Expellee rhetoric of rights and Europe disguised irredentist territorial claims.

Evidence

But Lodgman insisted that even the new Europe would be dominated by the hard interests and policies of “nation states” and suggested that a renewed “Anschluss” with Germany would provide the best solution to the Sudeten problem. Seen from this angle, expellee argumentation in terms of rights, European unity, and the like constituted an attempt to build acceptable cover for concrete territorial claims, particularly those that extended beyond the 1937 frontiers. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 67

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question about whether professed conviction diverges from actual measured aims — here the internationalist ‘Europe’ framing is tactical cover, not conviction. — connects to: Exposure to the transformed Heimat eroded commitments to territorial revisionism — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 1091; Expellee leaders framed the right to homeland as a God-given right — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 46; Expellee leaders weaponized rights rhetoric to mask annexationist aims toward the East. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 61 (+5 more)

Related

• Expellee leaders weaponized rights rhetoric to mask annexationist aims toward the East. (similarity 0.85)
• Expellee elites framed their lost-homeland cause as pan-European unification that would erase borders. (similarity 0.84)
• Expellee leaders framed the right to homeland as a God-given right (similarity 0.82)
• West German governments codified expellee homeland rights as preconditions. (similarity 0.81)
• Unrealistic irredentist goals alienated expellee members and marginalized their organizations (similarity 0.81)
• All three major West German parties competed in declaring the expellee cause sacrosanct. (similarity 0.80)
• Adenauer supported expellee demands instrumentally to shore up his Western policy, not from conviction. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Sacralized territorial rhetoric travels across unrelated national conflicts #expands (0.82)
• Diversity rhetoric can camouflage which citizens remain deemed illegitimate #expands (0.78)