A ‘Heimatbuch’ for displaced persons is a monograph, often written collectively by former residents, about their former home. Such books go beyond a mere chronicle, combining subjective and fact-based accounts to include texts and images depicting local social life, usually also covering the economy, nature and the landscape, folklore, church life, local buildings, prominent local figures, anecdotes and onomastics, as well as the experience of displacement. This is often supplemented by the post-war history of the locality and the fate of its displaced inhabitants after 1945. The works usually contain maps and documentary material, as well as lists of residents and houses; however, they rarely include indexes or bibliographies.^[1]

A central function of these works is the archiving of local knowledge and memory, and thus the recording in writing of the communicative memory of eyewitnesses. Their authors regard this as a prerequisite for their subsequent incorporation into the cultural memory of society as a whole.^[2] However, the primary audience consists of members of the generation that lived through these events, who collectively record their memories in the local history book.

Although a clear thematic canon can be identified in the works—loosely based on regional and local history frameworks—there is almost no topic that does not fit into the local history book. This openness is one reason why it has become the central medium for the local memory of the displaced.

Local history books, which were also referred to by this term (initially also as ‘Heimatsbuch’, and in Bohemia and Moravia as [parish] commemorative books), have existed in the German-speaking world since the early 20th century. Their origins can be traced back to the emergence of local history studies following the Wars of Liberation; by the 1920s, local history books had reached a remarkable standard and achieved high print runs.^[3]

The first authors following the expulsion wrote primarily to preserve their already fading memories. Yet the pre-war form of the local history book was subtly present; otherwise, the local history book would not have been able to establish itself so quickly as a medium of remembrance. Among the Danube Swabians, Transylvanian Saxons and Sudeten Germans, this genre proved particularly prolific, whilst others, such as the Russian Germans, did not publish monographic local history books. Major cities (Breslau/Wrocław, Danzig/Gdańsk, Prague/Praha) were scarcely immortalised in local history books; on the contrary, the areas covered by these works often had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants prior to the expulsion.

Normally, a group (a community of former residentsfrom a particular hometown) would compile the book together; the editors or compilers were educated laypeople such as teachers, clergy and other graduates, as well as, for some of the former eastern territories, former civil servants (particularly from East Prussia). Over time, the number of people able to pass on oral traditions dwindled, and the authors were often those who still had memories to contribute. It is only in recent decades that women have also come to hold positions of responsibility.

Local history books hold great symbolic value for the communities that write them, but also for the individual who feels a sense of belonging to them. Many works reflect this through their high-quality production. Nevertheless, it is characteristic that a valuable local history book could be produced even with modest resources.

If no regional association, twin town or other sponsor could be found, the communities financed the works themselves, often through pre-subscription schemes. The majority were published in small print runs by the communities themselves and distributed directly to group members, meaning that Heimatbücher are poorly represented in libraries. Apart from specialist regional association libraries, the Martin Opitz Library is the only institution that collects works from all regions of origin.

The ‘Heimatbuch’ for displaced persons experienced different trends to its West German counterpart. Its publication peaked following the conclusion of the Eastern Treaties in 1970, at the same time as the West German ‘Heimatbuch’ saw a massive slump. The final peak following reunification was followed by a downturn that continues to this day. As the Heimatbuch is linked to the authorship of the generation that lived through those experiences, Transylvanian Saxons and Danube Swabians – most of whom only left their homeland as ‘late repatriates’ – are today the only ones still writing Heimatbücher, whilst for other groups the change of generation has signalled the end of the Heimatbuch.

When comparing the ‘Heimatbücher’ of all displaced persons, regional groups with clearly distinguishable collective memories and foundational myths emerge very distinctly. This reveals commonalities between the German minorities in Poland and in South-Eastern Europe, who, for example, all emphasise the tradition of harmonious coexistence with their neighbours of other nationalities, which was only destroyed by the Second World War. The Sudeten Germans and the Germans from the former eastern territories are the two other clearly distinguishable groups which, in certain aspects of the construction of memory, incorporate certain West German discourses to a greater extent than the former ‘ethnic Germans ’.

Local history books, as grey literature written by non-specialists, were long ignored by research. The first comprehensive overview was provided in 1979 by W. Kessler’s bibliography; however, this was followed by hardly any further works.^[5] It was only with the growing interest in the culture of remembrance that, in the 2000s, several studies emerged which analysed the works of individual regional associations and the historical narratives they presented.^[6] In her analysis of the local history books of all regional associations, J. Faehndrich not only examined the history of this genre but also situated it within the contexts of collective memory, historical construction and the culture of remembrance.^[7]

• Mathias Beer (ed.): *Das Heimatbuch*. History, Methodology, Impact. Göttingen 2010.
• Jutta Faehndrich: A Finite History. The ‘Heimatbücher’ of German Displaced Persons. Cologne et al. 2011 (Visual Historical Culture 5).
• Ulrike Frede: ‘Unforgotten Homeland’ Silesia. An exemplary study of the East German ‘Heimatbuch’ as a medium and source of a specific culture of remembrance. Marburg 2004 (Publication Series of the Commission for German and East European Folklore within the German Society for Folklore e. V. 88).
• Wolfgang Kessler: East and South-East German local history books and monographs on specific localities after 1945. A bibliography on the historical regional studies of the areas from which people were displaced. Edited by the East German Cultural Council (OKR) foundation. Munich, New York 1979.
• Katalin Orosz-Takács: The Homeland That Has Become a Memory. Local History Books of the Expelled Hungarian Germans. PhD thesis [in progress]. Budapest 2007. URL: doktori.btk.elte.hu/lit/orosznetakacs/diss.pdf.

[1] According to Kessler: Local History Books of East and South-East Germany and Faehndrich: A Finite History.

[2] Faehndrich: *Endliche Geschichte*, pp. 41–43.

[3] On the (pre-)history of the local history book, see Faehndrich: *Endliche Geschichte*, pp. 44–68.

[4] Faehndrich: *Endliche Geschichte*, Chapter 6 and throughout.

[5] Kessler: Local History Books of East and South-East Germany.

[6] Fabian Koch: ‘The Homeland as it Really Was: Engaging with One’s Own History in Sudeten German Local History Books’. In: *Archiv für Familiengeschichtsforschung* 16 (2012), No. 2, pp. 42–62; Leni Perenčević: ‘Far from the Land of the Ancestors’. On the Construction of Identity in Bosnian-German Local History Books. In: Yearbook for East German Folklore 51 (2010), pp. 45–74; Alexander Usler: The Historical Narrative in Sudeten German Local History Books after 1948. In: Peter Heumos (ed.): Homeland and Exile. Emigration and Return Migration, Expulsion and Integration in the History of Czechoslovakia. Munich 2001 (Bad Wiesseer Conferences of the Collegium Carolinum 21), pp. 23–35.

[7] Faehndrich: *Endliche Geschichte*.

Jutta Faehndrich: Heimatbuch. In: Online Encyclopaedia of Culture and History in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32667 (accessed 26 September 2013).