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Original Articles

Waging the Cold War: the origins and launch of Western cooperation to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, 1948–57

 

ABSTRACT

This article reconstructs the gradual process leading the Western powers to cooperate to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, from the February 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état to the 1956–57 Hungarian crisis. This study reveals that cooperation to manage migration became a major component of Western Cold War strategy. Centred on the German predicament, it was first a way to contain the Soviet Union by reducing the pressures affecting Western countries bordering Eastern Europe. It also became an offensive strategy aiming at encouraging outflows from Eastern Europe to weaken Communist governments. Only cooperation at a Western level could achieve those objectives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘The Western powers’ or ‘the West’ refer to the United States, the member countries of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), Australia, and Canada. ‘East European countries’ or ‘the East’ refer to the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies of central Europe. Both groupings acquired greater cohesion with the creation of the OEEC, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1948–49.

2 Western organisations included the OEEC and the Council of Europe. Broader organisations were the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

3 For previous studies on these organisations: Jérôme Elie, “The Historical Roots of Cooperation between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration,” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organisations 16, no. 3 (July 2010); and Lina Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’ in the Early Cold War: The Inter-Governmental Committee for European Migration (Corinth: University of the Peloponnese, 2015).

4 D. Gusztáv Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire hors du commun: L’Accueil en Occident des réfugiés hongrois de 1956,” Relations internationales 172, no. 4 (2017): 128.

5 For previous connections between immigration from the East and the Cold War: Kim Salomon, “The Cold War Heritage: UNRRA and the IRO as Predecessors of UNHCR,” in The Uprooted: Forced Migration as an International Problem in the Post-War Era, ed. Göran Rystad (Lund: Lund University Press, 1990), 172; and K. Salomon, Refugees in the Cold War: Toward a New International Refugee Regime in the Early Postwar Era (Lund: Lund University Press, 1991), 245.

6 On the role of Germany in the Cold War: Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 488; Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–63 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 105. For an emphasis on Italian migrants: Marina Maccari Clayton, “‘Communists of the Stomach:’ Italian Migration and International Relations in the Cold War Era,” Studi emigrazione, no. 155 (2004); and Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 44–5, 187.

7 For propaganda or intelligence objectives: Salomon, “The Cold War Heritage,” 167; Gil Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 54; Emma Haddad, The Refugee in International Society: Between Sovereigns (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 138–43; Susan Lisa Carruthers, Cold War Captives: Imprisonment, Escape, and Brainwashing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); and Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 51, 178, 317, 320, 325.

8 For US policies: Göran Rystad, “Victims of Oppression or Ideological Weapons? Aspects of U.S. Refugee Policy in the Postwar Era,” in The Uprooted; ed., G. Rystad, Carl Joseph Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees During the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Carruthers, Cold War Captives.

9 Gerard Daniel Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 158; and Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire.”

10 Haddad, The Refugee in International Society, 139–43.

11 Michel Hubert, “La Population allemande: ruptures et continuités,” in Allemagne 1945–61: De la catastrophe à la construction du Mur, ed. Jean-Paul Cahn and Ulrich Pfeil (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2008), 84.

12 Patrick Major, “Going West: The Open Border and the Problem of Republikflucht,” in The Workers’ and Peasants’ State: Communism and Society in East Germany under Ulbricht, 1945–71, ed. Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 191.

13 ‘Summary record of the 3rd meeting,’ Brussels Migration Conference, MCB/SR/3, 23-4, 20 December 1951, National Archives Records Administration, Washington DC (henceforth ‘NARA’): quoted in Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 224.

14 Report from the Special Representative of the Council of Europe for national refugees and overpopulation to the Committee of Ministers, Consultative Assembly, 7th ordinary session, Doc. 331, 10 Feburary 1955, Archives of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, https://publicsearch.coe.int accessed 9 May 2019 (henceforth ‘ACE’).

