Relocation between East and West Germany 1949-1990

Following the Second World War, Germany was split into four territories, administered by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1949, the zones occupied by Britain, France and the US formed the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and the USSR zone became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The capital city of Berlin, which was located in East Germany, was also split into two parts, with West Berlin remaining in the Federal Republic of Germany and East Berlin belonging to the Soviet satellite state of the German Democratic Republic. Between 1949 and 1961, over 2.5 million people (mostly skilled laborers) emigrated from East to West Germany in search of economic opportunities and higher standard of living.

Increasing restrictions

In reaction to this imbalanced migration, the communist East German government increased restrictions on movement to the West, and, despite initial requests being denied by Nikita Khrushchev in 1953, the Soviet leader eventually approved the building of a physical barrier in 1961. Initially, a wire fence was used to separate the East from the West, and this was later reinforced with concrete walls, bunkers, guard towers and landmines, most notably in the case of the Berlin Wall, which became the symbol of German division during the Cold War. From the early 1960s until the late 1980s, migration from East to West Germany dropped significantly. In the 1970s, there was no year where more than 20,000 people moved from the East to West, which is a significant drop from the 1950s, where as many as 331,000 people migrated in 1953 alone.

The fall of the iron curtain

As the Soviet Union's power weaned in the 1980s, and their influence in Eastern Europe diminished, communism in the Eastern block and Soviet satellite states began to collapse at the end of the decade. On November 9, 1989, when an East German politician mistakenly claimed that restrictions on travel visas would be lifted with immediate effect, thousands of people in Berlin gathered at the checkpoints along the Berlin Wall demanding to be allowed through. As tensions rose, the commanding officers eventually gave in to public demands and opened the barriers, allowing the people to move freely again between both German states. In the days that followed, Germans from both sides of the barrier began to tear down and create holes in the Berlin Wall, in a symbolic act that would represent unity and the end of German division.