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Abstract

In 1950, East German refugees accounted for 3.3% of all those living on Federal territory; by 1961, that figure had jumped to 5.5%. The increase was particularly dramatic in West Berlin. In 1952, the GDR government sealed off the 1,378-kilometer-long inner border between the two German states, leaving the zonal border in West Berlin as the last loophole to the West. In 1950, East German refugees made up 3.7% of the population of West Berlin. By 1961, the percentage had grown to 17.3 – nearly a fivefold increase.

Refugees from the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR in the Federal States of West Germany (1950 and 1961)

Source

1950

1961

States

Refugees in
thousands

%

Refugees in
thousands

%

Schleswig-Holstein

134

5.2

114

4.9

Hamburg

68

4.2

130

7.1

Lower Saxony

369

5.4

356

5.4

Bremen

21

3.8

48

6.8

North Rhine-Westphalia

379

2.9

909

5.7

Hesse

166

3.8

302

6.3

Rhineland-Palatinate

47

1.5

128

3.7

Baden-Württemberg

144

2.2

416

5.4

Bavaria

228

2.5

294

3.1

Saarland

–

–

23

2.1

Berlin (West)

80

3.7

381

17.3

Federal territory

1,636

3.3

3,099

5.5

Refugees are persons of German nationality or ethnicity who, for the 1950 census, were not expellees* and who, on September 1, 1939, were permanently domiciled in the territory of the Soviet Occupation Zone or in the Soviet sector of Berlin. This category also includes any of the refugees’ children born after this date. For the 1961 census, the only members of this group who were counted as refugees were those persons and their children who emigrated from the above-mentioned areas to federal territory (i.e., West Germany), including West Berlin, after the war.

* Expellees are persons of German nationality or ethnicity who, on September 1, 1939, were permanently domiciled abroad or in the eastern territories of Germany that are currently under foreign administration (territorial borders as of December 31, 1937). This category also includes any children born to them after this time.

Source: Gerhard A. Ritter and Merith Niehuss, Wahlen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Bundestags- und Landtagswahlen 1946–1987. Munich: Beck, 1987, p. 31.