Notaufnahmelager Gießen. The history of, and experience with, a german institution.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Jeannette van Laak
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2011 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 206731500

This project explores the history of the Notaufnahmelager Giessen, a camp for the registration of GDR refugees. Established in 1946, the camp developed from a provisionary arrangement into a state institution of Hessen and into a national governmental agency respectively. The twofold scope of duties turned out functional and flexible, especially with regard to particular tasks like caring for redeemed political prisoners. The camp, which during the 1980s was renamed into Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung des Landes Hessen für DDR-Übersiedler, was an open institution. Compared to the, much better researched, NS-camps of repression, it served to pave the way for refugees and emigrants into the Federal Republic of Germanys society. In the FRGs situation of 1949/50, camps for refugees from the GDR were less than acclaimed. Throughout itss 40 years of existence, however, several institutions and authorities embraced it for their own interests sake. According to recent approaches pursued in institutional histories, the project analyses the structure of the institution as well as everyday life within the camp. As can be shown, East German cultural imprints interlocked with West German living conditions, and this specific mixture facilitated arrival and accommodation for the people in question. The project traces the relevance of this institution for an interrelated postwar German history. This will also enable future research to integrate institutions like this into a broader context of 20th century camp history, which so far was dominated by camps of repression. In doing so, the project amplifies the scope onto camps after Auschwitz by adding camps that helped their transitory inmates to integrate into West German society after 1949/50. This helps to draft lines of continuity and to identify processes of synergy within a modern institution.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants