Forced re-settlements along the inner German border
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- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2024
- In 1952 and 1961 thousands of East German people where expelled from their homes.
Why? Just because they lived close to the border to West Germany and the government was afraid that they might flee to the west.
In this video I wil explain how the re-settlements were organized and I will show what happened to the village of Jahrsau.
Important source that I used while creating this video is the book "Zwangsaussiedlungen an der innerdeutschen Grenze" by Inge Bennewitz and Rainer Potratz.
I’m so glad I found your channel! I was USAF stationed at Tempelhof Central Airport in West Berlin from 1987 to 1994. I enjoyed having my restrictions on travel (only East Berlin was allowed for western allies due to Allied Kommandatura Rules from May 1945 to Mar 20, 1990) lifted, so that I could finally see East Germany while it was still extant. I took three months paid leave from April to June and drove around most of it-Stadt, Kreis, and Dorf. I visited several areas like the one you talk about here after Die Wende because they fascinate me, it was an exclusion zone not unlike at Chernobyl, but thankfully without any ☢️. All the buildings inside the zone were all falling down. Strangely, the Vopos never gave me any real trouble going in there with my camera to take pictures of it. They were always far more interested in my American Corvette, which I let them drive if they wanted to😊. One Vopo tried to trade his Trabi for it 😂. I declined. I’m looking forward to more great videos, hopefully they’re all as good as this one is. Thanks again!
That sounds like an unforgettable trip. Thanks!
Not having switched cars sounds like a good decision. ;-)
Sir, your account is really interesting. It's good that you saw such a sight with your own eyes. I, having been born on 2001, would never get the privilege of the same... I just had one final question. Say, you were getting a GaZ or ZiL (the ones which the party bosses would get) in exchange of your corvette, would you do the exchange?
@@ajayKumarajayKumar-hr7sj No way my friend. I still have it. I took it to my next military posting in Italy after I left Berlin in 1992, and three years after that I sent it by ship to my next posting in Korea. Three years later I was posted to back in the USA, so I sent it back home to the USA when I bought myself a BMW M5. It still runs great, has over 550000 miles (it’s now on its 2nd engine), and is kept in my garage here in Georgia.
@@davidstrohl That's lovely, sir. You are truly in love with your car.
Being in the U.S. military in the 50's & 60's based in Europe was a "Hollywood" posting, plenty of money, superior uniforms, taking you car from base to base, px food, and tax free petrol !! What a life you Guys had.
Your videos about the GDR are superb! Much of this information has been available on RUclips - but only in German. Your channel makes the GDR's history accessible to a much larger audience. I also commend you on your very clear presentation style, without dramatic or emotional commentary. The irrational and inhuman nature of the SED regime becomes crystal clear when you describe its actions and their results. Lastly, as a Dutchman, you have much higher credibility than any German or American historian. Your content can't just be dismissed as pro West Germany / anti GDR propaganda. Thank you for your work, and for sharing it with us.
During the late 1960s, I spent two years on the border monitoring Soviet military radio communications. I saw "up close and personal" how brutal the East German regime was. Tatsaechlich Ungeziefer! I was thrilled when it fell apart in 1989. Auf Nimmerwiedersehen, DDR und Stasi.
I was a British army tank crewman, posted to Paderborn in the middle 1970’s. Now I’ve found this channel, it’s fascinating how the so called “enemy” operated, both civilians and military!
Forced relocations of ethnic German citizens in Prussia, as well as parts of Czechoslovakia and western Poland (current borders) were, frequently, even more violent in the years immediately after mid-1945. It was a complex situation, but that doesn't excuse the fact, for example, that Churchill decided to agree to return thousands of members of the Polish Army stationed in Scotland in 1945 to Stalin's control. Those people knew that the Soviets were going to put them directly into the gulags.
Fascinating! Thank you
Superb videos, I'm really glad to have found your channel.
Well done! Thank you!
Τhis is a piece of history that is scarcely explored and reported in the West. Thank you for the information. I have been watching your videos one after the other in the past few days and of course I have subscribed.
Mm interesting. BTW I've always been int in the borders between the eastern countries eg DDR and then Cz and between DDR and Poland and of course between Poland and Cz. I'm told they had barbed wire fences between them also. And one needed a visa to travel between them. This of course also applies to Poland and then USSR, Hungary and Romania etc. Oddly enough whilst in Vienna in 1979 I discovered then, unusually, that between Hungary and Austria, no visas were needed!! Of course no Hungarian could go any further (eg into West Germany) or Austrian (eg into Cz) without a visa.
Thanks for sharing this!
