CDU Campaign Poster Aimed at Refugees (1948)
Abstract
This 1948 campaign poster for the Christian Democratic Union in North Rhine Westphalia reads: “Help the refugees, vote CDU.” Germany’s former eastern territories, which were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II, are represented in green in the background. Unlike the 1946 poster from the Soviet Occupation Zone, which urged the resident German populations to host “resettlers” from the East, this poster projects Germanness onto those very refugees and their heritage. Furthermore, the CDU identifies itself as the party that will help them.
Source
Source: Poster: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.
© Konrad Adenauer Stiftung
Further Reading
Klaus J. Bade, Neue Heimat im Westen: Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge, Aussiedler. Münster: Westfälischer Heimatbund, 1990.
Mathias Beer, Martin Kintzinger, and Marita Krauss, eds., Migration und Integration: Aufnahme und Eingliederung im historischen Wandel. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997.
Andreas Kossert, Kalte Heimat: Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945. Munich: Siedler, 2009.
Martina Kessel, “Keine Heimat für Hybrides – Mamitschka und die Politik der Gefühle im Film der 1950er Jahre,” in Politische Leidenschaften: zur Verknüpfung von Macht, Emotion und Vernunft in Deutschland, edited by José Brunner. Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 38. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010, pp. 183-98.