Emigrants

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By a resettler one understands or understood a person who moved his place of residence from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to the Federal Republic of Germany or, more rarely, in the opposite direction at the time of the division of Germany .

Relocation from the GDR

In order to be able to move from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany, a so-called exit application had to be submitted beforehand. However, applications for permanent departure before retirement age had negative consequences for the applicant , even from the time the application was submitted. Examples are "repression talks" with the attempt to use threats and positive incentives to persuade those wishing to leave the country to withdraw their application, restrictions on career choices and dismissals. It is unclear how many forced adoptions there were in this context.

If an exit application was rejected, it could be re-submitted. The processing time until departure was usually between one and ten years. Since the departure could usually take place from one day to the next, appropriate measures were taken on the western side to ensure a smooth process, e.g. B. by setting up residential accommodation for migrants.

People who emigrated from the GDR are now often referred to as " refugees ". In some cases, this is viewed as an inadmissible generalization, since, in addition to an economically or politically motivated departure, there was also the possibility of applying for a departure for family reasons. GDR Ambassador Siegfried Bock declared in 1975 that a total of 9,000 GDR citizens outside the retirement age had emigrated to the Federal Republic as part of the family reunification . It was not until the ordinance regulating family reunification and marriage between citizens of the German Democratic Republic and foreigners of 1983 that an official application for family reunification was made possible. In 1984 alone, over 32,000 such applications were approved.

An illegal border crossing was a criminal offense in the GDR, was intended for the deprivation of liberty ( see also: Limited freedom of movement in the GDR , Political prisoner in the GDR and prisoner ransom ).

After the opening of the inner-German border in 1989 , relocation was simplified to a simple move.

By the time the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, there were around 4 million people moving from the GDR to the Federal Republic and almost 400,000 people moving from the Federal Republic to the GDR.

When they arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany, the educational qualifications and professional experience acquired in the GDR were recognized or could be supplemented by further training, which made professional integration possible. Her affinity for education , her family cohesion, including with family members in West Germany, as well as her "ability to establish social networks, track down relevant information and manage with limited resources" formed an incorporated cultural capital that contributed to mastering the transition to the Federal Republic. The immediate recognition as a citizen as well as various instrumental and financial aids should also be mentioned.

When drawing a pension, migrants from the GDR were treated by the Foreign Pension Act (FRG) as if they had made their contribution periods under pension law in the Federal Republic. After reunification, however, the applicability of the FRG was limited by the Pension Transition Act (RÜG) of July 25, 1991, provided for in the Unification Agreement - initially to people with retirement before January 1, 1996, and later to people born before January 1, 1937 were. According to the RÜG, a new pension calculation applies to younger emigrants, which is based on the contributions actually paid into the pension insurance in the GDR.

Number of emigrants and refugees from the GDR to the Federal Republic

Around 4 million people had moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany by the time the Wall was built in 1961.

According to statistics, another 600,000 people from the GDR came to the Federal Republic permanently from 1961 to 1988. Specifically, these were: 383,181 over-settlers, 178,182 refugees who had fled via third countries or the like, 40,101 barrier breakers who had reached the Federal Republic via border fortifications, and around 15,000 people (not shown in the graph) who lived from 1961 to 1988 when political prisoners were ransomed by the Federal Republic.

In 1989 a total of 343,854 people came from the GDR to the Federal Republic, in 1990 another 238,384.

Age structure of emigrants to the Federal Republic of 1989

Age group Total population Emigrants from the GDR
65 years and older 15.3% 1.7%
61–64 years 5.5% 1.1%
45–60 years 20.4% 7.8%
25–44 years 29.4% 42.2%
18–24 years 11.1% 22.1%
6-17 years 11.9% 16.6%
under 6 years 6.3% 8.6%

Source: Federal Statistical Office, 1989

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Übersiedler  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Discovered in the district archive. Bautzen district archive, January 29, 2015, accessed on February 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Entrissen - Forced Adoptions in the GDR. In: planet-wissen.de. ARD, accessed on February 11, 2018 .
  3. ↑ "The GDR is one of the most cosmopolitan states". In: Der Spiegel. August 4, 1975. Retrieved February 11, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Helge Heidemeyer : German refugees and immigrants from the Soviet occupation zone or the GDR in the Western occupation zones or in the Federal Republic of Germany and, in bathing. a. (Ed.), Enzyklopädie Migrationm, pp. 485–488, here p. 485. Quoted from: Maren Möhring: Mobility and Migration . In: Frank Bösch (Ed.): Divided history: East and West Germany 1970-2000 , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015, ISBN 978-3-647-30083-2 , p. 369 ff, p. 379 .
  5. ↑ a b A number of over 4.3 million people who emigrated to the Federal Republic before the Wall was built is given in: Hans-Peter Schwarz : The Federal Republic of Germany: a balance sheet after 60 years , Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2008, ISBN 978-3-412 -20237-8 , p. 576 .
  6. ↑ a b A number of 3.8 million people who emigrated to the Federal Republic before the Wall was built is given in: Wolfgang Seifert : Emigrants from the GDR and emigrants from Germany. Federal Agency for Civic Education, May 31, 2012, accessed on February 25, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Laura Wehr: Forgotten migration stories? The departure from the GDR in the memory of migrant parents and children. In: Germany Archive. Federal Agency for Civic Education, December 14, 2016, accessed on February 11, 2018 .
  8. ^ Constitutional complaint against the change in the legal assessment of pension law periods completed in the GDR unsuccessful. In: Press release No. 5/2017, decision of December 13, 2016, 1 BvR 713/13. Federal Constitutional Court, January 18, 2017, accessed December 26, 2018 .
  9. ↑ a b Source: Hans Hermann Hertle, Konrad H. Jarausch and Christoph Kleßmann , eds., Building and Falling the Wall. Causes - course - effects . Berlin, 2002, pp. 310-314. Quoted from: Volume 9. Two German States: 1961–1989. Statistical compilation of the number of emigrants and refugees (1961–1990). In: German history in documents and images (DGDB), flucht-und-ausreise.info. Retrieved February 25, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Jürgen Ritter / Peter Joachim Lapp, The Limit. Ein deutsches Bauwerk, Berlin 1997, p. 167. Quoted from: Migrants and refugees from the GDR (1961-1990). In: Chronicle of the Wall, chronik-der-mauer.de. Retrieved February 25, 2018 .