Historia i pamięć zbiorowa: niemieckie i polskie Postrzeganie niemieckich wypędzeń po II wojnie światowej

Please note: As this thesis is written in the English language (and I do not speak Polish) please find a description of this thesis in the section 'description in the language of the diploma thesis'. Thank you.

Today, almost 70 years after World War II, the memories of the expulsions of the Germans are dichotomous: In Germany a 'revival' of German victim experiences (i.e. among others the memories of the expulsions, of bombings, of mass rapes of German women by the Red Army and of German Prisoners of War), challenges the memories of the victims of the Shoa and of the Second World War in general. The emergence of German victimhood is a fairly new phenomenon, which aims at the acceptance of German victims into the collective memory of Germany. For Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and the citizens of other 'expelling countries' this is very hard to accept, as it undermines their own respective historical understanding and collective memory: in their view German expulsions were a consequence of National Socialism. In the case of Poland the expulsions were justified, due to the shifting of borders in the west (the today Oder-Neisse line) and by being a 'victor' of the war. In the 'Recovered Territories' the Polish communist government did not accept a concomitance of a huge German population beside the Polish one. Almost 70 years after World War II, disputes about how certain events should be remembered, are as heated and passionate as ever: the memories of individuals and generations, of victors and vanquished, of victims and perpetrators, meet. Past events are thus not cosigned to oblivion but find a place in many collective memories. This thesis concentrates on how Poland and Germany perceive the memories of the German expulsions and looks at the consequences for their mutual relationship.