After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
,
emigration restrictions
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
were imposed by countries in the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, which consisted of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and its
satellite state
A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting ...
s in Central and Eastern Europe. Legal
emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
was in most cases only possible in order to reunite families or to allow members of minority ethnic groups to return to their homelands.
Eastern Bloc governments argued that strict limits to emigration were necessary to prevent a
brain drain. The United States and Western European governments argued that they represented a violation of human rights. Despite the restrictions,
defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
s to the West occurred.
After
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
tightened its zonal occupation border with
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, the city sector border between
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
and
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
became a loophole through which defection could occur. This was closed with the erection of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in August 1961. Thereafter, emigration from the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
was effectively limited to illegal defections, ethnic emigration under bilateral agreements, and a small number of other cases.
Background
Original USSR emigration restrictions
![Soviet Exit Visa Forever](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Soviet_Exit_Visa_Forever.jpg)
Although the first program of the Bolshevik movement in Russia included a demand for the "abolition of passports",
just two months after the
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
, the new regime instituted passport controls and forbade the exit of belligerent nationals.
The reasoning was partly that emigration was conflated with opposition to the socialist state and also the fear that emigration would inflate opposition armies.
The 1918
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
obligated Russia to allow emigration of non-Russians who wanted German citizenship, but the regime attempted to reduce this flow by allowing it during only one month.
Beginning in 1919, travel abroad required the approval of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
, with the additional consent of the Special Department of the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
added in 1920.
In 1922, after the
Treaty on the Creation of the USSR
hy, ԽՍՀՄ ձեւավորման մասին պայմանագիր az, SSRİ-nin formalaşması haqqında müqavilə ka, ხელშეკრულება სსრკ-ს ფორმირების შესახებ
, image ...
, both the
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
and the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration all but impossible.
However, the Soviet Union could not control its borders until a system of border guards was created through a special corps of the
Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie
The State Political Directorate (also translated as the State Political Administration) (GPU) was the intelligence service and secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from February 6, 1922, to December 29, 1922, ...
(GPU), such that by 1928, even illegal departure was all but impossible.
In 1929, even more strict controls were introduced, decreeing that any Soviet official serving abroad who went over "to the camp of the enemies of the working class and the peasants" and refused to return would be executed within twenty-four hours of being apprehended.
In 1932, as Stalin's first
Five Year Plan forced collectivization, to allocate scarce housing and weed out "nonproductive" elements,
internal passport controls were introduced.
When combined with individual city
Propiska Propiska is both a residency permit and a migration recording tool, generally referred to as an Internal passport:
* Propiska in the Russian Empire
* Propiska in the Soviet Union
* Propiska in Ukraine; see :uk:Прописка#Прописка в ...
("place of residence") permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the
101st kilometre The 101st kilometre (russian: 101-й километр, ''sto pervyy kilometr'') is a colloquial phrase for restrictions on freedom of movement in the Soviet Union.
Etymology
The phrase "101st kilometre" was first coined after the Soviet Union hoste ...
, these rules greatly restricted mobility within even small areas.
When the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was promulgated, virtually no legal emigration took place, except for very limited family reunification and some forced deportations.
Very small numbers snuck into
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
, but the bulk of the population remained essentially captive.
''
Moskovskaya Pravda'' later described the decision to emigrate as "unnatural and like burying someone alive."
Those wishing to leave were viewed not just as deserters, but traitors.
The mobilization of labor in the Soviet Union was not feasible if emigration remained an option with the relative low standard of living that existed at that time.
Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
later stated "We were scared, really scared. We were afraid the thaw might unleash a flood, which we wouldn't be able to control and which could drown us. How could it drown us? It could have overflowed the banks of the Soviet riverbed and formed a tidal wave that which would have washed away all the barriers and retaining walls of our society."
In addition, emigration restrictions were used to keep secrecy about life in the Soviet Union.
Starting in 1935,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
had already effectively sealed off outside access to the Soviet Socialist Republics (and until his death in 1953), effectively permitting no foreign travel inside the Soviet Union such that outsiders did not know of the political processes that had taken place therein.
For many years after World War II, even the best informed foreigners did not know the number of arrested or executed Soviet citizens, or how poorly the Soviet economy had performed.
Creation of the Eastern Bloc
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
took power in Russia following the
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
. During the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
that followed, coinciding with the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
's entry into
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
in 1919, Belarus was declared the
Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia
The Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia or Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB; be, Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка Беларусь, Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika Biełaruś; russian: ...
. After more conflict, the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор ...
was declared in 1920. With the defeat of
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
in the
Polish-Ukrainian War, after the March 1921
Peace of Riga
The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga ( pl, Traktat Ryski), was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet War.
...
following the
Polish-Soviet War, central and eastern Ukraine were annexed into the Soviet Union as the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
. In 1922, the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
,
Ukraine SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
,
Byelorussian SSR
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор ...
and
Transcaucasian SFSR
, conventional_long_name = Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
, common_name = Transcaucasian SFSR
, p1 = Armenian Soviet Socialist RepublicArmenian SSR
, flag_p1 = Flag of SSRA ...
were
officially merged as republics creating the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, or
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
During the final stages of World War II, the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
began the creation of the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
by directly annexing several countries as
Soviet Socialist Republics
The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics ( rus, Сою́зные Респу́блики, r=Soyúznye Respúbliki) were National delimitation in the Soviet Union, national-based administrative units of ...
that were originally effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
These included Eastern
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
(incorporated into
three different SSRs),
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
(became
Latvia SSR
The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR), also known as Soviet Latvia or simply Latvia, was a federated republic within the Soviet Union, and formally one of its 16 (later 15) constituent republics. The Latvian Soviet Socialist Rep ...
