All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights

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All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights
Gesamtdeutscher Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten
GB-BHE election poster from the 1957 West German federal election

The All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights (German: Gesamtdeutscher Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten or GB/BHE) was a right-wing political party in West Germany, which acted as an advocacy group of the Germans fled and expelled in and after World War II.

A notable achievement of the GB/BHE was the German Federal Expellee Law.

History

Founding

Charles University in Prague
until 1945.

Before World War II, the Nazi Party had achieved some strong results in the eastern territories of Germany. Moreover, as flight and expulsions from there had been instigated by advancing Red Army forces in the late days of the war and were continued by the authorities of the newly established socialist republics in eastern and central Europe, most expellees had strong anti-communist attitudes. The Allies at first had prevented any associations of expellees, but gave in upon the establishment of the West German state with the proclamation of its Basic Law in 1949.

Political activity

In the Schleswig-Holstein state election of 9 July 1950, the party gained 23.4% of the votes as second party behind the

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Kraft nevertheless joined the CDU-led coalition government in Schleswig-Holstein as deputy minister-president
.

In order to integrate further

Saarland as an independent entity of the Western European Union, Chairman Kraft resigned from his post in 1954, when at a party convention his aide Eva Gräfin Finck von Finckenstein
had not been re-elected as member of the executive committee. One year later, Kraft and Oberländer left the party to join the CDU. Kraft also left the federal government in 1956.

At the

election threshold. Until the end, it had somewhat more success in state elections, still represented in the state diets (Landtage) of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony
and Schleswig-Holstein, and participating in the states' governments. Several of its prominent members eventually became members of the CDU or CSU after 1955.

Former Nazi officials (

Trude Bürkner-Mohr stood as a GB/BHE candidate in the 1953 state and federal elections.[5]
Oberländer endorsed the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population during the war.[6]

Demise

In 1961, the party merged with the remnants of the

All-German Party (Gesamtdeutsche Partei, GDP),[7][full citation needed] which however in turn failed to enter the Bundestag, winning only 2.8% of the votes in the 1961 election
.

References

  1. ^ "Als die Vertriebenen in Niedersachsen regierten". Hannoversche Allgemeine. 28 September 2017.
  2. ISBN 978-3-8300-3587-9
    .
  3. ^ "Der Henker von Westerland". fluter. 31 July 2014.
  4. ^ "Stramm rechts - und im Parlament". Süddeutsche Zeitung. 23 September 2017.
  5. ISBN 9783825284688
    .
  6. ^ Der Generalplan Ost: Ein finsteres Kapitel berliner Wissenschaftsgeschichte
  7. ^ "Political Parties (Germany)" – List of German political parties since 1949.

External links

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