Country team of Germans from Lithuania
The country team of Germans from Lithuania e. V. is an association of expellees in the Federation of Expellees (BdV). The Landsmannschaft is organized in regional associations. It was founded in 1951 and soon had well over 10,000 members. Today there are just under 1000.
history
While the expellees from Latvia and Estonia are organized in the German-Baltic Society , the expellees from Lithuania opted for their own association. This is due to historical cultural differences. While the Baltic Germans immigrated in the course of the conquests of the Teutonic Order in the 13th and 14th centuries and formed a ruling class, the Lithuanian Germans only came to (Catholic) Poland-Lithuania in the 18th century and formed a peasant ethnic group.
In the Hitler-Stalin Pact a Soviet occupation of Lithuania and a resettlement of the Germans in the Reich was decided. As a result, around 52,000 people were resettled in 1941. After the German occupation of Lithuania, around a fifth returned until 1944 when a wave of refugees from the Red Army began again .
tasks
The country team initially took on social tasks in particular. The focus was on supporting the displaced in their integration into the Federal Republic. In doing so, she partly continued the tasks of the aid committee of Germans from Lithuania in the aid organization of the Evangelical Church in Germany . The tasks included a travel and visiting service for compatriots who often lived scattered about, aid deliveries, care for the elderly, recreational trips for children, pastoral care. Social work has increasingly been replaced by tradition and cultural activities.
Periodicals
Since January 1950, the Landsmannschaft has had an association newspaper called Die Raute - culture and news sheet for Germans from Lithuania ( ISSN 0949-8974 ). The diamond was founded in 1950 under the title Heimatstimme by the aid committee of Germans from Lithuania in the aid organization of the Evangelical Church in Germany , one of the predecessors of today's association.
The country team of Germans from Lithuania is the publisher of a series of yearbooks by Germans from Lithuania under the title Heimatgruß .
people
Albert Unger (born January 8, 1914 in Tamulischken, Lithuania) was the uninterrupted chairman of the compatriot of Germans from Lithuania in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1954. He is the author of The Exodus of Germans from Lithuania and, since 1970, editor of the news paper of Germans from Lithuania Die Raute .
The current federal chairman is Hardy Mett .