),
[Senn, Alfred Erich, ''Lithuania 1940 : revolution from above'', Amsterdam, New York, Rodopi, 2007 ] Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
(became
Estonian SSR
The Estonian SSR,, russian: Эстонская ССР officially the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic,, russian: Эстонская Советская Социалистическая Республика was an ethnically based adminis ...
),
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
(became
Lithuania SSR
The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...
),
part of eastern
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
(became
Karelo-Finnish SSR
The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (Karelo-Finnish SSR; fi, ; rus, Каре́ло-Фи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика, r=Karelo-Finskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Resp ...
, and later merged into the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
)
[Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline, ''Stalin's Cold War'', New York : Manchester University Press, 1995, ] and northern
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
(became the
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ro, Republica Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească, Moldovan Cyrillic: ) was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1940 to 1991. The republic was formed on 2 August 1940 ...
).
By 1945, these additional annexed countries totaled approximately 465,000 additional square kilometers (180,000 square miles), or slightly more than the area of West Germany, East Germany and Austria combined.
Other states were converted into
Soviet Satellite
A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting ...
states, such as the
People's Republic of Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
, the
People's Republic of Hungary
The Hungarian People's Republic ( hu, Magyar Népköztársaság) was a one-party socialist state from 20 August 1949
to 23 October 1989.
It was governed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the influence of the Soviet Uni ...
,
[Granville, Johanna, ''The First Domino: International Decision Making during the Hungarian Crisis of 1956'', Texas A&M University Press, 2004. ] the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
, the
People's Republic of Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania ( ro, Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People ...
, the
People's Republic of Albania
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, links=no) was the Marxist–Leninist one party state that existed in Albania from 1946 to 1992 (the official name of the country was the People's R ...
,
and later
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
from the Soviet zone of German occupation.
The
Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yugo ...
was also considered part of the Bloc,
though a
Tito–Stalin split
The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
occurred in 1948
followed by the formation of the
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath o ...
.
Conditions in the Eastern Bloc
![Bucur Obor (1986)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Bucur_Obor_%281986%29.jpg)
Throughout the Eastern Bloc, both in the Soviet Union and the rest of the Bloc, the Russian SFSR was given prominence, and referred to as the ''naibolee vydajuščajasja nacija'' (the most prominent nation) and the ''rukovodjaščij narod'' (the leading people).
The Soviets promoted the reverence of Russian actions and characteristics, and the construction of Soviet Communist structural hierarchies in the other countries of the Eastern Bloc.
The defining characteristic of communism implemented in the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
was the unique symbiosis of the state with society and the economy, resulting in politics and economics losing their distinctive features as autonomous and distinguishable spheres.
Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of
market economies
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers are ...
, democratic governance (dubbed "
bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state.
The Soviets mandated expropriation and ''estatization'' of private property.
The Soviet-style "replica regimes" that arose in the Bloc not only reproduced the Soviet
command economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...
, but also adopted the brutal methods employed by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
and Soviet secret police to suppress real and potential opposition.
Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc saw even marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein.
The suppression of dissidence and opposition was a central prerequisite for the security of Communist power within the Eastern Bloc, though the degree of opposition and dissident suppression varied by country and time throughout the Bloc.
In addition, media in the Eastern Bloc served as an organ of the state, completely reliant on, and subservient to, the ruling Communist parties, with radio and television organizations being state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the ruling Communist party.
Furthermore, the Eastern Bloc experienced economic mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of
extensive rather than intensive development, and lagged far behind their western European counterparts in per capita Gross Domestic Product.
Empty shelves in shops even in East Germany provided an open reminder of the inaccuracy of propaganda regarding purported magnificent and uninterrupted economic progress.
History
Fleeing and expelled ethnic Germans in the Eastern Bloc
![Vertreibung](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Vertreibung.jpg)
At the end of, and following World War II, at least twelve million ethnic German
Volksdeutsche
In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
or
Reichsdeutsche
', literally translated "Germans of the ", is an archaic term for those ethnic Germans who resided within the German state that was founded in 1871. In contemporary usage, it referred to German citizens, the word signifying people from the Germ ...
fled or were expelled,
[Jürgen Weber, Germany, 1945–1990: A Parallel History, Central European University Press, 2004, p.2, ][Peter H. Schuck, Rainer Münz, Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany, Berghahn Books, 1997, p.156, ]
The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War
'', Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, European University Institute, Florense. HEC No. 2004/1. p.4 Barbara Marshall estimates that the number of ethnic Germans fleeing or expelled from the Eastern Bloc was "about fifteen million."[ mostly in and from ]Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
-occupied territories becoming the Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, making it the largest movement of any European people in modern history.[Arie Marcelo Kacowicz, Pawel Lutomski, Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study, Lexington Books, 2007, p.100, : "...largest movement of any European people in modern history]
/ref> The expulsions had been agreed upon before the end of the war by the Allies of World War II, Allies.[Detlef Brandes, Der Weg zur Vertreibung 1938–1945: Pläne und Entscheidungen zum "Transfer" der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei und aus Polen, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005, pp.398ff,]
/ref> At least two million people perished due to flight and expulsion, 400,000 to 600,000 of whom by physical force.[Christoph Bergner, Secretary of State in ]Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio.
