Ethnic German expellees faced discrimination from their own countrymen after arrival

Evidence

But the vast majority of expellees lived in rural areas or small towns during the first postwar decade. Rural society, with its relatively stable social hierarchies and milieus, did not guaranatee equal chances of social integration and advancement to newcomers, but rather in most cases brutal integration at the lowest social level (Unterschichtung). The expellees after 1945 had filled the gap of former foreign forced laborers after the defeat of the Nazi war empire. Therefore, ethnological studies demonstrate caution towards the notion of common postwar integration of all Germans; instead, for many expellees after the catastrophe of flight and expulsion there followed a second crisis upon arrival, that being characterized by a lack of ‘national solidarity’. This ‘cultural shock’ of being downgraded and discriminated in one’s own Vaterland had deep, long-term impact. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 363

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s question about manufactured/threat-based vs primordial solidarity — here cultural affinity (ethnic German-ness) did NOT translate into solidarity, contradicting primordialist assumptions. — connects to: Expellees inverted Nazi-victim status to claim compensation. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 1254; Expellees integrated into the SPD lost their group-based identity politics — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 751; State refusal to acknowledge expellee grievances drove thousands to emigrate West — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 189 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Expellees integrated into the SPD lost their group-based identity politics #expands (0.78) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 751