After the Expulsion West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945-1990

by Ahonen, Pertti

• ISBN13: 9780199259892
• ISBN10: 0199259895
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book breaks new ground by connecting two central problems faced by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to integrate eight million expellees forced out of their homes in Central andEastern Europe as a result of the lost war. Externally, it had to re-establish relations with Eastern Europe, despite the burdens of the Nazi past, the expulsions, and the ongoing East-West struggle in the Cold War. This study shows how the long-term consequences of the expellee problemsignificantly hindered West German efforts to develop normal ties to the East European states. In particular, it emphasizes a point largely overlooked in the existing literature: the way in which the political integration of the expellees into the Federal Republic had unanticipated negativeconsequences for the country's Ostpolitik.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations	x
Introduction	1	(38)
I. ESTABLISHING THE PATTERN, 1949-1955
1. From the Expulsions to the Rise of the Expellee Organizations 15
2. The Programmes and Strategies of the Expellee Organizations	39	(42)
3. The Responses and Policies of the Main Parties 54
4. Adenauer's Foreign Policy and the Expellees	81	(38)
II. THE PATTERN IN PRACTICE, 1955-1966
5. Ostpolitik Options and Expellee Influence, 1955-1959	119	(36)
6. Ostpolitik Options and Expellee Influence, 1959-1966	155	(48)
III. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PATTERN, 1966-1990
7. The Grand Coalition as the Turning Point, 1966-1969	203	(40)
8. From the New Ostpolitik to Reunification, 1969-1990	243	(23)
Conclusion	266	(14)
Bibliography	280	(27)
Index	307