How you lose your own culture: The press published in West Germany by the homeland associations of ethnic Germans expelled from Central and Eastern Europe (1945–1968)

Abstract

he periodicals published by the Landsmannschaften, homeland associations of ethnic Germans expelled from Central and Eastern Europe, played a destructive role in the history of Germany. Their predecessors sprang up from the ground in the Western Zones as early as 1945. Initially these semi‑legal bulletins were sent to subscribers per mail. At that time their motivation and content were primarily humanitarian – to help families and friends to get along in the post‑war confusion. In 1949 the strict licencing laws were relaxed and in the following years hundreds of periodicals began to published. They ranged from bulletins representing small rural communities to ventures that claimed the succession of big regional newspapers. Most important among them were Der Schlesier, Breslauer Nachrichten, Die Pommersche Zeitung, Das Ostpreußenblatt, Das Po- mmernblatt, Der Westpreuße, Unser Oberschlesien and Die Schlesiche Rundschau. In the 1950 these periodicals felt in a way encouraged by Konrad Adenauer's government to question the postwar border with Poland. Their pages were filled with texts that exaggerated the drama of what they called 'Flight and Expulsion'. While Poland was regularly accused of ingrained imperialism, the allegedly incontrovertible German rights to the territories east of the Oder‑Neiße line (i.e. Poland's Regained Territories) was reaffirmed and mythologized. At the same time Germany's guilt was relativized at multiple points, not just for starting the Second World War. However, by the end of the 1950s practically no politician in the Federal Republic would think of putting the existing borders in question. The Landsmannschaften could hardly do anything about it. Their members were dispersed between all parties — left, right and center — and in each party they always constituted a minority of diminishing significance. Meanwhile, the majority of German society fully accepted the post‑war territorial losses, if only for pragmatic reasons. No one wanted to risk an armed conflict with the Eastern Bloc. Yet, the cast‑away periodicals continued for about three decades to support fanatical demands for the restoration of the 1937 borders. Most Germans reacted with irritation and called their obstinacy obtuseness. The radicalism of the leaders of these organizations put off both young people and the intelligentsia – people for whom investing in their professional career was more important than sticking to the past. The refugees associated with the Landsmannschaften were subjected to a torrent of ridicule, the organizations themselves pushed into the role of scapegoats and marginalized. Over years and decades, these attitudes gained more ground and became normalized. In effect, anything related to Schlesien (Silesia) became taboo in the German social, cultural and scientific sphere. Even an admission of one’s roots became shameful for the vast majority of the last wave of migrants from the former German territories who came to West Germany after
1968. Drawing on an assortment of texts from the periodicals, the article argues that as a result of a politically driven, long‑term process the history and cultural heritage of the former eastern lands have been completely forgotten in the Federal Republic.