Resettlement and Integration

Abstract

The masses of expellees arriving in the Federal Republic after the war fell into three different groups: (1) Reichsdeutsche, or German citizens from the provinces immediately east of the Oder-Neisse line that were part of Germany on December 31, 1937; (2) Sudeten-deutsche, or Germans from the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia who became German citizens in 1938; and (3) Volksdeutsche, or ethnic Germans who had lived in, and in many cases had been citizens of East European countries (see Figure 1). This distinction is important because it later constituted the basis for participation in many of the expellee political organizations that evolved.