ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the major developments in the formation, ascent and marginalization of expellee organizations in the Federal Republic and contextualizes expellee policies towards Poland and the Czech Republic and the remaining ethnic Germans in both countries within a broader German domestic policy discourse. In the context of the relationship between expellee organizations and their former host-states, it is also noteworthy that the issue of expulsions is treated rather differently in Poland and the Czech Republic. Some Czech and indeed Polish observers are keen to differentiate between the successes of ordinary members of the various Landsmannschaften and the organizations themselves. Whereas the bilateral German–Polish relationship may well be rational in terms of the relative economic weight of the Czech Republic and Poland, the situation does little to ease Czech sensibilities on the matter. The most controversial and potentially most explosive issue in German–Czech relations is that of the Benes Decrees, which form the political-legal foundations of the current Czech Republic.
