From post war migration to labour-related migration: The organized family reunion between Poland and both German states 1950-1959

• Applicant: Dr. Johannes Frackowiak
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 299281255

This project aims at the research on the topic of the organized family reunions between Poland and both German states from 1950 till 1959 as a problem of the so-called double German post war history (doppelte deutsche Nachkriegsgeschichte) in relationship with Poland. Especially shall be eliminated the deficit of knowledge with regard to the policy of both German states in a comparing way. In addition to that it will be researched the up to now scarcely touched individual level of migrants. On the macro level the project focuses on the one hand the negotiations between the interested parts, on the other hand the interconnections and competing references of the East German and West German respectively foreign policy, policy towards Germany and - in the case of GDR - policy towards their allies regarding these family reunions, therefore the framework of the migrations. In addition the courses of the different actions of the family reunions and their implementation within the regional and local level are to be researched (meso level). On the micro level the project is interested in the behaviour of the migrants themselves and their motives for both emigrations from Poland and settling either in the GDR or in the Federal Republic of Germany. On the one hand these organized family reunions were an epilogue of flight and expulsion of Germans from the territories east of Oder and Neiße, on the other hand the first phase of a labour-related migration from Poland to (West-)Germany, which took place in different waves until the 1990s. For that reason they mark the transition from the migration resulting from the consequences of the World War II up to this labour-related migration of later years. The research on this subject promises in addition to the profit of knowledge itself a contribution to the social reviewing on a difficult chapter of the German-Polish relations - particularly from the polish point of view -, which having after-effects in political and legal matters continues up to the present, especially in the field of citizenship and financial compensations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants