The Federation of Displaced Persons (Bund der Vertriebenen), founded on 27 October 1957 (and formally established on 14 December 1958) and based in Bonn. The United Regional Associations and State Federations (BdV), as the umbrella organisation for German associations of displaced persons, is unique. Although other European states also faced considerable problems after 1945 with the reception and integration of refugees and displaced persons, and although these groups often organised themselves politically, it was only in West Germany that such a sophisticated and influential organisational structure for those affected emerged. The BdV is a federation of associations and is registered as a legal entity with the Bonn Local Court under number VR 2841 in the Register of Associations; its member associations (regionalassociations andstate federations ) are themselves registered associations. In the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, or the GDR, the formation of associations for displaced persons was prevented after 1945. In contrast, in the Republic of Austria, for the approximately 300,000 ‘ethnic German refugees’ – as they were known there – regional associations began to form from the early 1950s onwards; these joined together on 11 September 1954 to form the Working Group of Ethnic German Regional Associations in Austria (VLÖ).

The Western Allies had initially sought to prevent the refugees and displaced persons (around eight million people in 1950, i.e. some 16 per cent of the total population) from organising themselves, not least out of fear that they might become radicalised. In this respect, the associations representing displaced persons were ‘latecomers’ (Wambach), who had to try to assert themselves within an already established party- and administration-based state. These historical circumstances were also a key factor in the founding, on 9 April 1949 in Frankfurt am Main, of two umbrella organisations: on the one hand, the tightly organised Central Association of Displaced Germans (ZvD), which saw itself as a ‘displaced persons’ trade union’ structured into regional associations, with a primary focus on social policy; and, secondly, the United East German Regional Associations (VOL) – renamed the Federation of Regional Associations (VdL) on 18 August 1952 – which were characterised by internal factionalism and primarily emphasised their shared origins and objectives relating to homeland policy. The two organisations were in a state of distant rivalry, not least due to personal rivalries between their leaders. This ultimately led to the failure, in the early 1950s, of plans for a merger under the name ‘Federation of Displaced Germans’ (BVD). It was not until 1957–58, against a backdrop of massive membership losses at the ZvD – which had been calling itself the BVD since 1954 – that the BdV was finally established. By this time, the displaced persons’ associations had already passed their zenith. Whilst the ZvD and VOL/VdL together still had three to four million members at the start of the 1950s, by the mid-1960s – as a result of successful integration efforts – the number of BdV members had fallen to (officially reported) 2.3 million (1963), which nevertheless still corresponds to a comparatively impressive level of organisation of approximately 20 to 25 per cent. It is unclear how many members the BdV has today. In 2010, the ddp news agency put the figure at 550,000 members, a figure which the BdV disputed. Such research is complicated by the complex structure of the organisation, with its coexistence of regional associations and state federations, as well as membership arrangements that remain apparently unclear to this day. The BdV’s website currently states (without providing evidence) that it has 1.3 million members. Although the associations of displaced persons are classic lobby organisations representing the particular interests of their members, this external view does not correspond to their self-image. Rather, they have always seen themselves as a national vanguard of the German people, committed to the federal German raison d’état as they interpreted it. For this reason, in the early Federal Republic, the associations of displaced persons also claimed a quasi-public watchdog role with regard to Germany policy and Ostpolitik, and began at an early stage to develop a set of instruments which, analogous to corresponding successful attempts at ‘auxiliary office activities’ in the field of domestic policy, would enable them to pursue a ‘complementary foreign policy’ (Wambach). However, these endeavours were not destined for long-term success. Behind the demand for German reunification (at least) within the 1937 borders – a demand that was still held by some as late as the early 1990s – lay the unspoken notion, rooted in the revisionist thinking of the 1920s, though largely stripped of its ethno-nationalist and racist implications, that Germany could not survive within the Potsdam borders and must be restored as a Central European hegemonic power. The BdV generally dealt with critics, both internally and externally, in an extremely brusque manner.

From the perspective of organisational sociology, the associations of displaced persons – entirely in keeping with their self-image – represent an older type of association that exhibits striking similarities with pre-modern, estate-based organisations: Group loyalties and communal norms, going beyond the rational purpose of the association and individual considerations of benefit, form an emotional bond that should not be underestimated; this bond continues to ensure the loyalty and mobilisability of the members of displaced persons’ associations to this day. The BdV is a federally structured organisation: Whilst the Presidential Board (currently comprising the President, six Vice-Presidents and six other members of the Presidential Board) and the Federal Assembly of the BdV can act on behalf of all member associations, the diversity of opinion within the organisation is greater than is generally assumed by the public. Due to the sometimes extreme factionalism within the organisation, the BdV has repeatedly provided political decision-makers with opportunities to weaken it through a policy of ‘divide and rule’ and thus marginalise it in day-to-day political debates; this has opened the floodgates to state interference. The BdV was, and remains, essentially a fragile entity that is dependent on the willingness of its member organisations to cooperate. The BdV and its member organisations attempted – with considerable success – to mask these internal problems through powerful public mass rallies (Days of the Homeland, Whitsun gatherings), which, well into the late 1960s, sometimes mobilised several hundred thousand people. These served a dual purpose: on the one hand, they made the postulated common interests of the ‘homeland family’ tangibly experiential, so to speak, thereby reinforcing its internal cohesion and seeking to counteract the assimilation of this ‘community of shared destiny’ in a ‘foreign land’. On the other hand, the seemingly grassroots-democratic appeal to the collectively understood will of the ‘ethnic group’ was intended to secure public legitimacy, particularly for the association’s interests, and in this way to generate public pressure. Today, however, these mechanisms function only in a rudimentary manner.

