Territorial disputes and national identity in post-war Germany: the Oder–Neisse line in public discourse

Abstract

After World War II, Germany lost territories east of the Oder–Neisse line. Focusing on the role of national identity, this paper considers how the government and major political groups of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) laid claims to the eastern territories from the late 1940s through the early 1960s and how the FRG came to recognise the Oder–Neisse line in the 1970s. Further, the paper examines the shift of the dominant form of national identity from a ‘Reich Identity’ to a ‘Holocaust Identity’. In the 1950s and the 1960s, claims to the eastern territories were based on the ‘Reich Identity’, which maintained that the German Reich of 1937 existed after the war. However, the ‘Holocaust Identity’, according to which Germans have a ‘special duty’ to reconcile with their ‘past’, began to be more widely accepted after the mid-1960s. This paper argues that national identity constitutes a field of discourse where different actors, groups or individuals, compete for hegemony by representing and invoking conflicting schemes of national self-understanding.

Keywords:

• nationalism
• field of discourse
• border disputes
• eastern territories

Notes

1. Many expellees, who were officially called ‘resettlers’ (Umsiedler), settled in the GDR, too. While 7.9 million expellees were incorporated in the FRG in 1950, some four million settled in the GDR (Reichling, 1986, pp. 26–39, 59–61). But many of these moved to the FRG before the Berlin Wall was constructed. In 1961, expellees made up about 21.5% of the total West German population (Beer, 2004, p. 24).

2. For a precise and ‘constructive’ critique of ethno-symbolism, see Wimmer (2008, pp. 9–14). He points out a ‘sampling’ problem of the authors of ethno-symbolism, who ‘look for continuity between ethnic pasts and nationalist presents, and find it’. For a response by Smith to this critique, see Smith (2009).

3. Of course these two are not the only national identities of post-war Germany. For example, Giesen discusses Holocaust Identity and Economic Miracle Identity (the identity of the ‘Wirtschaftswundernation’) as the two ‘codes’ of national identity in the Federal Republic (Giesen, 1993, pp. 236–255). For more on the ‘economic miracle’ and national identity see also James (1989, pp. 187–189).

4. It is emblematic that during his visit to Warsaw Brandt fell to his knees in front of the Jewish ghetto memorial in order to ‘show his repentance for the Nazi crimes’ to Poland.

5. On the downplaying and silencing of the Nazi crimes in the Adenauer era, see Frei (1996) and Giesen (2004, pp. 120–129).

6. Because of the intensification of criticism, Landsmannschaft Schlesien finally changed the motto of its annual meeting to ‘Schlesien is still our future’.

7. For example, see Erklärung der Deutschlandpolitik (1984–1987, Vol. II, p. 270). The concept of human rights or ‘minority rights’ became more prominent in the discourse of the expellee organisations after 1988. For more details, see Salzborn (2001).

8. For example, see Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages (1949–, 7/48, p. 2748 and 7/127, p. 8533).

9. Expellee organisations and radical right parties opposed this treaty. But their influence was rather limited and there was no intense debate on this final border settlement. Czaja remarked that most Germans regarded the German ‘reunification’ as merely the unification of two German states (Czaja, 1989, p. 1).

10. See the homepage of the Centre against Expulsions (Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen) (http://www.z-g-v.de/index1.html).

11. See the homepage of this foundation (Stiftung Flucht Vertreibung, Versöhnung) (http://www.dhm.de/sfvv/).

12. For example, see Frankfurter Rundschau, 7 January 2011, p. 4.