Work and culture: The two dimensions of social integration of refugees/expellees in Germany after World War II. A theoretical-empirical essay

This paper argues that expellees and refugees typically had different courses of integration into the society of postwar Germany. Census data in 1971 showed that expellees had been integrated with a high proportion experiencing downward social mobility upon their re-entry into the labour market but also attaining lower scores on educational achievement, whereas refugees were more often upwardly occupationally mobile and had higher scores on educational achievement. On a theoretical level, these two types of social integration epitomize one focusing on work, and one hinging on preservation of cultural identity as it relates to the country of origin. These two types fit into two classical models: Alfred Schutz's as contrasted with Georg Simmel's conceptions of the social role of the stranger. Investigating the empirical viability of these types, survey research material is used collected by the Information Control Division Branch of the Office of Military Government of the United States for Germany between 1945 and 1948/49, and by the U.S. High Commission for Germany reaction analysis department for the early 1950s. These data document that both types of social integration of expellees/refugees were originally initiated by military government. As a conclusion, Talcott Parsons's notion of societal community is introduced as a conceptual baseline for the explanation of the integration of expellees/refugees into the Federal Republic of Germany's society after World War II.