Germans Displaced from the East: Crossing Actual and Imagined Central European Borders, 1944-1955
GERMANS DISPLACED FROM THE EAST: CROSSING ACTUAL AND IMAGINED CENTRAL EUROPEAN BORDERS, 1944-1955 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Amy A. Alrich, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee Approved by Professor Alan Beyerchen, Advisor Professor Birgitte Soland _______________________ Professor Robin Judd Advisor Department of History Copyright by Amy A. Alrich 2003 ABSTRACT At the end of World War II the Allies demilitarized, divided, and democratized Germany. The dismantling of Germany involved setting up four zones and eventually two states, the Federal Republic and German Democratic Republic (GDR), and also giving large German territories to Poland and the Soviet Union, which required the initiation of a forced population transfer of the Germans who lived in those areas. Whether they fled as the Soviet troops advanced, or faced the postwar expulsions arranged by the Allies, the majority of Germans from the Eastern territories, approximately 12 million altogether, survived the arduous trek West. Roughly 8 million ended up in West Germany; 4 million went to the GDR. This dissertation comparatively examines the postwar, post-flight experiences of the German expellees in the Federal Republic and GDR in the late 1940s and 1950s. This analysis involves an examination of four categories of experience: official images of the expellees, their self-images, their images as outsiders, and expellees' reaction to these outsider-images. The two Germanies' expellee policies differed dramatically and reflected their Cold War orientations. West Germany followed a policy of expellee-integration, which highlighted their cultural differences and encouraged them to express their uniqueness.
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