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The Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV) (German for "Federation of the Expelled" or "Federation of Expellees") is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans displaced from their homes in Historical Eastern Germany and other parts of Eastern Europe by the expulsion of Germans after World War II. ("Heimatvertriebene": "Homeland expellees").

It represents the diaspora of German citizens (today numbering approximately 15 million) who in the closing days of World War II had fled their homes or were expelled from what was then Eastern Germany. In the aftermath of the war, more were expelled from territories belonging to present-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia (mostly from Vojvodina region), the German province of East Prussia, the later Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly Königsberg area) of Russia, Lithuania, and other East European countries. The current president of the federation is CDU politician Erika Steinbach.

German laws concerning the Expellees

Between 1953 and 1991 the West German government passed several laws dealing with expelled civilians. The most notable of these laws is the "Law of Return" which granted West German citizenship to any ethnic German. Several additions were later made to these laws.

A central issue addressed by the German Law of Return is the inheritability of refugee status. According to Bundesvertriebenengesetz Par. 7/2, "the spouse and the descendants" of an expellee are to be treated as if they were expellees themselves, regardless whether they have been personally displaced. Although there never were refugee camps set up in Germany, this legal status is only paralleled by the situation of Palestinian refugees in UNRWA camps.

The Federation of Expellees has however steadily lobbied to preserve the inheritability clause, as a change might deeply affect its ability to recruit members from the post-WWII generations.

Recent developments

Under previous governments, especially those led by the CDU, the West German government had shown more rhetorical support for German refugees and expellees. Social Democratic governments have traditionally been less supportive — and it was under Willy Brandt that West Germany recognized the Oder-Neisse line as part of his Ostpolitik.

In 1989-1990 the German political establishment realized they had an opportunity to remove the division between West Germany and East Germany. However, it was believed that if this historic opportunity was to be realized it had to be done quickly. One of the potential complications were the lands of historical eastern Germany, because unless these were renounced, some foreign powers might not agree to German reunification. The German political establishment agreed to the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) which officially reestablished the sovereignty of both German states. One condition of this agreement was that Germany accept the post- World War II frontiers. Upon reunification in 1990, the "basic law", was amended to indicate that Germany's territory had reached its full extent. Article 146 was amended so that Article 23 of the current constitution could be used for reunification. Then, once the five "reestablished federal states" in East Germany had joined, the Basic Law was amended again to indicate that there were no other parts of Germany, which existed outside of the unified territory, that had not acceded.

Support for the aims of the Federation of Expellees within the German electorate remains low, and when in charge of government, both CDU and SPD have tended to favor improved relations with Central and Eastern Europe, even when this conflicts with the interests of the displaced. The issue of the Eastern border of Germany and that of the return of the Heimatvertriebene to their ancestral homes are matters which the current German government, German constitutional arrangements and German treaty obligations have closed.

However, with the enlargement of the European Union, the organizations of expellees have gained new hopes of recognition of private German property rights in former German territories in what are now Poland and the Czech Republic. They have insisted that Poland and the Czech Republic must respect human rights and also compensate German victims before being allowed to become members of the European Union. Also, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in 2002 in the European Parliament that the Czech Republic and Slovakia should repeal the Benes decrees before being allowed into the European Union. The claim was supported by the Bavarian government and Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber, as well as the Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. In 2003, Liechtenstein refused to sign the enlargement of the Common European Economic Space, because the Czech Republic did not withdraw the Benes decrees and compensate the royal family of Liectenstein for their property in Bohemia, which was confiscated after the war. None of these efforts led to any significant result. In 2004 the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia became members of the European Union, whose institutions generally favor a future-oriented approach.

Claims were unanimously rejected by the affected countries and became a source of mistrust between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. While the German expellees point to their confiscated property and speak of human rights, Poles remind them that Poland was never compensated for damage caused by the German government during World War II(In Poland alone the war reparations could reach as high as $640 billion, according to the latest estimates). They further argue that the expulsion of ethnic Germans and related border shifts were not enacted by the Polish government but rather ordered by the Potsdam conference. Furthermore, the nationalization of private property by Poland's former communist government did not apply only to Germans but was enforced on all people, regardless of ethnic background (However, only the Poles received land after the fall of communism). The situation is further complicated by the fact that the majority of the current Polish population in historical eastern Germany are expellees (or descendants of expellees) themselves': they were moved from territories annexed by the USSR and were forced to leave their homes and property behind. However, if German expellees have only a tiny chance of regaining their property, Polish refugees have no such prospect whatsoever. The fact that German colonists settled in Poland after 1939 and the treatment under German law of these ex-colonists as expellees are issues which add to the controversy.

While the organization pursues claims towards land now in both Poland and the Czech Republic, it remains silent towards Russia and the region of Königsberg (Kaliningrad).

In 2000 the Federation of Expellees also initiated the formation of the Center Against Expulsions (Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen). Chairwoman of this Center is Erika Steinbach, who headed it together with Prof. Dr. Peter Glotz (†2005).

