Bernd Fabritius: The new face of the German Federation of Expellees

The appointment of Bernd Fabritius as president of the Federation of Expellees (BdV) is something of a departure for the organization that represents the interests of ethnic Germans who fled or were forced from their homes in central and Eastern Europe after WWII. It is the first time the body has elected a president from the post-war generation.

Fabritius was born and raised in Romania, and was voted into his new post almost unanimously. In advance of the ballot he said he would expand the federation to represent the interests of everyone of eastern and south-eastern European origin.

His critics say that will weaken the position of expellees, and accuse him of being too moderate in comparison to his predecessor Erika Steinbach. The Christian Social Union (CSU) politician, who has held a seat in the German parliament since 2013, makes no secret of his plans to modernize the organization now under his charge.

A planned overhaul

In conversation with DW, he said he would give equal attention to those expelled in the early years following World War II, and those who resettled later. He also aims to stimulate debate between different expellee associations and countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Bernd Fabritius was born in Transylvania, in Romania. After graduating from a German high school, his family, like many others during the years of communist dictatorship, emigrated to West Germany. There, he studied politics and later earned his PhD in law. He has been active in the politics of expellees for a long time.

In 2007, Fabritius was elected Chairman of the Association of Transylvanian Saxons in Germany. He became vice president of the BdV in 2010.

Defining expellees

He told DW why he regards himself as an expellee. "None of my fellow countrymen and women found it easy to leave Romania," he said. "During the communist dictatorship, we were under constant pressure to go, and we felt the same thing as late re-settlers."

Some 400,000 Transylvanians live in Germany, and along with a similar number of Banat Swabians they are known as Germans of Romania. At least half of them arrived in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Some 40,000 members of the German minority still live in Romania.