Historians in Germany are criticising the federal government’s policy regarding Eastern Germans who were “resettled” after the Second World War.

According to a statement issued by the Association of German Historians (VHD), the new draft law concerning the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation—tabled in the Bundestag in mid-August—reduces the complex events of the post-Second World War “resettlement” process to “German suffering”. It ignores the necessary historical context, namely the war of annihilation waged by Germany in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and thereby creates a “self-referential national narrative” hitherto developed primarily by expellee associations.

Historians point out that this situation jeopardises reconciliation efforts, particularly with Poland and the Czech Republic.

Because this change of focus directly affects the permanent exhibition maintained by the foundation at the Documentation Centre for Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation in a central district of Berlin, it will generate a broad public impact.

This development goes hand in hand with the revival of Berlin’s former “Germanness” policy towards minorities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Post-war German migration exhibition: where is Nazi Germany?

According to German Foreign Policy, the starting point of the recent debates surrounding the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation was the permanent exhibition at the Documentation Centre for Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation, which is operated by the foundation and opened at the Deutschlandhaus in Berlin in 2021.

Spanning two floors, the exhibition chronicles the resettlement of the German-speaking population from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe after the Second World War. The exhibition thus addresses historical events within a two-part context.

As the historian Felix Ackermann, who teaches at the Distance-Learning University of Hagen, described by way of example, the first floor presents “the pre-history of ethnic nationalism and state-enforced migration”, particularly in the context of various cases of flight, expulsion, and resettlement in 20th-century Europe.

Building on this content, the second floor focuses on the post-war resettlement of Germans.

However, this core element of the permanent exhibition is preceded by a very brief overview of the war in which Nazi Germany occupied significant parts of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

This aspect is of vital importance because without this knowledge, the complexity of the “resettlement” process cannot be evaluated in its proper context and adequately understood.

The Polish border issue

The overall structure of the permanent exhibition is widely described as a “compromise” reached between right-leaning expellee associations and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation.

This board also includes historians, particularly from Poland and the Czech Republic.

This compromise had hitherto been maintained by the director of the Documentation Centre, the historian Gundula Bavendamm.

However, in mid-2024, expellee associations effectively abandoned this compromise and launched a fierce attack.

For instance, in a letter sent to Bavendamm by Bernd Fabritius (CSU), then president of the Federation of Expellees (BdV), it was stated that the connection between the resettlement process and Germany’s war of annihilation had to be severed, as this “confused context with causality”.

Fabritius also argued that the Federal Republic of Germany’s 1990 recognition of Poland’s national borders should not legally be characterised as a “cession” of the former eastern territories of the German Empire.

This statement recalls that the border treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland merely “confirmed” the border between the two states, described it as “inviolable”, and renounced all “territorial claims”.

The treaty contains no unconditional recognition definitively describing the border as “inviolable”. As Fabritius’s statement implies, this situation could give rise to potential loopholes.

CDU/CSU influence in German expellee associations

The offensive launched by the expellee associations gained momentum following the change of government last year.

Initially, despite the unanimous objections of the Academic Advisory Board, this led to Documentation Centre director Bavendamm’s contract not being renewed in November 2025 and the post being advertised.

Close observers noted that not only the expellee associations played a role in this process, but also the Group of Expellees, Repatriates, and German Minorities within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which is closely linked to them.

The leader of this group, Klaus-Peter Willsch (CDU), is a member of the board of trustees of the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation.

Similarly, Stephan Mayer, deputy chairman of the Expellees Group who took over the BdV presidency from Fabritius, is also a member of this board.

The person they sought to appoint as director of the Documentation Centre to replace Bavendamm was Sven Oole.

Critics had noted that Oole had “no managerial experience in German museums” and had produced no “academic publications” on the subject, but that “as the long-time managing director of the ‘Group of Displaced Persons’, he knew the group’s historical-political goals like the back of his hand”.

