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Managing Displaced Populations: The Friedland Transit Camp, Refugees, and Resettlement in Cold War Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2020

Derek Holmgren
Derek Holmgren*
Affiliation:
Wake Forest University
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Abstract

This article examines the resettlement of displaced populations in both postwar German states from 1945 to 1955. Specifically, it investigates who were the displaced populations circulating between the occupation zones, and what methods the German civil governments and occupying military authorities used to aid and resettle them. Through a case study of the Friedland refugee transit camp, this article argues for an expansive understanding of the term “refugee” to include more groups, ranging from Displaced Persons and German expellees to returning prisoners of war and civil internees. It further contends that transit camps were the linchpin in a system to render humanitarian aid, bring refugee movement under state control, and resettle the displaced. Analysis of camp operations and resident populations reveals the state as humanitarian actor in addition to international and charitable organizations, while also complicating the Cold War mythology of Friedland as the “Gateway to Freedom.”

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Umsiedelung vertriebener Bevölkerungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland von 1945 bis 1955. Er fragt, wer zu diesen vertriebenen Bevölkerungsgruppen gehörte, die zwischen den Besatzungszonen zirkulierten, und welche Methoden die Administrationen der deutschen Zivilregierungen und Besatzungsmächte einsetzten, um sie umzusiedeln und ihnen zu helfen. Anhand der Fallstudie des Grenzdurchgangslagers Friedland plädiert der Beitrag für ein erweitertes Verständnis des Begriffs „Flüchtling“, um die ganze Bandbreite der unterschiedliche Gruppen – von Zwangsvertriebenen, über zur Flucht und Auswanderung gezwungene Deutsche bis hin zu heimkehrenden Kriegsgefangenen und Zivilinternierten – zu erfassen. Durchgangslager wie Friedland waren die Dreh- und Angelpunkte eines Systems, dessen Hauptziel es war, humanitäre Hilfe zu leisten, Flüchtlingsbewegungen unter staatliche Kontrolle zu bringen und die vielen Vertriebenen neu anzusiedeln. Die Analyse des Lagerbetriebs und der im Lager ansässigen Menschen zeigt den Staat als humanitären Akteur neben den internationalen und karitativen Organisationen, stellt aber zugleich den Kalten Kriegs Mythos von Friedland als „Tor zur Freiheit“ in Frage.

Type
Article
Information
Central European History , Volume 53 , Special Issue 2: Burdens and Beginnings: Rebuilding East and West Germany after Nazism , June 2020 , pp. 335 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association, 2020

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References

1 Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv—Standort Hannover (NLAH), ZGS 2/1 Nr. 167, “Im Wirbel der Bürokratie,” Niederdeutsche Zeitung, August 31, 1948.

2 Of course, Lower Saxony did not exist as a political entity until 1946, when the British military government combined Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenburg, and Schaumburg-Lippe. In this article, however, I use the term Lower Saxony as a general shorthand to refer to those regions even before its official creation.

3 20 Jahre Lager Friedland (Heidelberg: Bundesministerium für Flüchtlinge, Vertriebene, und Kriegsgeschädigte, 1965), 10–12.

4 For statistics, see Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Inneres und Sport, Grenzdurchgangslager Friedland, 1945–2005 (Hannover: LGN, 2005), 20–21.

5 On the camp's reputation as the Tor zur Freiheit and the Cold War politics of West German humanitarianism, see Schießl, Sascha, “Das Tor zur Freiheit.” Kriegsfolgen, Erinnerungspolitik und humanitärer Anspruch im Lager Friedland (1945–1970) (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2016)Google Scholar.

6 On war casualties and the postwar famine, see Lowe, Keith, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (New York: St. Martin's, 2012), 13Google Scholar, 39.

7 Cohen, Gerard D., “Between Relief and Politics: Refugee Humanitarianism in Occupied Germany, 1945–1946,” Journal of Contemporary History 43, no. 3 (2008): 437–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 441. See also his monograph, In War's Wake: Europe's Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

8 Cohen, “Between Relief and Politics,” 440, and In War's Wake, 5–6. On Jewish DPs, see also Grossmann, Atina, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Königseder, Angelika and Wetzel, Juliane, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II Germany, trans. Broadwine, John (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

9 Cohen, In War's Wake, 5.

10 Cohen, In War's Wake, 5–6.

11 Grossmann, Jews, Germans, and Allies, 1–2.

12 Cohen, In War's Wake, 6.

13 William Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe (New York: Free Press, 2008), 250.

14 Cohen, “Between Relief and Politics,” 442.

15 Cohen, “Between Relief and Politics,” 443.

16 Cohen, “Between Relief and Politics,” 441.

17 Cohen, “Between Relief and Politics,” 439.

18 Pertti Ahonen et al., People on the Move: Forced Population Movements in Europe in the Second World War and Its Aftermath (Oxford: Berg, 2008), 9.