In their lobbying activities, the associations representing displaced persons at times made very successful use of the structures of the party-state and the administrative state. This is demonstrated above all by the legislative process surrounding burden-sharing, as well as the implementation and amendment of the Burden-Sharing Act of 14 August 1952. The BdV, however, was less successful in its attempts to influence the Federal Republic’s policy towards Germany and its Eastern neighbours in line with its own objectives. In principle, the associations of displaced persons were willing to engage with their eastern neighbours – as demonstrated, for example, by the Charter of German Displaced Persons proclaimed in Stuttgart in 1950 – nevertheless, on issues of homeland policy, the BdV acted primarily as the guardian of the 1949 ‘Fundamental Principles’, as it understood them, and therefore vehemently refused to adapt its programme to the premises of the new policy of détente. In the medium and long term, however, it could only act as a hindrance and contributed significantly to the Federal Republic of Germany ’s policies towards Germany and the East becoming increasingly deadlocked in the 1960s.

The fact that, despite its organisational weaknesses, the BdV still retains the reputation today of having been a powerful, well-organised lobbying organisation with far-reaching connections to the political and administrative leadership at federal and state level (had been), is primarily due to the fact that, well into the 1970s, it was closely intertwined with the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany through the major democratic mass parties. Nevertheless, even the BdV was ultimately unable to detach itself from the mechanisms of party democracy – in the event of a conflict, the higher loyalty of politicians representing displaced persons generally lay with their party. In terms of party politics, the BdV and its predecessor organisations remained neutral, despite a discernible affinity among the majority of their members for the Union parties. Although the Block of Displaced Persons and the Disenfranchised (BHE, later the All-German Block/BHE), founded in 1950, managed to gain some influence in the 1950s, it failed to gain a permanent foothold in the West German party system as a result of the successful integration policy. From the late 1950s onwards, the displaced persons increasingly turned to the SPD, which was in opposition at federal level and traditionally had numerous supporters and party members, particularly amongst the displaced persons from Silesia and the Sudetenland. The German nationalist slogans of the SPD leadership at the time (“Renunciation is treason”) resonated with the displaced persons, and it is no coincidence that, with Wenzel Jaksch (1896–1967) and Reinhold Rehs (1901–1971), two SPD politicians served as BdV presidents between 1964 and 1970. In retrospect, however, it becomes very clear that the SPD – and Willy Brandt in particular – merely sought to exploit the BdV and the voter base behind it with a view to a change of power in Bonn, whilst at the same time preparations were already underway to move away from the previous policies on Germany and the East. The New Ostpolitik was fiercely opposed by the BdV and led to defections from SPD politicians representing displaced persons to the CDU, such as the long-serving BdV Vice-President Herbert Hupka (1915–2006). Nevertheless, these were, on the whole, exceptions; since the 1970s, however, a mutual distance between the BdV and the SPD has been observable, which remains palpable to this day. Although the BdV never formally abandoned its claim to party-political neutrality, it has since aligned itself closely with the CDU and CSU. However, its relationship with the Union parties had never been entirely free of tension either, as these parties, being in government, were ultimately unwilling to help the BdV achieve its far-reaching objectives regarding homeland policy. However, as they did not wish to alienate the BdV for reasons of party politics and power, the Union increasingly resorted to evasive language. Mutual communication was therefore always characterised by a certain insincerity. Opposition to the ‘New Ostpolitik’ then brought the Union and the BdV closer together once more. It is noteworthy that, although there was a not inconsiderable number of politicians within the leadership of the expellee associations who were politically tainted from the era of the Third Reich, far-right parties never succeeded in co-opting the BdV for their own ends. Attempts by the far left to gain influence over the displaced persons via the ‘West German Refugee Congress’ (WFK), a communist front organisation controlled by the GDR and founded in 1951, also proved unsuccessful.

