Organization
The expellees are organized in 21 regional associations (Landsmannschaften) according to the areas of origin of its members, 16 state organizations (Landesverbände) according to their current residence, and 5 associate member organizations. It is the single representative federation for the approximately 15 million Germans who after fleeing, being expelled, evacuated or emigrating, found refuge in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Federation claims to have 1.3 million members, and to be a political force of some influence in Germany. This figure was disputed in January 2010 by the German news service DDP, which reported an actual membership of 550,000. According to Erika Steinbach only 100,000 of the members contribute financially.
The current president of the federation is the German politician Erika Steinbach (CDU), who also is a member of the German Parliament.
The federation helps members to integrate into German society. Many of the members assist the societies of their place of birth.
Read more about this topic: Federation Of Expellees
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it richly plunges us instead into a poverty of abundance, making alienation all the more intolerable as each convenience promises liberation and turns out to be only one more burden. We are condemned to slavery to the means of liberation.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)
“... every woman’s organization recognizes that reformers are far more common than feminists, that the passion to look after your fellow man, and especially woman, to do good to her in your way is far more common than the desire to put into every one’s hand the power to look after themselves.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)