West German expellee institutions outlived East German ones by decades

Evidence

The difference of time is striking. Regarding special authorities for expellees, a central department in the Soviet zone (Zentralverwaltung für deutsche Umsiedler) existed only between 1945 and 1948, while in West Germany it was created (as a Federal Ministry) in 1949, existing until 1969. Similarly, a special ‘Resettler Law’ was inaugurated in the GDR in 1950, with its measures lasting until 1953, while a special ‘Burden Sharing Law’ was inaugurated in 1952, lasting until after German reunification. … The legal provisions for subventions in order to sustain the cultural identity (or identities) of expellees that were created in West Germany in 1952 are still in force in united Germany today – with considerable effects on scientific research, on public memory, and, not least, on life extension of organized expellee lobbyism. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 402

Categorization

• QUESTION: The survival of West German cultural-identity subventions to the present extends the expellee lobby’s life far beyond credible grievance — close to the reader’s question of whether groups manufacture new enemies when old grievances resolve.
• XREF: connects to: East Germany’s nominally revolutionary resettler policy proved more restorative than West’s — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 395; West Germany preserved expellee cultural identity where East Germany and France sought swift assimilation — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 72