19 Philipp Ther, Die Außenseiter. Flucht, Flüchtlinge und Integration in modernen Europa (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2017), 115–16.

20 Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 235–39.

21 R. M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 103, 128.

22 Douglas, Orderly and Humane, 89, 119.

23 Douglas, Orderly and Humane, 90.

24 Ther, Die Außenseiter, 143.

25 Ahonen et al., People on the Move, 93.

26 Douglas, Orderly and Humane, 125.

27 Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 187.

28 Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 188.

29 Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 188.

30 These restrictions came into effect on June 6. Stadtarchiv Göttingen (SAG), Stadtverwaltung und Militärregierung Nr. A 10, “Circulation Restrictions,” n.d.

31 British National Archives, FO 1052/314, Extract from Weekly Political Intelligence Summary, No. 303, August 1, 1945.

32 Michael Schwartz, “Refugees and Expellees in the Soviet Zone of Germany: Political and Social Problems of Their Integration,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16, no. 1–2 (2000): 148–74, esp. 151–52.

33 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 13, Merkblatt für Flüchtlinge, October 5, 1945.

34 Statistics from NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 48/65 Nr. 166, Bericht über die Besichtigung des Flüchtlingsdurchgangslagers Friedland b. Göttingen, February 25, 1946.

35 Of course, the view of refugees as carriers of disease was also socially constructed, as documented in Andrea Riecken's study Migration und Gesundheitspolitik. Flüchtlinge und Vertriebene in Niedersachsen, 1945–1953 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).

36 SAG, Stadtverwaltung und Militärregierung Nr. A 10, letter from Flüchtlingsauffangstelle Egelbergschule to Oberbürgermeister Göttingen and Landrat Göttingen, September 4, 1945.

37 NLAH, Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 40/51 Nr. 2, Lagebericht des Regierungspräsidenten in Hildesheim für die Monate Januar–März 1946, March 1946.

38 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 13, Merkblatt für Flüchtlinge, October 5, 1945.

39 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lagerbefehl Nr. 1, September 26, 1945.

40 Dagmar Kleineke, “Das Grenzdurchgangslager Friedland: Heimkehrer, Flüchtlinge und Vertriebene, Um- und Aussiedler,” in Zuwanderung und Integration in Niedersachsen seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Klaus J. Bade and Joachen Oltmer (Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag Rasch, 2002), 131–65, esp. 154. See also Kleineke's dissertation, “Entstehung und Entwicklung des Lagers Friedland 1945–1955” (PhD diss., University of Göttingen, 1992).

41 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, 25.

42 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, 25.

43 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lageranordnung Nr. 23, October 26, 1946.

44 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, 26.

45 See the newspaper article “Nazi-Untergrundorganisation?,” Frankfurter Rundschau, January 11, 1959; see also the response by camp director Franz Freßen to his superiors in the Hildesheim governing presidium: NLAH, Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 111/77 Nr. 9, Lagerleiter Freßen to Regierungspräsidenten Hildesheim, January 12, 1959.

46 Schwartz, “Refugees and Expellees in the Soviet Zone of Germany,” 152.

47 See dismissals noted in the Lageranordungen Nr. 8, 13, 16, 22, 24, and 26, in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84; and on the bribery example, NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 105, April 29, 1946. On the German camp director, see letters from his successor to the district refugee office (Kreisflüchtlingsamt) dated June 27 and July 6, 1946 in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 97.

48 On the British major, see NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 34, Friedland Lagerleiter to Niedersächsischen Minister für Vertriebene, September 3, 1951.

49 Quoted in Kleineke, “Das Grenzdurchgangslager Friedland,” 131.

50 NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 48/65 Nr. 166, Staatliches Gesundheitsamt Göttingen to Oberpräsident Hannover, December 8, 1945.

