The GDR suppressed expellee identity to protect its pro-Soviet founding myth

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: Naming (resettler vs expellee) as an instrument of identity suppression parallels how regimes elsewhere control group narratives — connects to the reader’s interest in manufactured versus suppressed identity. — connects to: Expellees integrated into the SPD lost their group-based identity politics — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 751; Regimes suppress group identity when it contradicts founding legitimation myths. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 188; Clinging to lost-homeland identity actively blocked expellee assimilation — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 381 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: ‘Resettler’ (Umsiedler) terminology was itself a Soviet/GDR tool to deny the expulsion narrative.

Broader Connections

• Regimes suppress group identity when it contradicts founding legitimation myths. #expands (0.85) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 188
• Expellees integrated into the SPD lost their group-based identity politics #expands (0.80) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 751
• Integration myths both obscured and drove postwar absorption of expellees #corroborates (0.80) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 104
• Western Allies first banned then weaponized expellee organizations against communism #responds-to (0.80) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 82
• Clinging to lost-homeland identity actively blocked expellee assimilation #qualifies (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 381