Twinning corner in the ‘Heimatstube’
, Sensburg (now Mrągowo in Poland).
[Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus archive,
Düsseldorf]

The long-standing phenomenon of twinning arrangements between West German and former East German towns, municipalities and districts, as well as through schools and regional associations of refugees, displaced persons and resettlers, emerged in the second half of the 20th century. Rhetorically, however, their initiators drew on precursors from the period before the Second World War. The organisation ‘Ostpreußenhilfe’ (East Prussia Aid), which provided financial assistance to the East Prussian towns and municipalities destroyed during the First World War, served as a particular point of reference. War relief associations of the German Empire, organised at municipal or regional level, raised funds for reconstruction, but also for measures aimed at preserving what was termed ‘German identity’. In this context, the term ‘sponsors’ was already in use as early as 1915. So-called ‘sponsorships by protection associations for communities or schools in the border regions’, which had been initiated by associations promoting German identity at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in regions of the former Austria-Hungary, also served as points of reference for the sponsorships following the Second World War. This form of retrospective traditionalisation was based on the idea of patronage within a so-called ‘community of destiny’ and promoted the construction of national identity in the post-war period, particularly through the integration scheme known in the Federal Republic of Germany as the ‘West-East German Twinning Programme’.

Unlike international town twinning schemes, town sponsorships are reserved for organisations representing German refugees, displaced persons and repatriates with links to their place of origin. In addition to the term ‘sponsorships’, the term ‘guardianships’ is also used in Bavaria. With regard to state-level sponsorships, the term ‘patronage’ is also used.

The ‘West-East German Sponsorship Programme’ between West German municipalities and refugee and displaced persons’ associations is to be distinguished from the ‘West–East Sponsorship Programme’, which was founded in 1949 by the Relief Organisation of the Protestant Church to provide emergency aid to the Soviet Occupation Zone and the German Democratic Republic.

English: patronage, sponsorship

The first twinning arrangements after the Second World War were initially established without any specific historical reference – such as to aid for East Prussia – but rather with the aim of supporting the communities of refugees and displaced persons, to establish collection centres for rescued documents and materials, but above all to maintain the administrative structures of the former local authorities and thereby symbolically uphold existing territorial claims. Among the earliest twinning arrangements were Erlangen’s link with the Brüxer Heimatgemeinschaft (1949) and Goslar’s twinning relationship with Brieg/Brzeg and the citizens of Brieg (1950). The latter is officially regarded as the first ‘East-West German town twinning’.

Commemorative stone from the twin town of
Peine for Falkenberg (now
Polish: Niemodlin).
[Photo: Regina Löneke]

With the majority established in the 1950s, a total of around 400 twinning arrangements came into being, including a few ‘renewals’ of earlier relationships between East Prussian and West German municipalities, as well as twinning arrangements between Federal States and regional associations. These were usually announced with great fanfare at a ceremonial event and confirmed with a twinning certificate. For their establishment and organisation, reference could be made to ‘guidelines […] for the establishment of twinning arrangements’ as well as ‘for the preservation of East German cultural values and for the cultural support of displaced persons’, which were disseminated nationwide under the collective term ‘twinning guidelines’. These guidelines provided a range of options for implementation, the individual measures of which – such as maintaining ‘homeland’ card indexes, setting up ‘homeland rooms’ or naming streets after ‘East German municipalities’ – were naturally adopted by West German local authorities from the outset and were often also demanded by associations of displaced persons. These standards led to a fairly uniform character in the culture of commemorative sponsorship across the country. They were, and continue to be, funded as part of cultural promotion under Section 96 of the Federal Displaced Persons Act by the Federal States, which made the necessary funds available to the districts, local authorities and municipalities. With the fulfilment of their integration mandate, the passing of the generation that lived through the events, and the decline in their political significance, such twinning arrangements have, since the 1980s, increasingly been terminated at local level or transformed into partnerships with today’s local authorities, municipalities and districts.

Criticism of the twinning schemes, the associated commemorative practices and the political stance of those involved had already been voiced by the end of the 1950s. Particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, they were regarded as revanchist or at least revisionist instruments of power, as the twinning schemes continued to assert claims to former territories despite the East-West treaties that had been concluded.

In parallel with the existing town twinning schemes in the context of support for refugees and displaced persons, new partnerships with towns in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe began to develop from the 1970s onwards, in some cases against the will of, or at least in competition with, the associations of displaced persons. The displaced persons’ associations reserved the right to object to these new links. On the one hand, their officials feared that the twinning arrangements would be sidelined and resisted this under the slogan ‘Twinning arrangements cannot be terminated’. On the other hand, they criticised the associated recognition that these local authorities no longer belonged to the German Reich. In their view, this contradicted the twinning agreements, which called for the return of refugees and displaced persons and for a united Germany. In contrast, many hometown associations, particularly those from south-eastern Europe, acted as intermediaries and promoted these partnership links.

• Bavarian State Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs: In Bavaria’s Care. Sponsorship Schemes for Sudeten and East Germans in the Free State of Bavaria. Munich [1989].
• K. Erik Franzen: The Fourth Tribe of Bavaria. Patronage of the Sudeten Germans 1954–1974. Munich 2010 (Publications of the Collegium Carolinum 120).
• Alfons Perlick: The West-East German Sponsorship Programme in North Rhine-Westphalia. History, Reports and Cultural Tasks. With a directory of West-East German sponsorships in the Federal Republic. Düsseldorf 1961 (Series on East–West Encounters, Cultural Booklet 38).
• Hans-Georg Pütz: Gumbinnen is Now Called Gusev. Bielefeld’s Twinning with Gumbinnen – A Product of Revanchism. Bielefeld 1986.
• Ute Reichert-Flögel: East German Twinning Arrangements Today. [Bonn 1988].

Cornelia Eisler: Sponsorships. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2011. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32787 (accessed 13 September 2021).