At least the land border between GDR and Poland, around the city of Stettin, was marked by a double line of barbed wire fence, not as high as the "Iron Curtain", but nasty enough. No border crossing "by mistake" was possible. Keep in mind, that free-living wolves didn't exist in Western Germany, until 1990. After that they spread westward again in a couple of years.
I was in Hungary in 1989 and asked a Hungarian citizen about requirements to cross the border into Austria: No visa ,no passport needed, just the national ID booklet with an additional piece of paper. Also, citizens could buy the Austrian currency for a better exchange rate that the black market rate. Generally no visas or passports were required within the East Block countries. Just their national ID booklets with a stamp inside: Permitted to travel to: USSR, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, DDR. The most relaxed policy was between East Germany - Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Their citizens could enjoy virtually no restrictions on travel. The stamp itself didn't mean you could travel to the Soviet Union. Apart from the stamp there were several other requirements and the Soviet Union the most difficult to get to. Poland - Hungary: in the 80s no restrictions, additionally you needed a currency booklet confirming you purchased the currency from an official state owned source. From Poland to DDR: an invitation letter stamped by DDR Polizei and a currency booklet with at least 200 Mark exchange . DDR to Poland was easier: No currency booklet required, and the invitation letter was simpler. Romania and Bulgaria were very strict at that time.
Great video and channel. I had heard of the post war Soviet 'relocations' but I had not heard of these, but it is something I assumed must have taken place in order to build the inner border fence. Did something similar happen to the tenants of buildings in Berlin when they built the Berlin Wall? Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this of course!
Best education videos on RUclips!
I looked at the thumbnail and saw "landgrabben". Just how many of the personel in the Stasi were former Gestapo.
Landgraben ist german for countryside ditch
Excellent educational video!
Very interesting. Thank you.
I visited Jahrsau in 2022....how many villages along the 1377km border were abandoned and demolished?
I'm searching for my relatives from the Mecklandburg area. My ansestors emingrated from there in 1871. My 23&Me shows little population from that area, however large populations in Poland. Is there a DATA base of document I could search for relitives?
Eviction and Transportation by trains at night.
Some things never change.
Having watched this, it makes me think of what the people of Kherson might be going through, with their deportation by the occupying Russian forces. Very similar in that Soviet/Russian controlled government was in power in the area.
Soviets and russians never cared about the suffering of their own people, let alone others. Disgusting regimes, hope we'll see a complete dismantlement of russia in our lifetime.
No it’s not similar. And that’s the reason why channels like that are so important because people in the English-speaking world have no understanding of the eastern block. The DDR was a mostly sovereign and separate country. The Berlin Wall was planned and built by the East German government. The Soviet Union had nothing to do with that. The only reason why Soviet soldiers were in East Germany was because allied troops didn’t recognize East Germany as a separate country and therefore weren’t willing to take orders from East German authorities when they were crossing into the DDR through the "Transitautobahn“.
And Ukraine was also a republic of the USSR, like Russia btw.
@@Tobi-ln9xrOh dear... "The only reason Russian forces..".. The Soviets were there to prop up the communist divetntmrnt as they were in Hungary and Czechoslavakia... The communist governments of Eastern Europe had a lot of autonomy but the regimes needed the soviet military to stay in power.. Look how soon the regimes collasped as soon as the USSR collasped..
The definition of "Unrechtsregime".
After all of this I'm still surprised we do not have more of a libertarian mentality in Germany and a lot of people still seem to favor a big state and state intervention. It has never turned out well for us and has lead to disasters in the past. I'm afraid we don't learn
Because libertarianism has already failed multiple times too. The only thing that works, is state intervention for life essentials like housing, education, infrastructure and medical care - and no state intervention for the rest, aside from keeping an eye on monopolies. Free market monopolies are just as bad as state monopolies, and are guaranteed to happen if you don't keep some power over the market. The only system that works, combines the strengths from one philosophy, whith those of the other.
Just take a look at the USA as an example of libertarianism/market liberalism that won't work: they pay hundreds, sometimes a thousand dollar per month for medical insurance. A proper education is unaffordable to many. Roads, bridges and railroads are crumbling, and owned by private companies that hinder passenger travel on the railroads. Violent crime much higher than in any western european country. Droves of adult people forced to live together in a shitty apartment, while paying as much for one single room as western europeans do for the whole apartment.
Western Germany is an example of a system that has worked reasonably well for the past 5 decades or so. A combination of large corporations that are running well, good worker's rights, good education, relatively low crime levels etc etc etc.
While absolutely not perfect, it is more functional than many other countries.