In February 2004, the Federation sued the German journalist Gabriele Lesser for alleged defamations. The questioned article was published September 19, 2003, in the daily Kieler Nachrichten. The district court of Hamburg ruled against the repetition of a certain wording by Lesser but in favour of another, which made Lesser welcome the verdict.

Recently a number of articles in German press discusses Nazi background of many former FoE activists.

International criticism

In September 2003 the large Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that during meetings of the BdV, books filled with hateful descriptions of Poles murdering Germans were available for sale; as were Waffen SS marches on compact disks, including those from the Invasion of Poland. Also, far right groups openly distributed their materials at BdV meetings. While the BdV officially denied responsibility for this, they seemed to tolerate the situation.

According to Hans Michael Kloth and Klaus Wiegrefe's article in Der Spiegel, there were more former Nazis in high-ranking positions in the federation's first three decades than previously thought. Still in 2004, historian Stickler estimated that the percentage of those persons had not at all been disproportionately high. But after months of research in the archives, the journalists of Der Spiegel came to a different conclusion in their article published in August 2006. Of almost 200 high-ranking office holders of the BdV and its predecessor organisations in the years before 1982, more than one third of them had been former members of the NSDAP, SS or other Nazi organizations. Among them were three former general secretaries and several vice-presidents. In the interview with Der Spiegel Erika Steinbach rejected a reappraisal of the federation's past saying they lacked financial resources. One week later, however, she agreed to the reappraisal.

Organization

The expellees are organized in 21 regional associations (Landsmannschaften) according to the areas of origin of its members, 16 state organizations (Landesverbände) according to their current residence, and 5 associate member organizations. It is the single representative federation for the approximately 15 million Germans which after fleeing, being expelled, evacuated or emigrated, found refuge in the Federal Republic of Germany. The organizations have approximately 2 million members, and is a political force of some influence in Germany.

The current president of the federation is the German politician Erika Steinbach (CDU), who also is a member of the German parliament.

The Federation helps members to integrate into German society. Many of the members assist the societies of their place of birth.

Charter of the Ethnic German Expellees

The Charta der deutschen Heimatvertriebenen (Charter of the Ethnic German Expellees) of August 5, 1950 announced their belief in requiring that "the right to the homeland is recognized and carried out as one of the fundamental rights of mankind given by God", while renouncing revenge and retaliation in the face of the "infinite wrong" ("unendliche Leid") of the previous decade, and supporting the unified effort to rebuild Germany and Europe.

Presidents

• Hans Krüger (1959–1963)
• Wenzel Jaksch (1964–1966)
• Reinhold Rehs (1967–1970)
• Herbert Czaja (1970–1994)
• Fritz Wittmann (1994–1998)
• Erika Steinbach (1998—)
  • Vice president (since 1992): Wilhelm von Gottberg

Member organizations

Landsmannschaften

• Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen
• Landsmannschaft Schlesien
• Deutsch-Baltische Landsmannschaft
• Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben e.V.
• Landsmannschaft Berlin-Mark Brandenburg
• Landsmannschaft der Bessarabiendeutschen e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Buchenlanddeutschen (Bukowina) e.V.
• Bund der Danziger e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Dobrudscha- und Bulgariendeutschen
• Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben, Bundesverband e.V.
• Karpatendeutsche Landsmannschaft Slowakei e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Litauen e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Oberschlesier e.V. - Bundesverband -
• Pommersche Landsmannschaft - Zentralverband - e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Sathmarer Schwaben in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland e.V.
• Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft Bundesverband e.V.
• Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Ungarn
• Landsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe Bundesverband e.V.
• Landsmannschaft Westpreußen e.V.

Landesverbände

• Landesverband Baden-Württemberg
• Landesverband Bayern
• Landesverband Berlin
• Landesverband Brandenburg
• Landesverband Bremen
• Landesverband Hamburg
• Landesverband Hessen
• Landesverband Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
• Landesverband Niedersachsen
• Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen
• Landesverband Rheinland-Pfalz
• Landesverband Saar
• Landesverband Sachsen / Schlesische Lausitz
• Landesverband Sachsen-Anhalt
• Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein
• Landesverband Thüringen

See also

• All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights
• Organised persecution of ethnic Germans
• Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
• Lebensraum
• Drang nach Osten

Further reading

• Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered (Eastern European Studies, 18) Luisa Lang Owen and Charles M. Barber, Texas A&M University Press, January, 2003, hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 1-58544-212-7

References

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External links

• Bund der Vertriebenen - Official homepage
• Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen - Official homepage
• Charta der deutschen Heimatvertriebenen
• For latest developments: http://cdu.de/politik-a-z/vertriebenen/inhalt.htm (in German)
• Jose Ayala Lasso Speech to the German expellees, Day of the Homeland, Berlin 6 August 2005 Lasso was the first United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1994-1997)

• German society
• Aftermath of World War II