The Politics of Memory: Flight and Expulsion of German Populations after the Second World War and German Collective Memory

Abstract

The mass flight and expulsion of German populations from their traditional homelands in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe after the Second World War was an act on an unprecedented scale; more than 13 million Germans were affected by this forced migration. Their integration into the two postwar German states is today widely regarded as a great success story. However, this came at a cost: the refugees and expellees had to integrate into the postwar polity, economy and society without their memories and experiences receiving due recognition in a common narrative of the receiving areas. With the unification of the two German states, flight and expulsion have begun to be linked into an overall German collective memory. However, the remembrance of individual pain suffered by Germans must not be allowed to blur the German responsibility for the crimes committed during the Nazi period, and the jury is still out on whether the difficult task of combining the two will be mastered successfully or whether old prejudices and fears will resurface instead.