Junkers and other East Elbians in a surviving Weimar Germany

[Dr. Nodelescu]

The East Elbian voters used to be a destabilization factor in German interwar democracy. True, the Nazis blinded many eyes, but nonetheless it's been places like Pomerania and East Prussia that voted overproportionally right-wing in the 1920s and early 1930s. People say that Stalin, who already made facts on the ground with respect to the future of Polish borders, used to legitimate the expulsion of Germans from its former eastern territories with the alleged hyper-nationalist sentiment in these lands' Germans. In the end, didn't they use to vote for the Nazis by a 50+ or even 60+ per cent margin whereas the rest only made a 43 per cent margin?

One could also think that the rise of the neo-Nazis in modern day East Germany was not part of the GDR being a "Germany without 1968", but that it was rather a confined problem of the old East Elbian heritage of much of its lands. With or without Oder-Neisse, hasn't it always been no man's land, a frontier to be colonized? I mean, isn't it odd that the Bundestag constituencies in Western Pomerania usually go to the CDU while those in Mecklenburg go to the SPD?

This bears some interesting questions. You could argue about the reasons why the Federal Republic of Germany worked while Weimar Germany didn't. Post-war Germany didn't have a Versailles, but an economic miracle, observant neighbors to avoid Germany becoming recidive, the shock of the war, the baby boomers etc.

Maybe one of many other answers is that Germany became smaller. Not in the sense of humility, but rather as the room that provided the base for the authentically conservative elements in German politics was away, due to expropriation, with or without expulsion. Most Junkers and many other former inhabitants of former Eastern Germany either died when trying to flee or just had to begin anew on a new base and couldn't resist absorption into more urban, non-frontier societies. One could almost say that the Red Army eased later democratization in Germany just by lawn mowing. At least it provided for the death of Prussian spirit in Germany as a whole.

So how do you think would these people that were essentially doomed IOTL fare in a TL that doesn't get rid by this element by geographic lawn mowing, especially e.g. if Germany remained democratic after the 1920s? Would they remain a steadfest conservative hotbed and provide for similar image as the Deep South of the US? Our wouldn't they be any more conservative than rural Bavaria? Or wouldn't we recognize them at all? How would they affect politics in the long run? Would Germany still be able to get Catholic and Protestant conservatisms successfully married? Would we see a more left-wing Germany than the post-war FRG as Berlin and Central Germany more than counter-balances the surviving East Elbian communities?

These may be a silly questions, but I desperately need an answer.

[Dr. Nodelescu]

Please, pleeeease, please!

[Faeelin]

I agree with a lot of the thinking here. Long term? It vote for conservative Christian parties, I guess?

[Lokari]

Post-war Germany didn't have a Versailles, but an economic miracle, observant neighbors to avoid Germany becoming recidive, the shock of the war, the baby boomers etc.

I read that one of the reasons for economic miracle was the fact that the Germans from East of Oder were useful as cheap labour, which gave advantage to German economy.

Not in the sense of humility, but rather as the room that provided the base for the authentically conservative elements in German politics was away, due to expropriation, with or without expulsion. Most Junkers and many other former inhabitants of former Eastern Germany either died when trying to flee or just had to begin anew on a new base and couldn't resist absorption into more urban, non-frontier societies. One could almost say that the Red Army eased later democratization in Germany just by lawn mowing. At least it provided for the death of Prussian spirit in Germany as a whole.

Is that true ? After de-nazification was ended due to Cold War, a lot of former Nazis and conservatives were put into positions of power.

Would we see a more left-wing Germany than the post-war FRG as Berlin and Central Germany more than counter-balances the surviving East Elbian communities?

Perhaps you should see similiar situations-depends on how WG develops, perhaps they would be similiar to Jewish settlers in Palestine with their hard attitude to German minority in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Polish-German and German-Czech relations. In other words-they would prove to be a constant problem for foreign relations.