History
Broadcasting in the ...
on 29 November 2006
/ref> Almost all of these occurred between 1944 and 1948. The total figures include a considerable exodus of Germans from areas near the front lines as the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
advanced towards German-settled areas.[Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present, 2005, pp.197,198, , ] Many were aware of the Soviet reprisals on German civilians,[ such as Soviet war crimes#Germany 1945, Soviet soldiers committing rape and other crimes.][Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present, 2005, p.198, , ][Earl R. Beck, Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942–1945, University Press of Kentucky, 1999, p.176, ] News of these atrocities, like the Nemmersdorf massacre
The Nemmersdorf massacre was a civilian massacre perpetrated by Red Army soldiers in the late stages of World War II. Nemmersdorf (present-day Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first prewar ethnic German settlements to fall to ...
,[ were also, in part, exaggerated and spread by the ]Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation o ...
machine. Many of these ethnic Germans also fled to the future East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, within the Eastern Bloc.
Post-war free emigration
After Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
at the end of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the majority of people living in the newly acquired areas aspired for independence and wanted the Soviet troops to leave. While millions of ethnic Germans fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe, about four million ethnic Germans were prevented from leaving by advancing Soviet troops or deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union as part of Stalin's policy towards the German population.[
Before 1950, over 15 million immigrants emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern European countries to the west in the five years immediately following ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Until the early 1950s, the lines between German occupation zones could be easily crossed. Taking advantage of this route, the number of Eastern Europeans applying for political asylum in West Germany was 197,000 in 1950, 165,000 in 1951, 182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization
Sovietization (russian: Советизация) is the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets (workers' councils) or the adoption of a way of life, mentality, and culture modelled after the Soviet Union. This often included ...
with the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
in late 1952 and early 1953. 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953. Because of the lack of resources and space in West Germany, at the request of Truman in 1952, the United States increased its resettlement admissions quotas under the United States Escapee Program (USEP). After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...
, 171,000 Hungarian refugees crossed the border into Austria, while 20,000 crossed into Yugoslavia.
In 1948, in the debate of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Soviets objected to the language that "everyone has the right to leave any country including his own." Arguing that "it would encourage emigration", the Soviets wanted to add the phrase "in accordance with the procedure laid down in the laws of that country", with only Poland and Saudi Arabia supporting the Soviet proposal.
Increasing transnational restrictions
Up until 1952, the lines between Soviet-occupied eastern Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places. Accordingly, before 1961, most of that east–west flow took place between East and West Germany, with over 3.5 million East Germans emigrating to West Germany before 1961, which comprised most of the total net emigration of 4.0 million emigrants from all of Central and Eastern Europe between 1950 and 1959. In response to growing numbers crossing the borders, the Soviet Union instituted tighter border controls around their zone, the Inner German border
The inner German border (german: Innerdeutsche Grenze or ; initially also ) was the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. Not including the ...
. In 1955, the Soviet Union passed a law transferring control over civilian access in Berlin to East Germany, which officially abdicated the Soviets from direct responsibility of matters therein, while passing control to a regime not recognized in the west. When large numbers of East Germans then defected under the guise of "visits", the new East German state essentially eliminated all travel to the west in 1956. Soviet ambassador to East Germany Mikhail Pervukhin
Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin (russian: Михаи́л Гео́ргиевич Перву́хин; 14 October 1904 – 22 July 1978) was a Soviet official during the Stalin Era and Khrushchev Era. He served as a First Deputy Chairman of the C ...
observed that "the presence in Berlin of an open and essentially uncontrolled border between the socialist and capitalist worlds unwittingly prompts the population to make a comparison between both parts of the city, which unfortunately, does not always turn out in favor of the Democratic astBerlin."
Restrictions implemented in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War stopped most east–west migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc (along with China, Mongolia and North Korea), with heavy restrictions preventing such emigration.[ A Hungarian economist stated that "it was quite obvious that the socialist countries—like other countries—intended to prevent their professionals, trained at the expense of their society, from being used to enrich other countries."] Eastern European spokesmen maintained that they were keeping would-be emigrants from suffering from insufficient linguistic and cultural preparation. They also stressed the debt that individuals owed to socialist states, which offered care from birth, including subsidized education and training and, thus, they justified the emigration restrictions as an "education tax" with the states having a right to recoup its investment. Open emigration policies would create a " brain drain", forcing the state to readjust its wage structure at a cost to other economic priorities. Bulgarian and Romanian representatives had long argued that they could not afford to match western salaries and, without emigration restrictions, they "would become like Africa." The restrictions presented a quandary for some Eastern Bloc states that had been more economically advanced and open than the Soviet Union, such that crossing borders seemed more natural—especially between East and West Germany where no prior border existed.
