Recognition of the border triggered an activist’s withdrawal from politics and society

Evidence

When Bonn recognized the Oder-Neisse border in 1970, Weber released his last gasp of protest, then began a steady retreat from his newspaper and ultimately society in general. In 1972, he allowed the production of a new section in his newspaper, called “the viaduct,” devoted to encouraging German-Polish reconciliation. After the death of his wife in 1983, just before his sixtieth birthday, Weber had a sex change, became Gerda Weber, and seldom wrote at all anymore, despite her promise in 1985 to continue offering “strength for the work” that might serve her beloved Silesian Heimat . 101 Certainly this was no longer the Silesia of reality; even when travel became comparably easy after 1970, Weber never returned to Liegnitz again. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 965

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to reader’s research question about what happens to group solidarity when the external enemy/threat disappears—here it decayed inward rather than manufacturing a new target.