Hometown community

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A hometown community ( HOG for short , also Heimatkreis or Heimatgruppe ) refers to an association of refugees , displaced persons or repatriates and late repatriates from a hometown . The naming of individual groups is not uniform, there are also names such as home district association or community, home community, federal home group, group of former [+ name of the place], working group of expellees from [+ name of the place] and others.

Definition

The term home group was probably created in connection with the home movement at the end of the 19th century to name local associations within the home associations . The aim of these associations was the preservation or restoration of material and immaterial cultural traditions such as monuments , stories , customs and the like, as well as the preservation of natural resources such as flora , fauna and the landscape of their closer social and spatial environment .

Hometown communities in Germany are mostly organized as registered associations . In the club name, the term is typically followed by the name of the hometown or the larger regional unit, for example Heimatortsgemeinschaft Neubeschenowa in the Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben eV or Heimatgruppe Grafschaft Glatz e. V.

Home groups with local reference are often subdivisions of so-called home districts , which are related to the former administrative units of the districts of the region of origin ( home landscapes ), such as the home district Braunau / Sudetenland eV

Hometown communities, hometown groups and hometown districts exist (partly independent and independent of the Landsmannschaften ) mostly in Germany and Austria, but also in other foreign countries where displaced persons settled after the Second World War or joined with "compatriots" who had already emigrated before (for example in France, the United States of America, Canada) or similar associations there. Some ethnic groups already had comparable associations in the countries and regions of immigration that they could use as a contact point after 1945, for example the Upper Silesians in the Ruhr area or the Egerlanders in West Germany with their numerous Eghalanda Gmoin .

The hometown communities pursue the goal of maintaining contact between the former local residents and fostering the memory of their hometown or the home community, for which they primarily organize periodic home meetings. In addition, there is the publication of homeland newspapers, homeland letters or homeland books including an internet presence, occasionally the establishment and operation of local parlors as well as company trips to the former hometowns.

history

Hometown communities and analogous associations as associations to self-help groups for the preservation of identity existed as a sociocultural phenomenon of numerous immigrant groups outside of closed settlements as early as the 19th century, including in countries outside Europe.

In the western occupation zones and later in the Federal Republic of Germany , associations of refugees and displaced persons developed after 1945, especially after the lifting of the association ban in 1948, including the first hometown communities and their informal predecessors. In many cases, their task initially consisted of cataloging and passing on addresses of former home residents in so-called hometown lists, but this soon resulted in an increasing number of club and cultural activities, which were prevented in the German Democratic Republic by the continuing ban on association there.

research

Heinke M. Kalinke from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg stated in 2012 that early research on refugees and displaced persons in the Federal Republic of Germany dealt with structural and content-related elements as well as with the sociological-functional aspects of the displaced persons' organizations. More recent research, on the other hand, does not adequately consider home groups; only sporadically would they be mentioned in the analysis of individual phenomena (for example in home chronicles) as actors at the local level or as forerunners of country team associations.

An overview of their entirety, studies of functions, organizational forms, statutes, membership structure, etc. and their changes since the late 1940s has not yet been available. Only associations of individual home groups such as the Pomeranian District and City Council presented self-portrayals of their subdivisions. In 1989 the historian Wolfgang Kessler published a systematic overview of existing home groups on behalf of the Ostdeutscher Kulturrat Foundation .

literature

The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg recommends further reading:

  • Karl Ditt : The German Homeland Movement 1871-1945. In: Federal Center for Political Education (Hrsg.): Heimat. Analyzes, topics, perspectives. Contributions to the discussion on political didactics 294 / I, Bonn 1990, pp. 135–154.
  • Pommerscher Kreis- und Städtetag (Ed.): The Pomeranian home districts 1945–1995. 50 years of work for Pomerania. Lübeck 1998.
  • Alfred Karasek-Langer : Volkstum in transition. In: Eugen Lemberg (ed.): The expellees in West Germany. Their integration and their impact on society, economy, politics and intellectual life. Volume 1. Kiel 1959, pp. 606-694, especially pp. 658-666.
  • Christian Lotz : The interpretation of the loss. Political memory controversies in divided Germany about flight, expulsion and the Eastern Territories (1948–1972). New Research on Silesian History 15, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2007, ISBN 3-41215-806-2 , p. 32.
  • Wolfgang Kessler : East German cultural property in the Federal Republic of Germany. A handbook of the collections, associations and institutions with their holdings . East German Cultural Council Foundation (OKR), K. G. Saur Verlag, Munich a. a. 1989.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Heinke M. Kalinke: Heimatgruppe / Heimat (local) community / Heimatkreis. In: Online encyclopedia on the culture and history of Germans in Eastern Europe, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe , 2012.
  2. ↑ Heimatortsgemeinschaft Neubeschenowa in the Landsmannschaft der Banater Schwaben eV
  3. ^ Home group Grafschaft Glatz eV
  4. ^ Heimatkreis Braunau / Sudetenland eV