Post-World War II Germany: Integration of refugees and displaced people

NARRATOR: Germany at the end of the second world war - millions of refugees and displaced people from the east search for new homes in the west. They're not welcome.

ALFRED BIOLEK: "They didn't greet us with open arms; that's for sure."

NARRATOR: They're treated as unwanted rivals in the search for food and shelter.

HELLMUTH KARASEK: "The refugees - these have-nots - were there to take what little remained."

NARRATOR: Every second house has been destroyed.

WOLFGANG THIERSE: "I know we were seen as foreigners, as intruders."

NARRATOR: They're also scorned in the countryside, even though there is less hunger there than in the cities. Every farmer is required to accommodate refugees on his land.

HANNA KROLL: "It was generally the case that the local villagers had something against the refugees. They were outsiders who didn't belong there."

NARRATOR: Emergency accommodation is set up in all four occupied zones. Even former concentration camps are used as emergency shelters. This is where the refugees and displaced of Germany's bombed cities meet. Hunger and disease are part of daily life. Kaufbeuren, Bavaria - on the grounds of a former munitions factory, refugees from Gablonz find work for which they were once prized in the Sudetenland - glass manufacture.

ERNST TOMESCH: "I worked 16 hours on some days. We wanted to show the people that were not beggars."

"DER AUGENZEUGE": "There were many trains that took settlers to their new homeland 10 years ago."

NARRATOR: Four million displaced people live in the GDR. The SED government wants the subject forgotten as quickly as possible. The new arrivals should have been integrated by now.

THIERSE: "The theme of flight and expulsion was strictly taboo. you couldn't speak openly about it. And when it was dealt with in public, it was called resettlement, as if we had simply packed our belongings and moved somewhere else."

NARRATOR: The refugees in West Germany organize into associations. To them, their lawful right to their old homeland is inviolable. But they want to peacefully contribute to the reconstruction of their new home, as documented in the Charter of 1950. The government provides compensation to facilitate the integration. Four billion annually to those who have lost everything. Start up capital for a new beginning.

GEORG LEBER: "Germany's greatest achievement since the end of the war has been the acceptance of 14 million compatriots forced to leave their homeland and come to West Germany. At a time when we ourselves were hungry, homeless and in need, we took these people in without conflict. And it took just a few years before we could no longer tell the difference between new and old citizens."

NARRATOR: The capability and mobility of the new arrivals contribute much to the economic upswing of the fifties.