Historical Background
It is estimated that in the aftermath of World War II between 13 and 16 million ethnic Germans were expelled from the territories of Eastern Germany (present-day part of Poland), the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia (mostly from the Vojvodina region), the Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly northern part of East Prussia) area of Russia, Lithuania, Romania and other East European countries. The first president of the federation was a former Nazi judge and activist Hans Krüger. Today, the position is held by a CDU politician Erika Steinbach. The federation claims to represent the diaspora of ethnic Germans and their families.
Read more about this topic: Federation Of Expellees
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (18931959)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)