Oole’s candidacy failed due to threats from the Scientific Advisory Board that it would resign en masse if he were elected.

In the end, Roland Borchers was selected, but it is said that no one knows “where he intends to lead the foundation”.

Attempts to define Germans as a community based on descent

However, the substance of Borchers’s work is likely to be severely curtailed by the new law on the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation, which was adopted by the federal government in July and submitted to the Bundestag in mid-August.

The Association of German Historians (VHD) directed sharp criticism at this legislation in late May. This criticism stems partly from the fact that Bernd Fabritius, in his role as Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Ethnic German Resettlers and National Minorities, will in future hold an additional seat on the foundation’s board of directors.

According to the VHD’s statement, this will effectively give the BdV “a government-backed majority position on the foundation’s supervisory board”.

In its statement, the VHD explicitly warns against “bad examples of a state-directed remembrance policy”.

Furthermore, the statement contends that the new law focuses the foundation’s work to a certain degree on “German suffering” and replaces “the historical context of flight and expulsion with a self-referential national narrative”.

This situation further exacerbates “existing threats to reconciliation efforts, particularly with the Federal Republic’s Eastern European neighbours, especially Poland and the Czech Republic”.

Finally, the statement notes that, diverging from the openness of recent years, the law “once again defines Germans as a community based on descent”.

No immigration to Germany—except for “ethnic Germans”!

The historian Felix Ackermann also recently addressed the broader political context.

According to Ackermann, the new law aims not only to strip the resettlement process of its historical context and confine commemorative activities to a narrow national framework.

In addition, the federal government is moving the Flight, Expulsion, and Reconciliation Foundation from the purview of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media to the remit of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Christoph de Vries, Parliamentary State Secretary at this ministry and deputy chairman of the Expellees Group within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, is also pushing for “the opening of new immigration channels for ethnic kin”.

Indeed, while politicians such as de Vries advocate strict restrictions on immigration, the Federal Ministry of the Interior seeks to revise immigration regulations for members of German-speaking minorities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This revision would allow even German speakers born after 31 December 1992 to obtain German citizenship.

As Ackermann noted, this dual focus on the concept of “Germanness” makes it possible to describe the expulsion regions, just as during the Konrad Adenauer era, as the whole of the “German East”.

The fact that the “responsibility to preserve the history of the German East” now falls once again to the Federal Ministry of the Interior—which, as is well known, is responsible for domestic and not foreign affairs—seems to Ackermann “like a bad joke”; yet, Ackermann says, in reality this situation “brings terrible consequences.”

Parliamentary groups of Germany’s ruling CDU-SPD coalition have called for stronger European protection against “unfair competition” and concrete measures to support car manufacturers.

According to Reuters, parliamentary sources indicated that these proposals primarily target China’s “overcapacity”, although China was not explicitly mentioned in the document obtained by Reuters.

The document called for a “decisive” response against “market-distorting practices and unfair competition”, including a faster and broader deployment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures at the EU level.

This development comes as German industry steps up pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz to take a harder line against Beijing.

This also marks a shift in a country that has long resisted trade barriers for fear of Chinese retaliation.

According to one demand, once the German government develops local content criteria that comply with EU law and can be harmonised across the bloc, these criteria should be incorporated into Germany’s existing electric vehicle subsidy scheme, addressing concerns that taxpayer-funded German incentives are also supporting imported Chinese electric cars.

To support the country’s automotive industry, the parliamentary groups asked the European Commission to allow plug-in hybrids, range-extender electric vehicles, and highly efficient internal combustion engine vehicles alongside battery-electric vehicles beyond 2035.

The parties also called on Brussels to suspend plans to tighten the so-called “utility factor” metric used in calculating plug-in hybrid emissions from early 2027.

Under current plans, carmakers will need to sell significantly more electric vehicles starting in 2027 to meet mandatory fleet CO2 targets.

Iceland has voted against restarting accession talks with the European Union, 13 years after negotiations were suspended.

