State refusal to acknowledge expellee grievances drove thousands to emigrate West

Evidence

Contrary to the SED’s ‘totalitarian’ reputation, clandestine subcultures of refugees and expellees pushed back against the SED’s prohibitions despite being subjected to extensive surveillance. The arts and especially literature provided an opening through which the distinctive experiences of ‘resettlers’ and their meaning could be expressed. Yet the GDR’s determination to render the expulsions invisible to public memory encouraged many ‘resettlers’ to move once more, this time to the Federal Republic. Neither undercapitalized restitution through land reform, nor a standard of living that lagged behind that of other East Germans, nor the state’s unwillingness to acknowledge the pain of its ‘new citizens’ encouraged expellees to accept their lot. Thousands fled to the relative openness and prosperity of West Germany before the GDR closed its borders, in effect legitimatizing the FRG’s exclusive claim to represent Germandom. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 189

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s core question: grievance non-acknowledgment acts as a push factor, paralleling the BHE’s collapse when grievances were resolved — here unresolved grievances drive exit rather than mobilization. — connects to: Assimilationist dispersal broke down because local authorities refused to handle deportee relocations — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1082; Expellee political power eroded once generational change and border settlement removed grievances — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 403; Ethnic German expellees faced discrimination from their own countrymen after arrival — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 363

Broader Connections

• Assimilationist dispersal broke down because local authorities refused to handle deportee relocations #expands (0.78) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1082
• Expellee political power eroded once generational change and border settlement removed grievances #qualifies (0.72) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 403
• Ethnic German expellees faced discrimination from their own countrymen after arrival #expands (0.72) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 363