The Lost German East: Forced Migration and the Politics of Memory, 1945-1970
"The millions of Silesians who fled their homes in the closing months of the Second World War or who were expelled in its aftermath have most often been remembered - if they have been remembered at all in the English-speaking world - as caricatures: symbols of either German victimization or German revanchism. Andrew Demshuk's book is among the first scholarly works to move beyond the statements of official expellee spokesmen and to explore, sympathetically but critically, the complicated processes through which flesh-and-blood individuals gradually came to terms with the loss of the former homeland. His nuanced analysis of this history is an important contribution not only to understanding West German politics and German-Polish relations in the Cold War era, but also to the comparative study of forced migration and its aftermath."  - Jim Bjork, King's College London"Through a careful and perceptive consideration of an impressive amount of evidence, Andrew Demshuk fundamentally reorients the study of the German expellees away from a preoccupation with leaders and movements to a deeper examination of how the expellees themselves understood their experience. Thanks to a focus on memory and not politics, Demshuk demonstrates that the expellees were not a dwindling band of inveterate revanchists, but rather a large and diverse community committed to preserving common images of their past. Persuasively argued and elegantly written, The Lost German East does more than force us to rethink the Silesian German experience; it offers a template for understanding how refugees throughout the world have and can come to terms with their losses."  - Benjamin Frommer, Northwestern University"This persuasive work is a significant contribution to understanding postwar German memory culture, as well as the stability of democracy in the early Federal Republic.  Highly recommended." -Choice"...Demshuk's book provides an important reappraisal of expellee memories and illuminates some of the more ambivalent ways in which postwar West Germans have related to Poland." -Michael Meng, Slavic Review