A constructed shared victimhood unified diverse displaced German groups.

Evidence

In essence the politics of citizenship expressed the myth of a common German ‘victimhood’ attributed not to National Socialism but to the Allies. Hence the term ‘expellee’ depicted passive recipients of the actions of others. It covered those whom National Socialism ‘resettled’, refugees from the Soviet advance, and Germans ousted by ‘wild’ or government-initiated expulsions. Like Reich Germans victimized by Allied bombing, ‘expellees’ also suffered simply by being German. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 184

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s core question: whereas the BHE chapter shows solidarity collapsing once grievance is satisfied, this shows the manufactured framing (against the Allies, not Nazis) that initially held a heterogeneous population together. — connects to: German unilateral guilt narratives ignored Poles’ own comparable displacement and suffering — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 669; German Turkish communities evoke the Holocaust to measure their own victimization. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in…, 890; A displaced group’s collective unconscious changes within a century (+10 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies how ‘expellee’ was a constructed umbrella category concealing internal diversity under a shared victim identity.

Broader Connections

• Shared state violence can create fellow feeling across ethnic lines. #corroborates (0.95) — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 46
• Shared misery and external threats drive stigmatized groups toward protective internal solidarity #expands (0.88)
• German Turkish communities evoke the Holocaust to measure their own victimization. #expands (0.85) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 890
• The ethnic cleansing of Germans traced causality back to Nazi resettlement crimes #corroborates (0.85) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 1625
• The same war produced victims on both sides who now share a neighborhood #exemplifies (0.85) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 204
• Prejudiced victims may either target weaker others or sympathize with fellow minorities #expands (0.82)
• Postwar shared suffering made German strangers unusually open in conversation #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1868
• Shared prejudice threats build protective ingroup solidarity #expands (0.80) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 952
• Group Experiment was the first penetrating postwar analysis of Germans’ inability to mourn #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2037
• A displaced group’s collective unconscious changes within a century #expands (0.72)
• Collective violence requires dehumanizing victims into abstract categories #qualifies (0.72)