The Federal Republic of Germany faced in its early years a huge challenge by millions of displaced ethnical Germans from Eastern Europe and from former territories of the German Reich who fled to the west German occupation zones at the end of World War II. Beside the numerous material and social necessities imposed in the early postwar period the newly formed republic had to fulfill the obligation of incorporating these citizens into the new state. The legal part of the solution for this challenge was the enacting of the Federal Expellee Law (“Bundesvertriebenengesetz“, 1953). Article 96 of this law states the Federal Republic’s obligation to preserve the cultural goods of the communities of displaced Germans from Central and Eastern Europe.
Continue reading Funding program “German Culture in Eastern Europe”