Displaced persons monument

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jimmy Fell : "Expulsion"

Displaced persons monuments are memorials for the displaced persons from the eastern areas of the German Reich and the German settlement areas in south-eastern Europe. Initiated by associations of expellees, sponsorship groups, municipalities and individuals, the memorials not only stand for injustice and suffering, but also for the thanks to the host communities in West Germany. There are currently over 1,400 displaced persons monuments in Germany.

description

Central Monument Flight and Expulsion 1945, Nuremberg

Displacement monuments were controversial and certain circles saw them as a manifestation of revisionism . They were largely taboo in the GDR, like the commemoration of flight and displacement in general. The “ resettlers ”, as the refugees and displaced persons were euphemistically described by the government, had no way of publicly remembering their fate. It was only after reunification in 1990 that there were isolated signs of displacement in the new federal states.

In the west, a number of displaced persons monuments emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. With the beginning of the policy of détente in the mid-1960s, the form of commemoration of the displaced persons and the former German eastern territories became increasingly the subject of controversy. A clear sign of this was the abolition of the Federal Ministry of Expellees in 1969 and the cuts in funding for the cultural work of the expellees' associations. There was also desecration and destruction of expellee monuments, especially from the ranks of the emerging student movement . 1967 were z. For example, the eastern areas were chiseled out of a Germany memorial stone in the Göttingen Forest and the coats of arms of the German eastern areas in the assembly hall were destroyed at the TH Aachen . The number of newly created expellee monuments later decreased significantly. After the collapse of real socialism in 1989, the German question was answered by German reunification and the Oder-Neisse border was established as Germany's eastern border. At the same time, the discussion about a center against evictions began and the number of new evacuation monuments rose again.

Important places of remembrance

distribution

Atonement cross in the memorial of the post-war Lamsdorf camp in Upper Silesia with Polish-German inscription, erected in 1995

There are displacement memorials not only in Germany, but also in Austria , Poland , Romania , Slovakia , Serbia , Croatia , Slovenia , the Czech Republic , Hungary , Namibia , South Africa , Russia and the United States . In Hungary three memorials for expellees were erected by the self-government of the Hungarian Germans .

By far the largest number of evacuated monuments are in West Germany; However, there are also initiatives in the former German areas to set up memorials to commemorate the displaced persons. The city council of Postoloprty (Postelberg) in the Czech Republic decided in November 2009 to erect a memorial for the victims of the massacre bearing the inscription “All innocent victims of the events in May and June 1945”.

literature

Web links

Commons : evicting monuments  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uni Info Uni Oldenburg (Dr. Stephan Scholz)
  2. ↑ Dierk Hoffmann, Michael Schwartz: Successful integration ?: Specifics and comparisons of the displaced. 1999, ISBN 3-486-64503-X , p. 7ff. on-line
  3. ↑ Michael Schwartz : Expellees and "Resettled Policy". 2004, ISBN 3-486-56845-0 , p. 4. (online)
  4. ↑ Manfred Kittel: Expulsion of the Expellees ?: The historical German East in the culture of remembrance of the Federal Republic (1961–1982). 2007, ISBN 3-486-58087-6 , p. 111 ff.
  5. ↑ Manfred Kittel: Expulsion of the Expellees? 2007, p. 29.
  6. ↑ Remembrance sites outside of Germany (BdV)
  7. ↑ cf. z. B. Annual report of the self-government of the Hungarian Germans 2008, p. 15 (online)