OR take a look at the netherlands, where i live: housing coops were allowed to become for profit companies which has resulted in rents absolutely skyrocketing. Health care and insurance was privatized, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in cost as well as many more rules that exclude people. Education gets more expensive each year, and so does public transport ever since that was also privatized - while reliability goes down. Homelessness increased by a factor 3 since the year 2000, helped along by liberal (for the USA'ians, that means free market driven, not socially liberal) governments. We are doing the shitty market liberalism thing and trust me, it is NOT good at all compared to the social democracy thing we had going from the 1960s till the early 2000s.
After the fall of the DDR any of this People retorned to their homes??
Good question!
When people were allowed to visit their former home towns again after the fall of the Wall in 1989, they were often shocked:
- Their former houses were dilapidated or torn down.
- Everything looked differently from how people had remembered it.
- During their absence, life had continued one or two generations. Neighbours and friends had died or left.
In some cases, distrust between the resettled and the ones who had stayed, resulted in tensions (‘The ones that had to leave were all criminals’ / ‘The ones that were allowed to stay are all fanatic members of the communist party.’).
On top of that, the former border regions were (and partly still are) not very economically attractive regions where you can easily find a job.
Therefore, only very few people went back to their former homeland.
People that lost their homes and property from various reasons, were there lawsuits filed against the former government?
How much property was recovered by former owners or by family of deceased former owners?
How could MÖDLAREUTH survived ?. I visited this place a few years ago and it was in the middle of the border.
Good question. A video on Mödlareuth is planned!
Mödlareuth had a permanent military presence with watchtower and a wall. So, it was guarded 24/7.
Well it could be seen from the west and the GDR minded what the west public actually thought about them. So they didn't wanted a scandal. Not the only village as close to the border
I have met people who left, under the barbed wire and machine guns. No one was happy under Communism.
You exaggerate.
@@jean6872 OK tankie
@jean6872 Okay, the Party Members were satisfied with their lot. Other people were happy to risk their lives to escape oppression. Happy?
@@christopherellis2663 Your use of the word "Other" people needs qualification. Some others wanted to go to the Bundesrepublik but millions lived their lives in the DDR without getting involved in politics. They were not SED party members only but ordinary working class people with trades which afforded them a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, having families, bringing up their children, fed and clothed and with a home for everyone and full employment with free health care. Professionals too were represented in engineering, education, architecture, the arts, etc. Many people like those in other European countries grew up in loving homes, had friends at school, and thought the sun rose and set in the home towns and cities from small industrial Heimatstadt in the valleys of the Erzgebirge to Städte with bigger populations. Von den Ruinen aus schien die Sonne über Deutschland. They did not all want to live in the capitalist rat race that was West Germany.
@@jean6872 Yeah tankie F### Socialism, DDR was a shithole, I believe Hate Speech is Free Speech, I believe in privacy and right to Religion, and I own A LOT of guns what you gonna do? Send me to the Gulag? LOL
Hundreds of Thousands fled to West Germany? GEE I WONDER WHY???
That's what they get for murder millions and starting ww2
@@familyandfriends3519 nobody asked. Hating germany wont get your grandpa back
This education lesson needs to be thought to woke students in the the west to waken them up to reality & tyranny...Ireland
Why do you use all those meaningless generic scenes taken from the internet? Serious research and investigation looks different!
Accolades to the DDR for putting Jehovah's Witnesses on the vermin list.
Everyone in Germany did everything wrong. Swallow it.
Yep this was caused because they started ww2 and murder millions
Stalin should have taken all of Germany.
And got rid of germs
Great video. Just too bad you speak fluent "Dinglish." As you're clearly Dutch, you don't even realize how bad your English is. There is a real language called English, which is not spoken in in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Please ask a native speaker to sit down with you and correct the mistakes in your video. I realize it's impossible to change your mind, as the Dutch are convinced their English is better than any native speaker's.
I am a native English speaker but can attest to the fact that Dutch people generally speak excellent English of a higher quality than most native English speakers. They don’t make mistakes like saying “I was sat” or use expressions like “Aw rye mate”.
Why so bitter? This is a guy who’s making interesting videos provided to you for free. Yep, he has a Dutch accent. And English is the primary language of global communication. I’m a native English speaker and every day enjoy videos from all around the world in my native language made by non native speakers and it’s a god-damned blessing. I have lived in The Netherlands for 11 years and know that many Dutch speak fluent English, indeed often with a heavy accent, and with imperfect grammar and vocabulary choices, and also with self confidence and a lack of the odd British constant need to apologize which is characteristic of their very successful society! There are many spheres such as large companies, and universities, where English is the daily language of work. This means English is simply acquiring new regional versions such as it already has across the Commonwealth. So the real question is…why the F does this BOTHER you so much?