Self-Organization of German-Speaking Displaced People in Austria Between 1945 and 1954: The Zentralberatungsstelle für Volksdeutsche

This article examines the collective agency of German-speaking displaced people in Austria between 1945 and 1954, focusing on the Zentralberatungsstelle für Volksdeutsche (Central Advice Bureau for Ethnic Germans) and its role in shaping the country's postwar migration regime and national identity. In the face of exclusion from aid and citizenship, Volksdeutsche refugees organized collectively, leveraging their numbers and invoking the idea of a shared Habsburg heritage to achieve legal equality and integration. The study draws on archival sources to show how refugee lobbying, advocacy and alliance-building resulted in key legislative changes – most notably access to employment and citizenship for approximately 300,000 individuals. Yet the article also reveals the limitations and contradictions of this agency: exclusivist narratives marginalized other groups and internal divisions, as well as state intervention, limited the Zentralberatungsstelle's autonomy. The findings demonstrate that Austria's migration regime and national identity were not simply state-driven, but were actively negotiated by refugees themselves, thereby highlighting the contested nature of postwar integration and nation-building.