The expellee leadership punished reconciliation advocates even though rank-and-file members favored them.

Evidence

Beske had tried to stand in the ever-widening gap between the expellee leadership and the expellees as a whole; for this, the leadership had tried to destroy him. … These gestures generated strong opposition by other Heimat leaders such as Erich Mai (mentioned previously for summoning Brieger to the Silesian rally in Munich in 1970 to protest Ostpolitik ). In 1971, Mai urged the Patenschaft to keep away from activities prepared by the likes of Hans Beske or Roland Reche, “because it would be the end of the Patenschaft for Goslar and Brieg. As I reported this to some countrymen, [they] responded at once that, if Brieg is already a Polish city, then we don’t need to travel to Goslar anymore.” — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 1552

Categorization

• QUESTION: This documents a sharp leadership-vs-constituency divergence: leaders threatened by reconciliation proposals even as ordinary members concede the territory is lost. Useful evidence for how a threat-hardened elite outlasts its base.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core question about solidarity sustained by manufactured enemies and what threatens that solidarity — the elite punishes the member whose ‘third way’ dissolves the external enemy premise. — connects to: Expellee organizations enforced an orthodox policy line by punishing political deviation — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 105

Broader Connections

• Expellee organizations enforced an orthodox policy line by punishing political deviation #corroborates (0.95) — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 105