Political rallies drew a fraction while commemorative gatherings thrived.

Evidence

In continuity with the trends shown in Chapter 5 , expellees showed a similar disinterest in politics when they came together for intimate reunions on surrogate Heimat spaces in the West. Keeping in mind the sheer size of the expellee population, it is striking that, in 1970, the large-scale political rallies drew such pitiful attendance (by contrast with commemorative, locally oriented Heimat events). The Silesian Landsmannschaft was clearly embarrassed that only 9,000 bothered to show up and be subjected to three hours of speeches at the 1970 “Day of the Heimat ” in West Berlin, and they attributed the dismal turnout to “extraordinarily unfavorable weather.” … Even at the largest gathering – 150,000 Silesians in Munich in May 1970 – the numbers were markedly reduced from the 230,000 who had come to the last Schlesiertreffen in 1967, and an expellee leader recorded his frustration that the people felt “more resignation, more unrest and uncertainty than before.” Only 25,000 of those gathered bothered to attend the political demonstration and hear declarations that Silesia was an eternally German land. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 1503

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers reader’s solidarity-decay question with quantified divergence between professed leadership conviction and mass participation.