Unrestricted emigration from East Berlin
With the closing of the Inner German border officially in 1952, the city sector border in Berlin remained considerably more accessible than the rest of the border because it was administered by all four occupying powers. Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West. East Germany introduced a new passport law on December 11, 1957, that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving East Germany, while drastically increasing the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin from 60% to well over 90% by the end of 1958. Those actually caught trying to leave East Berlin were subjected to heavy penalties, but with no physical barrier and even subway train access to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective. Accordingly, the Berlin sector border was essentially a "loophole" through which East Bloc citizens could still escape. The 3.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961 totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.
"Brain drain"
The emigrants tended to be young and well educated, leading to the brain drain feared by officials in East Germany. Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
, then the CPSU
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
Director on Relations with Communist and Workers Parties of Socialist Countries wrote an urgent letter, on August 28, 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
among the refugees. Andropov reported that, while the East German leadership stated that they were leaving for economic reasons, testimony from refugees indicated that the reasons were more political than material. He stated "the flight of the intelligentsia has reached a particularly critical phase." SED
sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs,
and is available today for most operating systems.
sed wa ...
leader Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (after spending the years of Nazi rule in ...
saw not only a problem from "brain drain", but also the ''Grenzgänger'' problem of 50,000 East Berliners working in West Berlin. Rural citizens disaffected after collectivization campaigns also caused the flight of tens of thousands of farmers, including one third of the wealthier farmers, leaving over 10% of East Germany's arable land fallow and resulting in food shortages. The farmers that remained were disinclined to do more than produce for their own needs because fixed procurement prices meant little profit, and conspicuous production invited hasty inclusion in a collective or state farm. The exodus intensified existing shortages of goods and services in the shortage economy
"Shortage economy" ( pl, gospodarka niedoboru, hu, hiánygazdaság) is a term coined by Hungarian economist János Kornai, who used this term to criticize the old centrally-planned economies of the communist states of the Eastern Bloc.
In his mo ...
.
By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals—engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. The direct cost of manpower losses has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (after spending the years of Nazi rule in ...
later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses. In addition, the drain of East Germany's young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment. The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the Soviet imperial frontier was imperative. At the same time, there were positive consequences of the emigration for the East German regime, including the removal of anti-Russian nationalists and vocal opponents, which might have helped East Germany government to avoid some of the unrest that developed in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Construction of the Berlin Wall
Even with the Inner German border
The inner German border (german: Innerdeutsche Grenze or ; initially also ) was the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. Not including the ...
strengthening, emigration through Berlin began to swell, with 144,000 in 1949, 199,000 in 1960 and 207,000 in the first seven months of 1961 alone. Orderly planning had become almost impossible in East Germany, with entire towns existing without physicians, crops going unharvested and fifty-five-year-olds put to work running street cars. The East German economy was on the verge of collapse. With fears of drastic action in Berlin, on July 15, 1961 Ulbricht called a rare press conference, insisting that "no one has any intention of building a wall," but made clear that "the outflow has to stop." He added "it goes without saying that the so-called refugee camps in West Berlin"—the transit camps at which refugees were processed en route from West Berlin to West Germany—"will be closed down."
On August 13, 1961, a barbed-wire
A close-up view of a barbed wire
Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...
barrier that would become the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
separating East and West Berlin was erected by East Germany. Two days later, police and army engineers began to construct a more permanent concrete wall. The construction briefly caused fears of a military crisis, though only 11,000 western troops were located in Berlin compared to 500,000 Soviet troops surrounding them deployed in East Germany. The completion of the Berlin Wall closed the biggest loophole in the Iron Curtain. It brought an end to a decade during which divided capital of the divided Germany was the easiest place for unauthorized east-to-west crossings. Along with the wall, the zonal border became wide on its East German side in some parts of Germany with a tall steel-mesh fence running along a "death strip" bordered by bands of plowed earth, to slow and to reveal the prints of those trying to escape, and mined fields.
Later restrictions and agreements
Thereafter, only 5,000 crossed the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. Consequently, after the erection of the Wall, the total net emigration from Central and Eastern Europe fell even further to 1.9 million between 1960 and 1969 and 1.1 million between 1970 and 1979. This increased somewhat to 2.3 million between 1980 and 1989 with increased ethnic emigration after Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
came to power in the mid-1980s. More than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration", and religious minorities, such as those from Bulgaria (ethnic Turks and other Muslims), Poland (ethnic Germans, ethnic Hungarians, and ethnic Jews), Romania (ethnic Germans, ethnic Jews), and Yugoslavia (ethnic Turks and other Muslims). Most Soviets allowed to leave during this time period were ethnic Jews permitted to immigrate to Israel after a series of embarrassing defections in 1970 caused the Soviets to open very limited ethnic emigrations. About 10% of emigrants were refugee migrants under the Geneva Convention
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conven ...
of 1951. Emigration from Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
countries was as follows:
Albania's tight security allowed almost no emigration, while almost all of East Germany's emigration took place before the erection of the Berlin Wall. Because of East Germany's cultural affinity with West Germany and the viewing of West German television depicting western life throughout most of East Germany, East Germany was more prone to population loss.
Providing further emigration pressure was the growing gap in living standards between western Europe and the Eastern Bloc after the 1960s. Everyday complaints over consumer goods, supplies or wages could all too readily lead to comparisons with Western conditions. The quality of goods displayed by "aunts" and Intershop
Intershop was a chain of government-owned and operated retail stores in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) in which only hard currencies (and later Forum checks) could be used to purchase high-quality goods, usually from or asso ...
s, where visitors would buy premium goods with foreign currency (see also Beryozka, Pewex
Pewex () (short for ''Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego'' – Internal Export Company) was a chain of hard-currency shops founded in 1972, during the Communist era in Poland that accepted payment only in United States dollars and other h ...
