266 267 almost every town and city had streets named after the ceded territories in the East; more than 500 monuments commemorate the loss of Heimat, in public squares, cemeteries and in the countryside. Most of these were unveiled in the 1950s as part of West Germany’s early policy of remembrance. Another wave of memorialisation followed in the 1980s. The range of different shapes and designs included cruciforms, sculptures and large stones, some hewn, some left as found. One such early monument is the Eternal Flame on Berlin’s TheodorHeuss-Platz, first lit in 1955. Since ANTI-WAR MONUMENT AND MEMORIAL FOR THE VICTIMS OF EXPULSION IN ST. MARY’S CHURCH Lü beck (Germany), 2021 On the floor of the chapel of remembrance lie the shattered and charred bells of St Mary’s Church, destroyed in 1942. The chapel’s large window in the south tower was designed in 1951/52 and shows the coats of arms and names of towns, cities, regions and provinces from where Germans were expelled. SCAN ME PHOTO SERIES: MONUMENTS IN GERMANY COMMEMORATING THE EXPULSIONS In the 1950s, the successive governments of the fledgling Federal Republic were anxious to convince the sizable number of eight million refugees and expellees that their economic integration could be accomplished; they also wanted to commemorate where they came from. Right from the start, recognition of the specific origins and heritage of the German refugees and expellees was an important element of West German integration policy. Its aim was to encourage cohesion for a regionally re-constituted post-war population and to foster a common culture of remembrance. The Federal Expellees Act of 1953 attempted just that with its so-called Kulturparagraf (Article 96). Legislators intended to keep alive the expellees’ regional cultural heritage not only among the expellees themselves but among all Germans and even abroad. It still continues to fulfil this purpose. The fostering of a culture of remembrance was established very soon after the foundation of the Federal Republic. In many public places in former West Germany we still find references to displacement and expulsion:
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