Introduction

Summary

AFTER 1945, 15,000,000 ETHNIC GERMANS from East Europe entered Germany. The successive stages of immigration included, first, ethnic Germans who were expelled by Czechoslovakia and Poland because of their collaboration with Nazi Germany. Later, when the Communists came to power, many Germans left to escape the oppressive regimes and to overcome economic hardship. After 1989, when democracies were established in the East European countries, the flood of emigration did not stop. On the contrary, in 1990 alone almost 400,000 ethnic Germans entered Germany. Considered an ethnic minority in their homelands, these ethnic Germans arrived in the Federal Republic only to realize that they had acquired another minority status — that of semi-foreigners in the country of their ancestors. In their former countries of residence they were called Germans; in Germany they are called Aussiedler (emigrants), Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans), or fremde Deutsche (alien Germans), terms that more or less function as alternatives to the term Ausländer (foreigners). The term Volksdeutsche not only reflects the inherent issue of conflicting definitions of “Germanness” but also brings up memories of the Third Reich, when Hitler granted German citizenship to many ethnic Germans under the Nazi politics regarding ethnic Germans living outside the German Reich (NS-Volkstumspolitik). During the Nazi era the existence of German minorities beyond the Reich was used as an excuse for military expansion, and many ethnic Germans served in Hitler's armies. After 1945, during the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany continued to recognize the Germans of Eastern Europe as compatriots.