Adenauer’s isolated decision-making excluded expellee organizations from real power

Evidence

Adenauer distrusted most people, including the Germans as a Volk, and preferred to make important decisions, particularly those involving foreign policy, either alone or in a very small circle of close advisors. As a consequence, the expellee leaders never received access to the inner sanctums of power, either within the CDU/CSU or the federal government. The Ministry for Expellee Affairs, for example, remained marginalized, and the expellee activists also failed to gain a foothold in the Foreign Office, which was hardly surprising, given Foreign Minister Brentano’s contempt for their “emotional reactions.” A good indication of the expellee organizations’ lack of active influence was their inability to secure major governmental support for the extensive public relations work in the West—particularly the United States—which they kept planning with high expectations throughout the 1950s. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 177

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to arguments about manufactured external enemies and grievance groups: those groups’ clout here depends less on their mobilization than on how leaders choose to use or ignore them. — connects to: Participation and collective decision-making neutralize rather than redistribute subordinate power — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 800; Rationality in social theory attaches to systems and functions, not individual decisions — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 308; Real organizational power flows from career influence, not from directive-and-dismissal authority — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 790 (+3 more)

Related

• EJ groups succeed by building power outside formal decision-making structures (similarity 0.87)
• Adenauer’s long tenure institutionalized expellee groups as de facto veto holders. (similarity 0.82)
• Expellee groups could veto policy options but not shape policy positively (similarity 0.81)
• Expellee organizations claimed a veto role over East policy. (similarity 0.80)
• Expellee-organization opposition, not state-interest reasoning, drove Adenauer’s Ostpolitik reversals. (similarity 0.80)
• Expellee organizations supported rigid indefinite continuation of Ostpolitik non-recognition policy. (similarity 0.79)
• Expellee organizations crystallized anti-reunification-compromise principles during Cold War polarization. (similarity 0.79)
• Adenauer supported expellee demands instrumentally to shore up his Western policy, not from conviction. (similarity 0.79)
• Adenauer backed the expellee cause mainly to preempt social unrest. (similarity 0.78)
• Adenauer weaponized expellee grievances to stall reunification and extract concessions (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Participation and collective decision-making neutralize rather than redistribute subordinate power #exemplifies (0.78) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 800
• Rationality in social theory attaches to systems and functions, not individual decisions #exemplifies (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 308
• Real organizational power flows from career influence, not from directive-and-dismissal authority #qualifies (0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 790