Cold War propaganda inflated the success of West German expellee integration.

Evidence

Fourth, the emerging Cold War constituted an important international backdrop to this process. This was most obvious in the case of the German expellees, who were split up between two antagonistic political and ideological systems. While the communist regime of East Germany stopped financial help for the so-called ‘resettlers’ in the mid-1950s, declaring that they had been successfully integrated and assimilated, the socio-economic integration of expellees in West Germany was soon depicted as a ‘miracle’ (Integrationswunder). It became an essential part of the West German Wirtschaftswunder myth and a crucial element of Western Cold War propaganda. By contrast, the integration of the Pieds-Noirs was barely linked to the Cold War context, though, from 1969, it was the subject of domestic rivalry among Gaullists, socialists, and communists competing to best provide for this voting group. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 40

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the reader’s thesis that professed/declared success (East Germany declaring integration complete, West Germany declaring a miracle) can diverge from measured reality — analogous to conviction-vs-behavior divergence. — connects to: Integration myths both obscured and drove postwar absorption of expellees — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 104
• QUESTION: Was the Integrationswunder actually faster than objective indicators support, i.e. a manufactured narrative serving Cold War needs?

Broader Connections

• Integration myths both obscured and drove postwar absorption of expellees #expands (0.95) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 104