The BdV’s intransigence on issues relating to homeland policy and its de facto abandonment of party-political neutrality ultimately led, from the 1970s onwards, to a decline in membership to a level that was by no means representative of the organisation’s entire constituency, and, moreover, one that tends to be ageing, which, whilst still capable of being mobilised to a certain extent today, has largely lost its former clout. The BdV’s gradual decline – measured against its own aspirations – continued into the 1980s; the Kohl era, despite isolated concessions in the realm of symbolic politics, by no means brought about the hoped-for renaissance. The fact that the BdV had succeeded in 1973 and 1975 in having its legal positions substantially confirmed by the Federal Constitutional Court’s rulings on the East Treaties – rulings which it had helped to bring about – proved, in retrospect, to be of no value, as it could not prevent the all-German legislature from acting in accordance with realpolitik in 1990 and the Federal Republic of Germany from finally recognising the Oder-Neisse line as the German-Polish border in the German-Polish Border Confirmation Treaty of 14 November 1990. This recognition, against which the BdV protested in vain, brought home all at once just how much the association’s influence had by then waned, even within the CDU/CSU. Admittedly, the BdV’s target group expanded once more as a result of German reunification and the temporary resurgence in the influx of ‘Spätaussiedler’ following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, which led to an increase in membership figures; yet, on the whole, this brief phase represented nothing more than a fleeting resurgence. The BdV had quite clearly drifted far from the issues that concerned the majority of people in reunified Germany; it was predominantly perceived as representing the interests of an increasingly marginalised group. Reactions within the association to this development varied considerably: some of the organised displaced persons turned their attention to the issue of property, which had been excluded from the treaties of 1990–91, and thus, in a sense, returned to the original role of the displaced persons’ associations, namely to act primarily as advocates for the economic interests of their members. The activities of the Düsseldorf-based organisation ‘Preußische Treuhand GmbH & Co. KG a. A.’, founded in 2000 for this purpose, which sought to claim compensation from Poland for the material losses suffered by the displaced persons, attracted considerable media attention but ultimately failed. It is noteworthy that the BdV, as an association, distanced itself from the Preußische Treuhand. Since Erika Steinbach, a CDU Member of the Bundestag, took over the presidency of the BdV in 1998, a shift in the BdV’s agenda appears to have been taking shape. The organisation’s commitment to issues concerning the protection of national minorities and the prevention of further expulsions – but above all the ‘Centre Against Expulsions’ project in Berlin, launched in 1999, and the BdV’s involvement in the ‘Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation’ established in 2008, have led away from the earlier focus on border issues and the organisation’s own role as victims. Such initiatives also ensure the BdV a high level of media coverage – albeit not always favourable. On the other hand, it is evident that individual representatives of the BdV repeatedly invite criticism through polarising statements. Such incidents can be seen as evidence that, in some quarters of the BdV, there is still a desire to cling to interpretations of German history that have their roots in the immediate post-war period, but which have long since been consigned to history, both politically and academically, and therefore cannot form the basis of a modern culture of remembrance. Whether the BdV will succeed in remaining the mouthpiece for the interests of its clientele in a reunified Germany must be regarded as uncertain in light of developments over the past decades.

• Pertti Ahonen: *After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945–1990*. Oxford et al. 2003.
• Wolfgang Fischer: ‘Heimat-Politicians’? The self-image and political actions of displaced persons as members of the German Bundestag from 1949 to 1974. Düsseldorf 2010 (Contributions to the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties 157).
• Beata Ociepka: The Association of Expellees in the Political System of the Federal Republic of Germany and its Impact on Polish–German Relations 1982–1992 [The Association of Displaced Persons in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany and its influence on German-Polish relations 1982–1992]. Wrocław 1997 [German summary of the contents pp. 318–324].
• Michael Schwartz: Officials with a Past. The Founding Presidium of the Federal Association of Expellees and the ‘Third Reich’. Munich 2013.
• Matthias Stickler: ‘… as far as the Memel’? The stance of German expellees’ associations on the German–Polish border. In: Karoline Gil, Christian Pletzing (eds.): Granica. The German–Polish Border from the 19th to the 21st Century. Munich 2010 (Colloquia Baltica 19), pp. 105–134.
• Matthias Stickler: “East German Means All of Germany” – Organisation, Self-Conception and Objectives Regarding Homeland Policy of the German Associations of Displaced Persons, 1949–1972. Düsseldorf 2004 (Research and Sources on Contemporary History 46).
• Matthias Stickler: Pressure Groups with a Nation-wide Ambition – Organisation, Self-Conception and Objectives of the German Associations of Displaced Persons. In: Foundation ‘Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ (ed.): Flight, Expulsion, Integration. Bielefeld 2005, pp. 144–153. Translation into Polish: Non-German associations of displaced persons – interest groups at a national level. In: Flight, Displacement, Integration. Bielefeld 2007, pp. 148–157.
• Matthias Stickler: “Our homeland is under threat!” – The struggle of the Federation of Expellees (BdV) against the Eastern Treaties. In: Insights and Perspectives. Bavarian Journal of Politics and History 1 (2010), pp. 18–33.
• Matthias Stickler: The Integration of Displaced Persons in Austria and Germany – A Comparison. In: Michael Gehler, Ingrid Böhler (eds.): A Comparison of Different European Paths. Austria and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1945/49 to the Present. Festschrift for Rolf Steininger on his 65th birthday. Innsbruck 2007, pp. 416–435.
• Manfred Max Wambach: The ‘State of Associations’ and the Party Oligopoly. Power and Powerlessness of the Displaced Persons’ Associations. Stuttgart 1971 (Bonner Beiträge zur Soziologie 10).

• www.bund-der-vertriebenen.de

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