, Tuzex
Tuzex was a series of state-run shops in Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1992 which did not accept normal Czechoslovak koruna currency but only vouchers which could be purchased from banks using foreign currency. They supplied luxury items: local go ...
and Corecom
Corecom ( bg, Кореком) was a chain of hard-currency stores during the Communist rule in Bulgaria. Goods were often priced cheaper than in the West, however, they were still inaccessible for most Bulgarians because the national currency, th ...
), heightened Easterners' sense of their second-class status and this, in turn, affected their perception of economic arrangements in their own country. Walter Freidrich, director of the Leipzig Institute, complained that "shortcomings and weaknesses in our own country (e.g., problems with supply of consumer goods and spare parts; media policy; rose tinted perspectives; real democratic participation, etc) are coming increasingly into focus and subjected to sharper criticisms. To a growing extent, doubt is cast on the superiority of socialism." Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...
reports complained about individuals who had been given privileged access to travel to the West for work with "stories of the 'overwhelming range of commodities available . . . or with reports of East German goods on sale there at knock-down prices."
Defection attempts from the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
were governed by two laws: (i) illegal traveling abroad without a passport was a crime punishable by one to three years in prison, even in cases where the destination was another Eastern Bloc country; and (ii) illegal defection to a non-Eastern Bloc state and refusal to return home was considered treason against the state. To remove the temptation for such treason, the Soviets invested heavily in border controls, with lengthy criminal rules regarding approaching a border region. Almost no emigration occurred from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, except for ethnic Armenians returning to Armenia. In 1973, the United States Congress made liberalizing the Soviet emigration policy a prerequisite for lifting trade barriers, resulting in the emigration of 370,000 Soviet citizens, mostly ethnic Jews. A second wave of emigration started in 1986–87, after Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
came to power, with most emigrants being ethnic Jews, ethnic Germans, Armenians, Greeks or Pentecostals
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement .
Because of various international accords, non-Soviet Eastern Bloc countries did not explicitly ban emigration. Instead, they introduced a long series of bureaucratic
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
approvals an applicant must obtain beyond the passport office—including local police, employers and the state housing commission—with no time limit set for action. Applications could be denied, without appeal, on a variety of subjective grounds, such as national security and "the interest of the state." Much was left to administrative discretion and unpublished internal directives, with the odds against eventually receiving after years of the process being extremely high. Like in the Soviet Union, attempting to leave without permissions to a non-Eastern Bloc state was punishable as treason, with Albania and Romania invoking the death penalty for such offenses. Even after families applied to leave to join refugees fleeing during the confusion of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
in 1968, Czechoslovak authorities informed them "it is contrary to the State's interest to allow Czechoslovak citizens long-term private sojourns abroad, and that includes emigration. However, emigration was also used as a sort of release valve to hasten the departure of limited prominent vocal dissenters."
In 1964, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
became the only communist country in Europe to allow its citizens to emigrate. Others qualified as refugees claiming to "escape" during crises, such as those fleeing during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...
, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
, the Polish Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
events and various events that occurred in East Germany, Bulgaria and Albania in the late 1980s.
1975 Helsinki Accords and restrictive strategies
The Helsinki Accords
The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, between ...
of 1975 were an important Cold War-era agreement signed by most European countries, including those of the Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, the United States and Canada. It governed various territorial agreements, frontier disputes, human rights, the threat of force and other items. The "third basket" of the Helsinki Accords contained pledges to uphold rights to international travel, family contact and freedom of information, and to promote cultural exchanges. In East Germany, while the government downplayed the existence of this provision in the media, as potential emigrants came to slowly perceive that exit visas might be attainable to some, 7,200 first time applicants applied in the late 1970s.
West Germany negotiated the exodus of some ethnic Germans from Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
in exchange for financial inducements, including large loans.[ Similarly, ]Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
was paid a fixed amount of 5,000 Deutsche Mark
The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...
s (DM) per ethnic German permitted to leave, which was increased to 7,800 DM in 1983 and to 11,000 DM in 1988. East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
exported 70,000 political prisoners to West Germany, in exchange for 70,000 DM per head paid by West Germany, which netted East Germany 3.4 billion Deutsche Marks at a time when it was in financial crisis. East Germany viewed the payments they received for the release not as ransom, but as compensation of the damage such individuals inflicted on the socialist system, as well as reimbursement for their costs of education. However, letting some leave legally set a dangerous precedent, including the long term threat of the general public strongly moving for a right to emigrate. The Central Committee in 1988 warned that "the necessary commitment to preventing attempts to emigrate is not present in many", "the required prevailing atmosphere of opposition to these phenomena has not yet been achieved" and trade union "functionaries or brigade leaders sometimes state that they fail to understand why these citizens are not permitted to emigrate."
