Expellees neither forgot their Heimat through prosperity nor held genuine desire for physical return

Evidence

The episodes illustrated here were part of a widespread phenomenon that has found little place in six decades of scholarship and popular discussion. In general, it has been assumed that West Germany’s expellees either forgot about their lost Heimat because of newfound prosperity in the economic miracle of the 1950s or clung to a genuine desire for physical return, as their spokespeople claimed, and so were foiled when Bonn coni rmed the border in 1970. Neither of these views gets to the heart of how expellees actually dealt with their traumatic past. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 86

Categorization

• XREF: Speaks directly to the reader’s question about what happens to a manufactured-threat community’s conviction when the threat disappears — here the revisionist-expellee solidarity was real yet coexisted with abandonment of physical return. — connects to: Economic success did not erode expellees’ attachment to their lost homeland — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 104; Expellees commemorated their lost Heimat while abandoning any intention to return — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 513; Nostalgia and visits to the lost homelands weakened expellees’ own demand for return — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 193 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic success did not erode expellees’ attachment to their lost homeland #corroborates (1.00) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 104
• Expellees commemorated their lost Heimat while abandoning any intention to return #corroborates (0.95) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 513
• Nostalgia and visits to the lost homelands weakened expellees’ own demand for return #qualifies (0.80) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 193
• Exposure to the transformed Heimat eroded expellee support for territorial revision. #complicates (0.80) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 1328
• Privation in exile intensified idealized retrospection on the lost Heimat. #qualifies (0.75) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 778