always Christian Democratic politicians, and the expellee organizations (Vertriebenenverbände) were thought to have close ties to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The general conclusion among historians is that this successful integration was mainly due to the anti-communist consensus of the 1950s, to the successful policies of Adenauer’s government on the whole, including the ‘Economic Miracle’ (Wirtschaftswunder), and to the support shown by Christian Democrats for expellees’ demands. Additional factors promoting integration were the financial compensation or ‘burden sharing’ (Lastenausgleich) policy of 1952 and the CDU’s resistance to the Ostpolitik of Social Democrats. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is seen by many as having ignored the plight of expellees, addressing it, if at all, only during election campaigns. Thus, a recent study on expulsion argues that only during a 1999 speech by Minister of the Interior Otto Schily did a ‘late realization’ emerge that the political left had ignored the plight of expellees.1

This chapter offers a different interpretation. First, it will argue that the political integration of the expellees was – similar to the political integration of the repatriates in France – a protracted and ambivalent process. Though the feared radicalization did not materialize, political integration was slow in coming. It was the result of a conjunction of successful interest-driven politics and a marginalization of expellees. Second, it will show that expellees’ integration in the Christian Democratic/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) was no natural and inevitable process but a long and arduous road, involving a strategic struggle with the expellee organizations. The third hypothesis is that in many regions the political integration of expellees at the grass-roots level developed even faster within the SPD. This initially close relationship between Social Democrats and expellees has often been overlooked due to the close ties between leading Christian Democrats and representatives of expellee organizations that developed starting in the 1970s.2 This chapter does not focus on legislation, but on the social and party history of expellees’ political participation. It also attempts to link regional and national perspectives. A new research perspective is gained by looking at the parties themselves, in contrast to previous research with its focus on political agitation by expellee organizations.

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