Expellee organizations shifted from socioeconomic to foreign-policy demands as prosperity rose.

Evidence

Despite these manifold divisions, the various organizations did agree on certain key demands. In the early years, at a time when millions of expellees lived under severe economic hardship, often without work and adequate housing, social policy issues figured most prominently in their programs. But as special legislative measures and the general revival of the economy began to improve the material situation by the early 1950s, the expellee groups increasingly shifted their attention to foreign affairs, where momentous events were under way at the time. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 26

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question about whether grievance-based organizations retool once their material grievance is met — here the shift is outward, to foreign affairs, rather than decay. — connects to: Expellee leaders shifted from demanding return to integrating within a few years — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 933
• QUESTION: Worth asking whether this confirms or contradicts the model that group solidarity decays when the threat/basis disappears — here the organization pivots, seemingly preserving itself.

Related

• Expellee organizations lost all influence once the territorial goal became moot (similarity 0.80)
• Expellee political power eroded once generational change and border settlement removed grievances (similarity 0.79)
• Expellee politics collapsed once core social demands were met (similarity 0.79)
• Adenauer’s long tenure institutionalized expellee groups as de facto veto holders. (similarity 0.78)