page_title: Flüchtlingspolitik
section_title: Fled and banished Germans and "Displaced Persons" 1945–1949
hierarchical_section_title: Flüchtlingspolitik / Fled and banished Germans and "Displaced Persons" 1945–1949
caption_attribution_description: English: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Germany The Displaced Persons camp within the grounds of Hamburg Zoo was build by the Blohm &amp; Voss company during WWII to house the forced labourers that worked in their factory. The camp was taken over by the British on 5 May 1945 and quickly given over as an arrivals centre for displaced persons. On arrival displaced persons were organised into groups of 50 for processing through the reception centre. They were dusted with anti-louse powder and given a registration card (D.P.3) bearing such details as their name, nationality and place of residence. All were then allotted a bed in one of the accommodation huts. In times of overflow a large former air raid shelter was used as overspill night accommodation. After a few days at the camp and when transport was available displaced persons were sent to the appropriate 'National Camp' ready for repatriation to their country of origin. On 4 May 1945, the German authorities estimated there were 45,000 displaced persons in Hamburg. This figure was later increased to 120,000 by 521 Detachment, Military Government, the British formation responsible for all displaced persons in the city.
context_page_description: The term Flüchtlingspolitik, refers to the legal provisions and the handling of refugees and asylum seekers wanting to enter a country, and/or subsequently staying there for a long period of time.
context_section_description: According to a population census in 1950, around 12.5 million refugees and exiles from the eastern territories formerly occupied by the Nazi regime fled after the end of the Second World War, to the Allied occupation zones of Germany and Berlin. 3 million refugees came to Germany from Czechoslovakia, 1.4 million from Poland, roughly 300,000 from the former Free City of Gdańsk (Danzig), 300,000 from Yugoslavia, 200,000 from Hungary and 130,000 from Romania.  Long-term residents, especially in villages, often refused to take in these refugees. In August 1952, the Equalization of Burdens Act was passed to compensate the refugees for monetary and job losses. The legal status of refugees and late resettlers is regulated by the Federal Law of Refugees and Exiles (German: short form: Bundesvertriebenengesetz, BVFG; in full, Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge; literally: Law on the affairs of the expellees and refugees) inured on June 5, 1953.
  The so-called Displaced persons (DP) played a key role in the history of the German refugee policy post-1945. Most of them were deported to Germany, mainly as forced laborers, during the Second World War. Freed prisoners of war, Eastern Europeans who came to Germany voluntarily after the start of the war and people who had fled from the Soviet Army were considered within a broad definition of DPs. DPs were supposed, and also mostly wanted, to be repatriated into their country of origin. Citizens of the Soviet Union were however repatriated against their will. Polish and Baltic people, as well as the forced laborers from the areas in Belarus and Ukraine who had lived on Polish national territory before the war, had the choice either to go back to their homeland, to emigrate to another country or to stay in Germany. All over Eastern Europe, Stalinist dictatorships were established; that is why many of the Displaced Persons", especially those who were suspected of having collaborated with the Nazi occupiers, would not leave Germany: they feared severe penalties in their country of origin. For instance, the former Latvian general Rudolfs Bangerskis, who later became a general of the Waffen-SS, died in 1958 in exile in Oldenburg. Displaced Persons are called "homeless foreigners" in German federal law, and their legal position, based on the "Law on the Legal Status of Aliens in the federal territory" of 25 April 1951, is similar to the legal position of people with refugee status.
  Between 1945 and 1949, a housing estate for roughly 5000 Displaced Persons from Ukraine was built, under the initiative of the Americans,"in the "Ganghofersiedlung" in Regensburg (the former "Göring-Heim" (lit. Göring-asylum) of the Nazis). Similar estates were also then built elsewhere in Germany. There was hardly any contact with Germans outside the camps or estates except for fairly superficial ones. In 1950, the Rheinische Post commented on the resolution of a "Polenlager" (Poles' camp)  in Solingen which had been occupied by "DPs", remarking that "the Polish economy" would finally be over; they then remarked that "German cleanliness would soon rule again in the spoiled area""instead of the "post-war eyesore". Furthermore, the DPs from Ukraine were unpopular in many places because they were considered privileged in contrast to the hardships Germany was facing. In addition, some were former Nazi collaborators and formed gangs of petty criminals, controlling the black market, which was important for the supply of the population at that time.
caption: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Germany
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