Regimes suppress group identity when it contradicts founding legitimation myths.

Evidence

Unlike the CDU-led West Germany, which provided space for expellees to express their distinctiveness, the SED prohibited expellee organizations and discouraged the public discussion of their double trauma, displacement and the subordination of their homelands to communist rule. Indeed, the GDR used the term ‘resettlers’ to describe the newcomers rather than ‘expellees’ because the latter contradicted the myth of the Red Army as ‘liberator’. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 188

Categorization

• XREF: The manufactured-solidarity research theme: the GDR denied expellee identity because it collided with the anti-fascist founding myth — a case of a regime substituting a preferred identity category for a lived one. — connects to: National-character research declined because ascribing traits to groups proved politically dangerous; Totalitarian regimes legitimize eliminating opposition as unnecessary and weak; Communitarian distinctness claims enabled regimes that suppressed individual rights in Africa — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 443 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Communitarian distinctness claims enabled regimes that suppressed individual rights in Africa #exemplifies (0.82) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 443
• Totalitarian regimes legitimize eliminating opposition as unnecessary and weak #corroborates (0.78)
• National-character research declined because ascribing traits to groups proved politically dangerous #exemplifies (0.75)
• Racist foundation myths disavow lack and thereby split citizenship from identity politics #exemplifies (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1400