51 NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 48/65 Nr. 166, Staatliches Gesundheitsamt Göttingen to Oberpräsident Hannover, January 23, 1946.

52 NLAH, ZGS 2/1 Nr. 167, “Im Wirbel der Bürokratie.”

53 This is not to suggest that the Lastenausgleich was a forgone conclusion or that it necessarily had wide-ranging material benefits for claimants. Michael L. Hughes argues that it was a “hard-won compromise” reflecting political and economic realities in the FRG, see his Shouldering the Burdens of Defeat (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 194. In fact, it was not clear that burden sharing would necessarily proceed along native/expellee lines, according to Reinhold Schillinger, Der Entscheidungsprozess beim Lastenausgleich, 1945–1952 (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, 1985), 289–97; Andreas Kossert, Kalte Heimat. Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945 (Munich: Siedler, 2008), 96. Restitution was often piecemeal and difficult to obtain, as argued by Carl-Jochen Müller, Praxis und Probleme des Lastenausgleichs in Mannheim, 1949–1959 (Mannheim: Südwestdeutsche Schriften, 1997), 375–80; Daniel Levy, “Integrating Ethnic Germans in West Germany: The Early Postwar Period,” in Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic Since 1945, ed. David Rock and Stefan Wolff (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), 19–37.

54 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lageranordnung Nr. 4, September 28, 1945.

55 Pertti Ahonen, “Taming the Expellee Threat in Post-1945 Europe: Lessons from the Two Germanies and Finland,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 1 (2005): 1–21, esp. 8.

56 Schwartz, “ Refugees and Expellees in the Soviet Zone of Germany,” 153.

57 Philipp Ther, Deutsche und Polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in der SBZ/DDR und in Polen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 212.

58 Schwartz, “Refugees and Expellees in the Soviet Zone of Germany,” 151.

59 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, Appendix 4.

60 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, Appendix 4.

61 See camp medical reports in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 16.

62 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, 54; NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lageranordnung Nr. 16 (August 28, 1946), Nr. 20 (September 28, 1946), and Nr. 32 (January 11, 1947).

63 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lageranordnung Nr. 98, July 24, 1948.

64 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 84, Lageranordnung Nr. 129, September 19, 1949.

65 NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 32/97 Nr. 4, City of Hamburg, Social Agency to Lower Saxon Ministry for Refugee Affairs, December 3, 1948. On the Siberian transport, see 20 Jahre Lager Friedland, 56. Women had indeed served in military formations during the war—see Karen Hagemann, “Mobilizing Women for War: The History, Historiography, and Memory of German Women's War Service in the Two World Wars,” Journal of Military History 75, no. 3 (2011): 1055–93, but categorization for the few female POWs was more straightforward than for civilian internees.

66 “Gesetz über Hilfsmaßnahmen für Heimkehrer (Heimkehrergesetz),” Bundesgesetzblatt, Nr. 27, June 26, 1950.

67 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 3, Merkblatt für ehemalige politische Häftlinge, Federal Ministry for Expellees, October 13, 1955.

68 NLAH, Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 166/86 Nr. 5/14, Verwaltungsstreitsache, November 14, 1957.

69 NLAH, Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 166/86 Nr. 7/4, Verwaltungsstreitsache, February 26, 1958.

70 On POWs, memory, and postwar Germany, see Robert Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Frank Biess, Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). On the waiting women in particular, Moeller, War Stories, 106.

71 See again Moeller, War Stories, and Biess, Homecomings.

72 “Ein neuer Mensch in 24 Stunden,” Göttinger Tageblatt, October 29–30, 1955.

73 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 89, “Heldenfabrik Friedland und Märtyr-Rummel,” Göppinger Tageblatt, n.d.

74 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 89, “Ein Heimkehrer schreibt,” Wiking-Ruf, December 1955.

75 See memoranda in the records of the Lower Saxon Staatskanzlei from October 1955, in NLAH, Nds. 50 Acc. 96/88 Nr. 1429; NLAH, Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 111/77 Nr. 9, communication between camp director Franz Freßen and the Regierungspräsident Hildesheim, January 12, 1959.

76 See memoranda in NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 62a/65 Nr. 527 and Nds. 120 Hildesheim Acc. 111/77 Nr. 20/2, “Belegungsmöglichkeiten,” Jan. 1 and Sept. 22, 1955.

