Expellees integrated into the SPD lost their group-based identity politics

Evidence

Of crucial importance, however, is that these politicians did not primarily define themselves as expellees, and hardly ever referred to themselves as such in their political speeches. Rather, they tended to see themselves as Social Democrats and as advocates of social rights. This would support the notion that integration had been visibly achieved here. The ‘collective special awareness’, much emphasized in a more recent study by Wolfgang Fischer with regard to expellees in the Bundestag, seems to be limited here. The expellees in the Bundestag did not develop a shared, party-wide awareness of their role as expellees. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 751

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast with the CDU expellees described elsewhere in the chapter who kept a special-interest identity — suggests institutional frame determines whether professed group identity persists. — connects to: Exposure to the transformed Heimat eroded expellee support for territorial revision. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 1328; Expellee revisionism decayed internally through decades of reflection, not political pressure — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 1404; Ethnic German expellees faced discrimination from their own countrymen after arrival — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 363 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: Were SPD expellees silent because genuinely assimilated, or because their organizations punished the label? The chapter’s observation about the party not keeping statistics is suggestive presentational choice worth chasing.

Broader Connections

• Once expellees integrated, their protests lost power to influence party loyalties #corroborates (0.90) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 760