Original title: Forced migration, staying minorities, and new societies: evidence from post-war Czechoslovakia
Authors: Grossmann, Jakub ; Jurajda, Štěpán ; Roesel, F.
Document type: Research reports
Year: 2021
Language: eng
Series: CERGE-EI Working Paper Series, volume: 683
Abstract: Forced migration traumatizes millions displaced from their homes, but little is known about the few who manage to stay and become a minority in a new society. We study the case of German stayers in Sudetenland, a region from which Czechoslovakia expelled ethnic Germans after World War Two. The unexpected presence of the US Army in parts of 1945 Czechoslovakia resulted in more anti-fascist Germans avoiding displacement compared to regions liberated by the Red Army. We study the long-run impacts of this local variation in the presence of left-leaning stayers and find that Communist party support and local party cell frequencies, as well as far-left values and social policies are more pronounced today where anti-fascist Germans stayed in larger numbers. Our findings also suggest that political identity supplanted German ethnic identity among anti-fascist stayers. The German staying minority shaped the political identity of newly formed local societies after ethnic cleansing by providing the ‘small seed’ of political development.
Keywords: displacement; ethnic cleansing; forced migration

Institution: Economics Institute AS ČR (web)
Document availability information: Fulltext is available at external website.
External URL: https://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp683.pdf
Original record: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0326773

Permalink: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-508401


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