What happened to all the Prussian Junkers?

I know Stalin made great sport out of purging them in soviet-occupied territory post WWII but what exactly happened to them after their lands were de-germanized in the east?

Did they just disappear altogether as a class in Germany(West) or are they still hanging around?

Do any generations still claim family lands in what is now Polish/Russian territory?
 
I know Stalin made great sport out of purging them in soviet-occupied territory post WWII but what exactly happened to them after their lands were de-germanized in the east?

Did they just disappear altogether as a class in Germany(West) or are they still hanging around?

Do any generations still claim family lands in what is now Polish/Russian territory?

They basically disappeared as a social class. Some of them joined clubs/fraternities/organications that worked as a lobby group for the displaced germans in post war germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsmannschaft_Ostpreu%C3%9Fen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsmannschaft_Schlesien

There are some odd cases making up a minority of a minority of a minority, which demand material compensation. I don't know if there are special organications for that in case of the Junkers but there is one for the Sudeten:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witikobund
 
Since the term is "Prussian Junker" it sort of by default implies that it
refers to Junkers that are Prussian, or at least based in Prussia.
And "the Prussia with junkers in it" is all in the parts that ended up in East Germany, Poland and Kaliningrad.

I'm sure someone will pop around with sources and a better grasp of
German history, but a quick google around suggests that the western part
of northern Germany (19th Century Kingdom of Prussia) had a lot of
independent land-owning farmers. (Which naturally lead to some political
conflicts with the east where the junkers owned pretty much Everything.)

And, yes, at least some of those who ended up in West Germany did (and
possible still do) try to get their families' land back post-1989.
 
Most of them became Heimatvertriebenen in West Germany, which was the name for expellees from the territories beyond the Oder-Neisse Line. They remained a major right-wing group that opposed normalisation of relations with the GDR or the Soviet Union. They seem to have been a pretty big group, given that Adenauer's Social Democrats wouldn't recognise officially the O-N Line due to their opposition. They got around this by continuing to officially claim the territories whilst signing non-aggression pacts with Poland and Czechoslovakia. In fact, Adenauer had to constantly appease the nationalists from the east by talking smack about the Anglo-Americans and doing what he could to help out Nazi war criminals like the Spandau Six.

Some of them are still around in social clubs, I think, but the 1970s saw a big shift as the younger generation of Germans rebelled against their parents' latent ultranationalism and the FRG dropped the claims. Some of the Neo-Nazis in Germany today are probably descendants of Junkers, although I don't think many people care enough to want the land back anyway. Over time people adjust to their reality and end up trying not to rock the boat.
 
Note that there's a big difference between "Junkers" and "expellees". The vast majority of the expellees were not Junkers. Adenauer was worried about the expellees, not the Junkers.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Note that there's a big difference between "Junkers" and "expellees". The vast majority of the expellees were not Junkers. Adenauer was worried about the expellees, not the Junkers.

Exactly. Most were ordinary people, farmers or more like farm workers, as most of the land in the lost Eastern provinces belonged to estates owned by the Nobility (Junckers if you will).

AFAIK at least some compensation has been paid to people having claim on land in the former GDR, but I'm not sure to what extent. It anyway appears to be a very complicated question:

http://www.foothill.fhda.edu/divisions/unification/restitution.html

The landscape in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (where I often hunt) is however still typical "Estate-landscape" - that will say very large fields interrupted by forrests and not many small farms.

The forrests were mainly taken over by government run forestrys (Forstämter/Forstamt) but I'm not quite aware of how the farm land is run/owned today. Will have to ask next time I'm down there.

In western Germany the old nobility is still prominent in social and economical life (and among hunters), but they appear almost absent in the Eastern part, and I would guess not that welcome either. Actually that sometimes appear to give us Danes an advantage, as each hunt sold to a Dane would not be sold to a "Wessi" :D
 
I didn't mean to suggest that the Junkers were the majority of heimatvetriebenen, rather that they provided the organisational (and possibly financial) core of their political mobilisation.
 
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