According to public broadcaster RUV, 52.8% of the more than 225,000 people who cast ballots rejected the government’s proposal, while 47.2% supported it. The margin between the two sides was approximately 12,600 votes.

The centre-left government led by Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir had pledged to hold a referendum by 2027, but brought the vote forward due to international tensions, including US President Donald Trump’s threats regarding Greenland.

However, debate across the island nation of roughly 400,000 residents centred on the fisheries sector rather than security concerns.

RUV reported that turnout reached 82.5% among the approximately 270,000 eligible voters, marking the highest participation rate in any Icelandic election since 2009.

Already part of the EU single market and the Schengen border-free zone, full EU membership would bring Iceland into the customs union and ultimately the eurozone monetary union.

Iceland launched its EU accession process in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the Icelandic banking system.

While the accession process was well advanced, an anti-EU government took power in 2013 and suspended negotiations.

At the time, fishing rights were the principal obstacle to Icelandic EU membership, and the situation remains unchanged today.

Shortly after gaining independence from Denmark, Iceland fought successfully during the Cod Wars with the United Kingdom in the 1970s to protect its fishing grounds from foreign fishermen, and the country’s fishing and maritime sectors still account for nearly 40% of its exports.

Many who voted “No” fear that EU membership would entail losing part of the country’s control over these profitable fishing grounds under policies that determine how much member states are permitted to catch.

Eirikur Bergmann, a politics professor at Bifröst University, told the BBC: “The No side was far more adept at appealing to Iceland’s political national identity, which emphasizes formal independence achieved after a long struggle for independence from Denmark. In doing so, they managed to tap into people’s most fundamental emotions.”

Conversely, according to Bergmann, the “Yes” campaign ran an “overtly technical campaign and never fully explained the purpose or the passion behind Iceland joining the EU.”

After casting her ballot in the capital on Saturday, Kristrún said the referendum campaign had ignited debate over Iceland’s place in the world.

At a press conference on Sunday afternoon, she stated that the question of EU membership would not be revisited as long as her government remains in office.

One of her ministers pointed to the high turnout and argued that the outcome did not represent a setback for the government.

There was a notable geographical divide in voting patterns. The capital, Reykjavík, supported EU accession talks, whereas rural areas were largely opposed.

The question on the ballot paper asked: “Should Iceland resume accession talks with the European Union?”

A “Yes” vote would not have represented a final decision to join the EU, but rather a step toward an accession treaty. That agreement would then have required approval in a second referendum.

Similarly, the “No” vote does not rule out the possibility that Iceland could resume negotiations at some point in the future.

While economic concerns dominated the referendum campaigns, security matters were also on the agenda.

Iceland is a founding member of NATO but has no standing military of its own and relies on allies for defence. Joining the EU would have provided the country with full access to the bloc’s common defence architecture.

The country supports Ukraine, and officials are also concerned by Russia’s increasing naval manoeuvres near the island.

However, Trump’s explicit interest in absorbing Greenland, another Arctic island, into the US has heightened anxieties in recent times.

Icelandic Foreign Minister Katrín Gunnarsdóttir told a press conference on Sunday that, following the referendum, the country would seek to bolster defence ties with other nations.

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the European think tank Bruegel, told RUV that the EU had failed to “sell itself”, even as it “clearly aspires to be seen as a security actor, particularly in the Arctic.”

Kirkegaard said the result would be seen as “a missed opportunity for both Iceland and the EU.”

An EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity appeared to share that assessment, telling Reuters that the result was “a clear setback for Brussels”, while noting that fisheries and independence issues had proved decisive.

The victory for the “No” camp drew applause from Eurosceptics elsewhere.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK and a leading proponent of Britain’s departure from the EU, said Icelanders had voted to “preserve their independence.”

Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally (RN) said the outcome pointed to an “obvious truth”, namely that “European Union membership is not a natural horizon for every European democracy.”