Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“State-Supported History” at the Local Level: Ostdeutsche Heimatstuben and Expellee Museums in West Germany

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945

Abstract

Expellee museums and Ostdeutsche Heimatstuben constitute a specific type of small museums in the Federal Republic of Germany, created by German-speaking refugees and expellees from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. Although they were an undertaking at the local level, the museums benefited from diverse resources of West German governments, the federal states, and regional administrations. Fueled by revisionist ideology with respect to Eastern European states, the museums were likewise regarded as symbols of integration. By concentrating on the historical processes, in which ideology informed cultural policies worked between national and local levels, the chapter provides an analysis of the complex and intertwined political, social, and cultural spheres.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 299.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 379.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abrams, P. (2006 [1977]) ‘Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State’ in A. Sharma and A. Gupta (eds.) The Anthropology of the State. A Reader (Malden: Blackwell), pp. 112–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ackermann, V. (1990) ‘Integration. Begriff, Leitbilder, Probleme’ in K. J. Bade (ed.) Neue Heimat im Westen. Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge, Aussiedler. (Münster: Westfälischer Heimatbund), pp. 14–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahonen, P. (1998) ‘Domestic Constraints on West German Ostpolitik. The Role of the Expellee Organizations in the Adenauer Era’, Central European History, 31(1/2), 31–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahonen, P. (2014) ‘On Forced Migrations. Transnational Realities and National Narratives in Post-1945 (West) Germany’, German History, 32(4), 599–614.

    Google Scholar 

  • Applegate, C. (1990) A Nation of Provincials. The German Idea of Heimat. (Berkeley: University of California Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauerkämper, A. (2011) ‘German Refugees and Expellees from Eastern, East-Central, and Southeastern Europe in Germany and Austria since the End of World War II’ in K. J. Bade, P. C. Emmer, J. Lucassen and J. Oltmer (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Migration and Minorities in Europe. From the 17th Century to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 425–430.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, S. (2006) ‘On Taboos, Traumas and Other Myths. Why the Debate About German Victims of the Second World War Is Not a Historian’s Controversy’ in B. Niven (ed.) Germans as Victims. Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 210–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brües, H.-J. (1972) Artikulation und Repräsentation politischer Verbandsinteressen dargestellt am Beispiel der Vertriebenenorganisationen (Inaugural-Dissertation, Universität Köln, Köln).

    Google Scholar 

  • BVFG (1957) ‘Zweites Gesetz zur Änderung und Ergänzung des Bundesvertriebenengesetzes’ (2. Ändg Bvfg) vom 27.07.1957.

    Google Scholar 

  • Confino, A. (1997) The Nation as a Local Metaphor. Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Connor, I. (2007) Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany. (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Demshuk, A. (2014) ‘Godfather Cities. West German Patenschaften and the Lost German East’, German History, 32(2), 224–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ditt, K. (1990) ‘Die deutsche Heimatbewegung 1871–1945’ in W. Cremer and A. Klein (eds.) Heimat. Analysen, Themen, Perspektiven (Bielefeld: Westfalen-Verlag), pp. 135–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisler, C. (2012) ‘“Ausdruck der Verbundenheit mit dem ganzen deutschen Volke”. Die Heimatmuseen und -sammlungen der Flüchtlinge, Vertriebenen und Aussiedler aus Südosteuropa’ in H. Heppner and C. Glass (eds.) Museum und Minderheit: Vol. 6(53) Danubiana Carpathica. (München: Oldenbourg), pp. 97–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisler, C. (2015) Verwaltete Erinnerung–Symbolische Politik. Die Heimatsammlungen der deutschen Flüchtlinge, Vertriebenen und Aussiedler (München: De Gruyter Oldenbourg).

