Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims

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The Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims (Template:Langx) was part of the West German federal government from 1949 till 1969.

Before the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany on the territory of the three western (American, British and French) allied zones, the individual state governments were in charge of the care for displaced persons. Initially the Office for Displaced Persons (Template:Langx) was formed for the social policy task of coordinating the integration of displaced persons and refugees, caring for war victims and providing compensation and initial aid. When the new ministry was formed in September 1949 after the parliamentary elections, it took over this office.[1]

The first minister was Hans Lukaschek, member of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former president of the Zentralverband vertriebener Deutscher, an organisation of displaced Germans. Before the war he was responsible for organising propaganda against the Poles in Upper Silesia.[2] He had eight successors, until in 1969 the ministry was dissolved and its competences were distributed among other federal ministries. The ministry was target of several scandals and controversies as Lukaschek's successor Theodor Oberländer was a former active Nazi, responsible for supporting ethnic cleansing of Jews and Poles and forced to resign due to his Nazi past. Another minister, Hans Krüger, also a former Nazi, was also forced to resign after his involvement in atrocities in occupied Poland was revealed. As for Lukaschek, it was speculated that his departure was the result of intrigues made by former Nazis[3]

The ministry initially drafted the Lastenausgleichsgesetz and the Bundesvertriebenengesetz (passed in 1952 and 1953, respectively). These laws became the basis of its further activities.

The ministry also mandated a multi-volume documentation of the expulsion of Germans after World War II (Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa), which was prepared by a large scientific commission led by former Nazi activist Theodor Schieder. The research project took roughly ten years to complete. A crucial role in this commission was played by the Königsberger Kreis led by former Nazis Theodor Schieder and Werner Conze as well as nationalist historian Hans Rothfels; it had previously provided ideological justifications for the Third Reich's aggressive eastbound Volkstum politics.[4]

Ministers

Political Party:

  1. REDIRECT Template:Legend inline
  2. REDIRECT Template:Legend inline
  3. REDIRECT Template:Legend inline
Name
(Born-Died) 		Portrait Party Term of Office Chancellor
(Cabinet)
Federal Minister for Displaced Persons Affairs (1949–1954)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees
and War Victims (1954–1969)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Hans Lukaschek
(1885–1960) 		File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-000699, Hans Lukascheck (cropped).jpg CDU 20 September 1949 20 October 1953 Adenauer
(I)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Theodor Oberländer
(1905–1998) 		File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-23645-0002, Theodor Oberländer.jpg GB/BHE (1950–1955)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
CDU (from 1955) 		20 October 1953 4 May 1960 Adenauer
(II • III)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Hans-Joachim von Merkatz
(1905–1982) 		File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F024640-0014, Hans-Joachim von Merkatz.jpg CDU 27 October 1960 14 November 1961 Adenauer
(III)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Wolfgang Mischnick
(1921–2002) 		File:Wolfgang Mischnick.jpg FDP 14 November 1961 15 October 1963 Adenauer
(IV • V)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Hans Krüger
(1902–1971) 		File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F016619-06, Hans Krüger.jpg CDU 17 October 1963 7 February 1964 Erhard
(I)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Ernst Lemmer
(1898–1970) 		File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0100, Ernst Lemmer (portrait crop).jpg CDU 19 February 1964 26 October 1965
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Johann Baptist Gradl
(1904–1988) 		File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F023374-0014, Bonn, Plenarsitzung Bundesrat, Gradl (cropped).jpg CDU 26 October 1965 1 December 1966 Erhard
(II)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Kai-Uwe von Hassel
(1913–1997) 		File:Verteidigungsminister Kai Uwe von Hassel (4909218489).jpg CDU 1 December 1966 5 February 1969 Kiesinger
(I)
style="background:Template:Party color;" | Heinrich Windelen
(1921–2015) 		File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F042655-0004, Bonn, Tagung CDU-CSU Bundesvorstand, Wörner (cropped).jpg CDU 7 February 1969 21 October 1969

Footnotes

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ T. Hunt Tooley, "National identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the eastern border, 1918–1922", U of Nebraska Press, 1997, pg. 176
  3. ↑ Hitler's legacy: West Germany confronts the aftermath of the Third Reich John P. Teschke P. Lang, page 161, 1999
  4. ↑ Im Interview: Wolfgang J. Mommsen

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