Expellee organizations sustained West German revanchism by reinforcing refusal to accept the postwar border

Evidence

Throughout the Adenauer era, the West German government insisted upon the renegotiation of the Oder–Neisse line and the return of the ‘lost’ territories in the east. Despite suspicions of Adenauer’s well-known anti-Prussianism and his unambiguous Atlanticist foreign policy, Adenauer wanted the restoration of the former Prussian territories and went so far as to imagine a reunited Germany’s ‘peaceful’ colonization of the ‘East’ in the manner of the Teutonic Knights. The influence of expellee organizations and especially their national umbrella, the Federation of Expellees (BdV) was considerable, for it reinforced the government’s refusal to recognize the outcomes of the Cold War and overrode the pressure from business and center-left constituencies to improve the FRG’s relations with its eastern neighbors. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 190

Categorization

• XREF: 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; Germany lost forty percent of its 1937 territory through postwar border changes — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 179; Citizenship and economic boom eased postwar expellee integration in West Germany — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 196 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Expellee organizations crystallized anti-reunification-compromise principles during Cold War polarization. #corroborates (0.85) — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 29
• All three major West German parties competed in declaring the expellee cause sacrosanct. #corroborates (0.85) — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 84
• Citizenship and economic boom eased postwar expellee integration in West Germany #complicates (0.82) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 196
• A small expellee-functionary group could veto major West German foreign policy initiatives. #corroborates (0.82) — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 247
• West German expellee policy was effectively modernizing despite restorative rhetoric #complicates (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 394
• Expellee political power eroded once generational change and border settlement removed grievances #qualifies (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 403
• Allied authorities created expellee organizations as anti-communist tools #complicates (0.72) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 82