The regimes' strategy was to grant applications selectively and with long delays in a process that was designed to be demeaning, frustrating and leading to years of applicants waiting for a departure date that would never arrive. In addition, while waiting, applicants were subject to open discrimination, faced workplace firing or demotion, were denied university access, and were forced to relinquish their passports resulting in the denial of travel rights even within their country of residence. In 1984, twenty-five Czechoslovaks occupied the West German embassy in Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
demanding asylum in the west while seven East Germans did so in the library of the United States embassy in West Berlin. The authorities relented, and that year witnessed a huge rise in legal emigration, with applications swelling to 57,600, 29,800 of which were granted. Small groups of organized applicants had already held vigils calling for legal emigration since the late 1970s. The movement and application figures grew by the late 1980s as the east–west prosperity gap widened resulting in West German citizenship looking more attractive, while authorities were at a loss how to address the application rise. Increasing visa grants in the late 1980s accompanying a 1988 decision to prioritize those for citizens who engaged in protests provided incentives to further expand the movement. The East German SED
sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs,
and is available today for most operating systems.
sed wa ...
party conceded that " e emigration problem is confronting us with a fundamental problem of ast Germanys development" and this challenge "threatens to undermine beliefs in the correctness of the party's policies." The move accompanied a growing dissolving of confidence that the problems facing socialism could ever be solved and whether that system was the future.
Liberalization
By the late 1980s, Hungary had allowed citizens over fifty five years old to leave and liberalized family reunification emigration, along with increased travel permissions. Romania also liberalized emigration for family reunification purposes. By the mid-1980s, East Germany extended its program receiving payment for political prisoner release to the west to include "family reunification." The political prisoner payments became so large that East Germany accounted for them in their state economic planning process. Emigration restriction liberalisation in 1989 followed another flood of outmigration to West Germany during the Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
indirectly through third countries—such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland—which accelerated the demise of the East German government when the closure of the borders precipitated demonstrations.
In 1985, following the Era of Stagnation
The "Era of Stagnation" (russian: Пери́од засто́я, Períod zastóya, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Uni ...
, reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
signaled the trend toward greater liberalization. Emigration increased following liberalizations passed in 1986.[ For example, the flow of ethnic Germans from the Eastern Bloc dramatically increased from 42,786 per year in 1986 to 202,673 in 1988.][ The Soviet Union was facing a period of severe economic decline and needed Western technology. Subsidies to foreign client states further strained the moribund Soviet economy.
The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of '']glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
'' (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for ''perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
'' (economic restructuring). Though glasnost advocated openness and political criticism, at the time, it was only permitted in accordance with the political views of the ruling powers. The general public in the Eastern bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
were still threatened by secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
and political repression.
Believing Gorbachev's reform initiatives would be short-lived, orthodox Communist rulers like East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
's Erich Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
, People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...
's Todor Zhivkov
Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( bg, Тодор Христов Живков ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 ...
, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
's Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák (, , ; 10 January 1913 – 18 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak communist politician of Slovak origin, who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the president o ...
, and Socialist Republic of Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania ( ro, Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People ...
’s Nicolae Ceauşescu Nicolae may refer to:
* Nicolae (name), a Romanian name
* ''Nicolae'' (novel), a 1997 novel
See also
*Nicolai (disambiguation)
*Nicolao Nicolao is an Italian given name and a surname. It may refer to the following:
Given name
*Nicolao Civitali ...
obstinately ignored the calls for change. "When your neighbor puts up new wallpaper, it doesn't mean you have to too," declared one East German politburo member.[Steele, Jonathan. Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. Boston: Faber, 1994.]
Revolutions and free emigration
By 1989, the Soviet Union had repealed the Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet foreign policy that proclaimed any threat to socialist rule in any state of the Soviet Bloc in Central and Eastern Europe was a threat to them all, and therefore justified the intervention of fellow socialist sta ...
in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
allies, termed the Sinatra Doctrine
The Sinatra Doctrine was a Soviet foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev for allowing member states of the Warsaw Pact to determine their own internal affairs. The name jokingly alluded to the song My Way popularized by Frank Sinatra—the Sovie ...
in a joking reference to the song "My Way
"My Way" is a song popularized in 1969 by Frank Sinatra set to the music of the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François and first performed in 1967 by Claude François. Its E ...
". A wave of Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
, sometimes called the "Autumn of Nations", swept across the Eastern Bloc.[E. Szafarz, "The Legal Framework for Political Cooperation in Europe" in ''The Changing Political Structure of Europe: Aspects of International Law'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ]
p.221
In the People's Republic of Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
in April 1989, the Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
organization was legalized, allowed to participate in parliamentary elections and captured a stunning 99 out of the 100 available parliamentary seats (with the one remaining seat taken by an independent candidate). Hungary had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization during the 1980s, but major reforms only occurred following the replacement of János Kádár
János József Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989), born János József Czermanik, was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, a position he held for 32 years. Declining health le ...
as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1988.
In August 1989, the People's Republic of Hungary
The Hungarian People's Republic ( hu, Magyar Népköztársaság) was a one-party socialist state from 20 August 1949
to 23 October 1989.
It was governed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the influence of the Soviet Uni ...
removed its physical border restrictions with Austria. The next month, more than 13,000 East German tourists in Hungary escaped to Austria, while Hungary prevented a larger number of East Germans from crossing the border, returning them to Budapest. The Monday demonstrations in East Germany
The Monday demonstrations (german: Montagsdemonstrationen in der DDR) were a series of peaceful political protests against the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that took place in towns and cities around the country on various d ...