    Google Scholar 

  • ‘Expellee Law, Federal Law on Refugees and Exiles (1953) / (Bundesvertriebenengesetz–Bvfg, Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge vom 19.05.1953)’, (1953) Federal Law Gazette / Bundesgesetzblatt, I(22), 201–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faehndrich, J. (2010) ‘Die Kirche im Dorf. Bilderwelten im Vertriebenen-Heimatbuch’ in E. Fendl (ed.) Zur Ästhetik des Verlusts. Bilder von Heimat, Flucht und Vertreibung (Münster: Waxmann), pp. 221–237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gäßler, E. (2009) ‘Heimatpflege als gemeinsames Erbe’ in H. U. Minke, J. Kuropka and H. Milde (eds.) “Fern vom Paradies–aber voller Hoffnung”. Vertriebene werden neue Bürger im Oldenburger Land (Oldenburg: Isensee), pp. 377–396.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goschler, C. (2005) Schuld und Schulden. Die Politik der Wiedergutmachung für NS-Verfolgte seit 1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haerendel, U. (2000) ‘Die Politik der “Eingliederung” in den Westzonen und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Das Flüchtlingsproblem zwischen Grundsatzentscheidung und Verwaltungspraxis’ in D. Hoffmann, M. Krauss and M. Schwartz (eds.) Vertriebene in Deutschland. Interdisziplinäre Ergebnisse und Forschungsperspektiven (München: Oldenbourg Verlag), pp. 109–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S. (2006) ‘Popular Culture and the State’ in A. Sharma and A. Gupta (eds.) The Anthropology of the State. A Reader (Malden: Blackwell), pp. 360–380.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holst, F. (2015) ‘More Than Meets the Eye. Analytical Frameworks Beyond Race and Ethnicity’, Ethnicity as a Political Resource. Conceptualizations across Disciplines, Regions, and Periods. (Bielefeld: Transcript-Verl.), pp. 39–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isaac, J. (1950) ‘Problems of Cultural Assimilation Arising from Population Transfers in Western Germany’, Population Studies, 3, 23–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Köstlin, K. (1990) ‘Volkskulturforschung in Grenzräumen’, Jahrbuch für ostdeutsche Volkskunde, 33, 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krohn-Hansen, C. and Nustad, K. G. (2005) ‘Introduction’ in C. Krohn-Hansen and K. G. Nustad (eds.) State Formation. Anthropological Perspectives. (London: Pluto Press), pp. 3–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenz, S. (1978) Heimatmuseum. Roman. (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe).

    Google Scholar 

  • Loewenstein, B. (1999) ‘Symbole, Mythen, nationale Integration. Anmerkungen zum Thema “Historische Feldbeherrschung”’ in E. Behring (ed.) Geschichtliche Mythen in den Literaturen und Kulturen Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas (Stuttgart: Steiner), pp. 23–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luppes, J. P. (2010) To Our Dead. Local Expellee Monuments and the Contestation of German Postwar Memory (Dissertation, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor).

    Google Scholar 

  • Margalit, G. (2010) Guilt, Suffering, and Memory. Germany Remembers Its Dead of World War II (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Moeller, R. G. (2003) ‘Sinking Ships, the Lost Heimat and Broken Taboos. Günter Grass and the Politics of Memory in Contemporary Germany’, Contemporary European History, 12(2), 147–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niven, B. (2012) ‘On a Supposed Taboo. Flight and Refugees from the East in GDR Film and Television’, German Life and Letters, 65(2), 216–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niven, B. and Paver, C. (2010) ‘Introduction’ in B. Niven and C. Paver (eds.) Memorialization in Germany since 1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pohl, K. (2009) Zwischen Integration und Isolation. Zur kulturellen Dimension der Vertriebenenpolitik in Bayern (1945–1975). Die Entwicklung Bayerns durch die Integration der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge (München: Iudicium).

    Google Scholar 

  • Reichling, G. (1989) Die Deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen. Teil II: 40 Jahre Eingliederung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. (Bonn: Kulturstiftung der Deutschen Vertriebenen).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenwein, B. H. (2002) ‘Worrying About Emotions in History’, American Historical Review, 107(3), 821–845.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schraut, S. (2000) ‘“Make the Germans Do It”. The Refugee Problem in the American Zone of Post-War Germany’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 16, 115–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schröder, D. (2007) ‘Ungebrochene Karrieren. Fälle Globke und Oberländer’ in T. Fischer and M. N. Lorenz (eds.) Lexikon der ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ in Deutschland. Debatten- und Diskursgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus nach 1945 (Bielefeld: Transcript-Verl.), pp. 101–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seewann, G. (1992) ‘Siebenbürger Sachse, Ungarndeutscher, Donauschwabe. Überlegungen zur Identitätsproblematik des Deutschtums in Südosteuropa’ in G. Seewann (ed.) Minderheitenfragen in Südosteuropa. Beiträge der Internationalen Konferenz: The Minority Question in Historical Perspective 1900–1990, Inter University Center Dubrovnik, 8.–14. April 1991. (München: Oldenbourg Verlag), pp. 139–153.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomaneck, J. and Niven, B. (2001) Dividing and Uniting Germany. (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomassen, B. (2008) ‘What Kind of Political Anthropology?’, International Political Anthropology, 1(2), 263–274.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wachs, P.-C. (2008) ‘Theodor Oberländer’ in I. Haar and M. Fahlbusch (eds.) Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften. Personen–Institutionen–Forschungsprogramme–Stiftungen (München: K. G. Saur Verlag), pp. 449–452.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wingfield, N. M. (2005) ‘Introduction’ in N. M. Wingfield (ed.) Creating the Other. Ethnic Conflict and Nationalism in Habsburg Central Europe (New York: Berghahn), pp. 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Cornelia Eisler

Authors
  1. Cornelia Eisler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Berber Bevernage

  2. CEGESOMA (Belgian State Archives), Brussels, Belgium

    Nico Wouters

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Eisler, C. (2018). “State-Supported History” at the Local Level: Ostdeutsche Heimatstuben and Expellee Museums in West Germany. In: Bevernage, B., Wouters, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95306-6_21

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95306-6_21

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95305-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95306-6

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation