Disintegration of the BHE (1955–1959)

Abstract

The period during which Eutin’s fourth elected town council served was characterized by an increasing pace in the assimilation process. This was perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the progressive defeats suffered by the expellee party at the polls and the gradual disintegration of party membership at all levels. The BHE failed to muster enough votes in the federal election of 1957 to qualify for representation in the third Bundestag, and after the Schleswig-Holstein state election of 1958 its diminutive faction was not deemed important enough to include in the new coalition government. These major disappointments had significant repercussions at the local level where the party suffered from debilitating resignations of its former stalwarts. The economic counterpart of this political erosion was the virtual elimination of unemployment throughout the Federal Republic in 1959. During the entire period continuing attempts by expellees to intensify the preservation of their cultural heritage met with only limited success. It was becoming increasingly apparent that as expellees established themselves economically and socially, their political aspirations tended to merge with those of their neighbors except in the realm of foreign policy.