The expellees rejected the Oder-Neisse border as provisional pending a formal peace conference

Evidence

Drawing upon the Potsdam Agreement of August 1945 and a number of other Allied declarations, they also rejected the postwar border settlement in the East, particularly the so-called Oder-Neisse line, which separated East Germany from Poland. At Postdam, the victorious Allies had decided that the German provinces east of the line formed by the Oder and the western Neisse rivers were to remain under Polish or-in the case of northern East Prussia-Russian administration until the “final delimitation of the … frontier” at the peace conference. In other declarations, the Western powers had indicated that, pending a peace treaty, Germany continued to exist within its 1937 borders, which would form the basis for future negotiations over the territorial question. Echoing such statements, the expellee organizations repeatedly pointed out that they would “never” accept the “arbitrary and unnatural” Oder-Neisse line. They insisted that the postwar border adjustments were provisional and that their final resolution could be achieved only in a formal peace conference in which the freely elected government of a reunited Germany would participate 11. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 31

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how grievance-based groups anchor their claims in legal-institutional framings (the 1937-borders principle) that later lose salience; echoes the question of what happens to solidarity built on ‘lost homeland’ grievances. — connects to: FDP elites privately judged Oder-Neisse demands theoretical by 1954 but feared saying so publicly. — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 149; Unification ended German territorial claims despite the expellee constituency’s objections — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 205; Expellee conservatism emerged only after SPD recognition of the Oder-Neisse line — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 87

Related

• Unification ended German territorial claims despite the expellee constituency’s objections (similarity 0.84)
• Expellee conservatism emerged only after SPD recognition of the Oder-Neisse line (similarity 0.84)
• Expellee organizations sustained West German revanchism by reinforcing refusal to accept the postwar border (similarity 0.83)
• Brandt’s Ostpolitik accepted the lost eastern territories despite expellee opposition (similarity 0.83)
• FDP elites privately judged Oder-Neisse demands theoretical by 1954 but feared saying so publicly. (similarity 0.83)
• Adenauer publicly endorsed the expellees’ revisionist territorial claims. (similarity 0.82)
• Expellee organizations lost all influence once the territorial goal became moot (similarity 0.79)
• Adenauer weaponized expellee grievances to stall reunification and extract concessions (similarity 0.79)
• Germany lost forty percent of its 1937 territory through postwar border changes (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• FDP elites privately judged Oder-Neisse demands theoretical by 1954 but feared saying so publicly. #complicates (0.80) — Pertti Ahonen, Domestic Constraints on West German…, 149