(german: Montagsdemonstrationen) began, with East German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
protesters demanding rights such as the freedom to travel to foreign countries and to elect a democratic government
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose gover ...
. With regard to East Germans demanding emigration rights in Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...
negotiated an agreement that allowed them to travel to the West, in trains that had to pass first through East Germany. When the trains passed Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
central station in early October, police forces had to stop people from trying to jump on the trains.
By 9 October 1989, just after the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of East Germany thousands of protesters gathered, what had begun as a few hundred gatherers at the Nikolai Church in East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
chanting "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people!"). Although some demonstrators were arrested, the threat of large-scale intervention by security forces never materialized, with SED
sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs,
and is available today for most operating systems.
sed wa ...
leader Helmut Hackenberg and others not receiving precise orders for such action from a surprised East Berlin. These were followed by even larger protests exceeding 300,000 the next week. East German leader Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
remained opposed to internal reform, with his regime even going so far as forbidding the circulation of Soviet publications that it viewed as subversive. Faced with ongoing and increasing civil unrest, the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) deposed Honecker in mid-October, and replaced him with Egon Krenz
Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz (; born 19 March 1937) is a German former politician who was the last Communist leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) during the Revolutions of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary ...
.
A wave of refugees left East Germany for the West through Czechoslovakia, which was tolerated by the new Krenz government and in agreement with the Czechoslovak government. In order to ease the complications, the Krenz-led Politburo had decided on 9 November to allow East Germans to travel directly to West Berlin the next day. However the government spokesman misstated the news and stated that East Germans could leave for the West effective immediately. As rumors spread, before the regulations were to go effect, on the night of 9 November, tens of thousands of Eastern Berliners flooded Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991), as named by the Western Allies.
East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuv ...
and other checkpoints along the wall, crossing into West Berlin. The surprised and overwhelmed border guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors, but it became clear that there was no one among the East German authorities who would dare to take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so there was no way for the vastly outnumbered soldiers to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Therefore, the border checkpoints were opened, although it is disputed who was the first to issue the order.
In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
, following the suppression of a student protest in Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, increasing protests swelled to an estimated half-million Czechs and Slovaks demanding freedoms. A two-hour general strike
A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...
, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was held on 27 November 1989. Barbed wire
A close-up view of a barbed wire
Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...
and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
and Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in early December. The next day, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...
announced that it would relinquish power and dismantle the one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
. On 10 December, President Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák (, , ; 10 January 1913 – 18 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak communist politician of Slovak origin, who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the president o ...
appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned, in what was called the Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution ( cs, Sametová revoluce) or Gentle Revolution ( sk, Nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations agains ...
.
In the People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...
, on 10 November 1989 — the day after the mass crossings across the Berlin Wall — Bulgaria's long-serving leader Todor Zhivkov
Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( bg, Тодор Христов Живков ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 ...
was ousted by his Politburo and replaced with Petar Mladenov
Petar Toshev Mladenov ( bg, Петър Тошев Младенов; 22 August 1936 – 31 May 2000) was a Bulgarian communist diplomat and politician. He was the last leader of the Bulgarian People's Republic from 1989 to 1990, and briefly the ...
. In February 1990 the Party voluntarily gave up its claim on power and in June 1990 the first free elections since 1931 were held, won by the moderate wing of the Communist Party, renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party
The Bulgarian Socialist Party ( bg, Българска социалистическа партия, translit=Balgarska sotsialisticheska partiya, BSP), also known as The Centenarian ( bg, Столетницата, links=no, translit=Stoletnitsat ...
.
Unlike other Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
countries, the Socialist Republic of Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania ( ro, Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People ...
had never undergone even a limited de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...
. In November 1989, Ceauşescu, then aged 71, was re-elected for another five years as leader of the Romanian Communist Party, signaling that he intended to ride out the anti-Communist uprisings sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe. As Ceauşescu prepared to go on a state visit to Iran, on 16 December 1989, his Securitate
The Securitate (, Romanian for ''security'') was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului (Department of State Security), the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime ...
ordered the arrest and exile of a local Hungarian-speaking Calvinist minister, László Tőkés
László Tőkés ( ; born 1 April 1952) is an ethnic Hungarian pastor and politician from Romania. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2007 to 2019. Tőkés served as a Vice-President of the European Parliament from 2010 to 2 ...
, for sermons offending the regime.
Rioting followed the arrest. Returning from Iran, Ceauşescu ordered a mass rally in his support outside Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. However, to his shock, the crowd booed as he spoke. Mass protests followed, with about 100,000 protesters occupying Operei Square chanting anti-government protests: "Noi suntem poporul!" ("We are the people!"), "Armata e cu noi!" ("The army is on our side!"), "Nu vă fie frică, Ceauşescu pică!" ("Have no fear, Ceauşescu will fall"). The Romanian military changed sides, turning on Ceauşescu, who was executed after a brief trial three days later.
In the People's Socialist Republic of Albania
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, links=no) was the Marxist–Leninist one party state that existed in Albania from 1946 to 1992 (the official name of the country was the People's R ...
, a new package of regulations went into effect on 3 July 1990 entitling all Albanians over the age of 16 to own a passport for foreign travel. Meanwhile, hundreds of Albanian citizens gathered around foreign embassies to seek political asylum and flee the country.
