Reported by ARD News service in January 2010. The figure of 550,000 does not include the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The news report mentioned that an expert in the area of Expellees Prof. Matthias Stickler of the University Würzburg as saying that a decline in BdV membership is understandable because it "mirrors the death of the generation of that era"[1]