77 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 88, “Noch einmal. Der Schwur von Friedland,” Kirche und Mann, Feb. 1956; “Meineid der Mörder,” Leipziger Zeitung, Dec. 1955.

78 Moeller, War Stories, 88–122, esp. 119; Biess, Homecomings, 114–15.

79 “Seit vier Wochen kommen keine Heimkehrer mehr,” Göttinger Tageblatt, November 18, 1955.

80 NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 62a/65 Nr. 527, letters from Adolf K., Erika L., and Frau H. to Lager Friedland, Oct. 27 and 28, 1955; NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 62a/65 Nr. 527, Auswärtiges Amt to Vertretung des Landes Niedersachsen beim Bund, Dec. 16, 1955.

81 For an account of an earlier (1949) returnee's passage through the various camps, see Altmann, Roland, In Fensterloser Zeit: Sowjetische Kriegsgefangenschaft, 1944–1949 (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2000), 151–55Google Scholar.

82 NLAH, Nds. 380 Acc. 62a/65 Nr. 529, letter from Petersen to Niedersächsischen Ministerpräsidenten Hellwege, November 23, 1955. See also the response from Hellwege to Petersen, December 20, 1955, in the same folder.

83 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 39, letter from Mädchen Wohnheim, Göttingen, to JAL Friedland, February 5, 1949.

84 The fragmentary nature of the files (often, documents are missing) and variable forms of JAL recordkeeping (what information was collected or recorded changed over time) create inconsistencies in data that make a systematic interval sampling of the years 1947 to 1951 unmanageable. The 157 or so files discussed here include interview summaries and notes taken by staff, Lebensläufe (resumes) written by residents after their arrival, and correspondence among camp authorities, parents, legal guardians, and Jugendämter. Data compiled from NLAH folders Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 49.

85 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc 16/83 Nr. 39, Wandernde Jugendliche.

86 Schütterle, Juliane, “Gutes Geld für harte Arbeit. Die betriebliche Sozialpolitik in der Wismut AG,” in Uranbergbau im Kalten Krieg. Wismut im sowjetischen Atomkomplex, ed. Karlsch, Rainer and Boch, Rudolf (Berlin: Christopher Links, 2011), 399–442Google Scholar, esp. 401–02; Jahn, Manfred, “Die Lenkung von vertriebenen Deutschen in den sächsischen Uranbergbau,” Der Anschnitt 50, no. 2–3 (1998): 103–09Google Scholar.

87 The camp also deducted a portion of the wages for room and board. A small allowance from those wages was intended to use in the camp commissary to teach them responsible use of a fixed income. Kleineke, “Entstehung und Entwicklung des Lagers Friedland 1945–1955,” 192–93.

88 For weekly plans running from February 1947 to April 1948, see NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 38.

89 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 30, “Hausordnung für das Jugendheim,” n.d.

90 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 47, memorandum on “Besondere Vorkommnisse,” January 24, 1948. There are also several confessions from youths caught breaking into an administration building: NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 45, October 13, 1947. For a transcript of the interrogation of a JAL resident who stole and sold clothing from his comrades, NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 40, Vernehmung, February 20, 1947. Additional records of violations of the house rules in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 40 and Nr. 42.

91 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 38, memorandum by Krause on the history of the Jugendauffanglager, n.d.

92 See again youth camp files in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, and 49.

93 Records located in NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc 16/83 Nr. 39.

94 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 55, letter from GW to Rüpprich, August 28, 1949.

95 NLAH, Nds. 386 Acc. 16/83 Nr. 51, correspondence between the camp and police in Hannoversch Münden as well as internal camp memoranda from 1949.

96 NLAH Nds. 50 Acc. 96/88 Nr. 1433, Niederschrift über die 3. Sitzung des Ausschusses für Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen, Flüchtlinge und Kriegsgeschädigten, October 14, 1959.

97 On both groups, see Derek Holmgren, “‘Gateway to Freedom’: The Friedland Refugee Transit Camp as Regulating Humanitarianism, 1945–1960” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015).

98 For an exemplary recent study that considers the Gießen refugee camp in the longer process of resettlement, see Laak, Jeanette van, Einrichten im Übergang: Das Aufnahmelager Gießen (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 2017)Google Scholar.