Technically the Berlin Wall remained guarded for some time after 9 November though at a decreasing intensity. On 13 June 1990, the official dismantling of the Wall by the East German military began in Bernauer Straße. On 1 July, the day East Germany adopted the West German currency, all border controls ceased, although the inter-German border had become meaningless for some time before that. That month, the final obstacle to German reunification was removed when West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
convinced Gorbachev to drop Soviet objections to a reunited Germany within NATO in return for substantial German economic aid to the Soviet Union.
Defectors
Escapees
Although international movement was, for the most part, strictly controlled, there was a steady loss through escapees who were able to use ingenious methods to evade frontier security. Some of the people who tried to escape were in fact East german guards or soldiers. Some of them use military vehicles to smashed through the Berlin wall. In East Germany, the term ''Republikflucht
''Republikflucht'' (German for "desertion from the republic") was the colloquial term in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) for illegal emigration to West Germany, West Berlin, and non-Warsaw Pact countries; the official term was ' ...
'' (fugitives from the Republic) was used for anyone wishing to leave to non-socialist countries. ''Republikflucht'' attempts to leave East Germany constituted a criminal act and carried severe penalties. Regarding the reasoning for such restrictions, a propaganda booklet published by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED) in 1955 for the use of party agitators outlined the seriousness of 'flight from the republic', stating "leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity", and "workers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists". Moreover, an attempt to flee via East Germany's fortified borders involved considerable personal risk of injury or death. Estimates for those killed attempting to escape over the Berlin Wall range from 136 to just over 200. About 75,000 people were caught and imprisoned.
Hijackers
On June 15, 1970, twelve mostly Jewish defectors were caught attempting to hijack a plane to escape from the Soviet Union, and were assigned harsh sentences, including death sentences for the two leaders, which were later commuted to 15 years in a labor camp. At least six attempted skyjacking defection attempts were made from Armenia, the Soviet Union, and Lithuania from 1970 to 1971.
There were three hijackings of airliners by GDR citizens in order to escape to West Germany; the most well-known is the LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking was the hijacking of a LOT Polish Airlines that occurred on 30 August 1978. – The hijackers from East Germany (GDR) were seeking political asylum in West Germany (FRG). The plane landed safely, and th ...
in 1978.
Famous and discrete defectors
Famous defectors
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
include Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva
Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, born Stalina (); ka, სვეტლანა იოსების ასული ალილუევა () (28 February 1926 – 22 November 2011), later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only ...
(though she returned in 1984), Mig-25 pilot Viktor Belenko
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
, death_date =
, death_place =
, nationality = AmericanRussian
, other_names =
, occupation = ...
, U.N. Undersecretary General Arkady Shevchenko
Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko ( uk, Аркадій Миколайович Шевченко, russian: Аркадий Николаевич Шевченко; October 11, 1930 – February 28, 1998) was a Soviet diplomat who was the highest-ran ...
, chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He ...
, ballet stars Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...
, Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...
, Natalia Makarova
Natalia Romanovna Makarova (russian: Ната́лия Рома́новна Мака́рова, born 21 November 1940) is a Russian prima ballerina and choreographer. ''The History of Dance'', published in 1981, notes that "her performances set ...
, and Alexander Godunov
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
. Famous East German defectors include writer Wolfgang Leonhard
Wolfgang Leonhard (16 April 1921 – 17 August 2014) was a German political author and historian of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and Communism. A German Communist whose family had fled Hitler's Germany and who was educated i ...
, East German soldier Conrad Schumann
Hans Konrad Schumann (often anglicized to Hans Conrad Schumann in English-language sources; 28 March 1942 – 20 June 1998) was an East German border guard who escaped to West Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Early ...
, who was famously photographed jumping the Berlin wall while it was under construction, and a number of European football players, including Jörg Berger
Jörg Berger (13 October 1944 – 23 June 2010) was a German football manager and player, who last managed Arminia Bielefeld.
Career
As an active he played for 1.FC Lok Leipzig.
Coaching career
In 1970, Berger was forced to retire due t ...
. Chess world champion Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( rus, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 ...
also emigrated to France in a fashion comparable to defection.
While media sources often reported high level defections, non-prominent defections usually went unreported. The number of non-public "black stream" defectors is not known.
See also
*Soviet Empire
''Soviet Empire'' is a political term which is used in Sovietology to describe the actions and power of the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on its dominant role in other countries.
In the wider sense, the term refers to the country's foreign po ...
*Soviet occupations
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...
*Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
*Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
*Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
*Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc
Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc was a widespread method of the mass surveillance of the population by the secret police.
History
In the past, telephone tapping was an open and legal practice in certain countries. During martial law in Polan ...
* List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors
*North Korean defectors
Since the division of Korea after the end of World War II, North Koreans have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons. Such North Koreans are re ...
Notes
References
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External links
Retracing the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall: Past and Present
* ttp://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Index/id/659901 Comprehensive Gallery (1961 to 1990) from the website Chronicle of the Wallbr>Virtual e-Tours "The Wall"
Shockwave Player required
Borders: spotting the past along Berlin death strip.
2007 BW photo gallery.
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20010111004300/http://fullcontext.org/people/belenko.htm 1996 Interview with Viktor Belenko, who escaped in a Mig-25 Foxbat
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastern Bloc Emigration And Defection
Eastern Bloc defectors
Politics of Europe
Eastern Bloc
Defection