15 Volker Ackermann, “Politische Flüchtlinge oder unpolitische Zuwanderer aus der DDR? Die Debatte um den echten Flüchtling in Westdeutschland von 1945 bis 1961,” in 50 Jahre Bundesrepublik – 50 Jahre Einwanderung: Nachkriegsgeschichte als Migrationsgeschichte, ed. Jan Motte, Rainer Ohliger, and Anne von Oswald (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1999), 85.

16 Salomon, Refugees in the Cold War, 85–6.

17 Major, “Going West,” 197.

18 Volker Ackermann, “Migration in Deutschland 1945–55,” in Rückkehr aus der Emigration nach 1945, ed. Wolfgang Blaschke, Karola Fings, and Cordula Lissner (Cologne: Verein EL-DE-Haus Köln, 1997), 17.

19 Ian Connor, Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 190.

20 Major, “Going West,” 193.

21 Ackermann, “Migration in Deutschland 1945–1955,” 18. German Basic Law, Article 16 (2), in Bundesgesetzblatt, 1, No. 1, 23 May 1949. OEEC Film 126, MO(57)14, Annexe III, Archives of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris (henceforth ‘OECD Archives’).

22 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 2013), Ch. 7.

23 Ackermann, “Migration in Deutschland 1945–55,” 17.

24 Fonds de réétablissement du Conseil de l’Europe, Exercice 1956–57. Rapport du Gouverneur au Conseil d’Administration, 1 February 1958, 12, Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence.

25 Office of Administration of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Unemployment in Western Germany: A Graphic Study (Frankfurt A/M: January 1950), 59, in B10: 412-00: 2365, Auswärtiges Amt, Politisches Archiv, Berlin (henceforth ‘AAPA’).

26 Anna Holian, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism: Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011), 18.

27 Connor, Refugees and Expellees, 144.

28 Volker Ackermann, “Integration von Ausländern und Flüchtlingen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR in der Nachkriegszeit: Ein Überblick,” in Integration von Aussiedlern: eine Herausforderung für die Weiterbildung, ed. Hans-Peter Baumeister (Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag 1991), 80.

29 Connor, Refugees and Expellees, 139–40.

30 B 136/2719, 181 and B 136/2720, 25, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: cited in Major, “Going West,” 198. Ackermann, “Migration in Deutschland 1945–55,” 14.

31 “Vorschlag der deutschen Delegation zur Frage der Auswanderung,” 15 February 1950, B10: 412-00, 1877, Band 1, AAPA. Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Vol. IV, Part 1, No. 76 840.411/7-551, 173-5, 19 June 1951, Foreign Relations of the United States (henceforth ‘FRUS’). OEEC Film 71, C(51)175, Annexe B, OECD Archives.

32 F7 16115, Allemagne et Autriche, 1947–52, Archives nationales, Paris (henceforth ‘AN’).

33 Alan Steele Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–51 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 335–50.

34 Report on behalf of the Special Committee on Refugee Questions by E. de la Vallée-Poussin, Consultative Assembly, Ordinary session 1950, Doc. 102, 25 August 1950, ACE.

35 Tara Zahra, The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 194.

36 Verbatim Report III of the Economic and Social Committee, 56–7, Hague Congress, 8 May 1948, ACE.

37 Rainer Schulze, “The Refugee Population in Western Germany after World War 2: The Case of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen),” in The Uprooted, ed. Rystad, 313.

38 Connor, Refugees and Expellees, 116.

39 “The Refugees and the Demographic Problems Presented by Western Germany,” 26 February 1949, Foreign Office Files, FO 1030/119, National Archives, Kew (henceforth ‘NA’): quoted in Schulze, “The Refugee Population,” 314.

40 FO 944/318, 4 June 1949, NA: quoted in Connor, Refugees and Expellees, 121.

41 Connor, Refugees and Expellees, 125–9, 151.

42 Adam R. Seipp, Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945–52 (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013), 189–91.

43 OEEC Film 124, MO(50)5, 1 February 1950, OECD Archives.

44 For an emphasis on the Italian case: Clayton, “‘Communists of the Stomach’,” 587–8.

45 Francis Eugene Walter, Expellees and Refugees of German Ethnic Origin: Report of a Special Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives pursuant to H. Res. 238 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950).

46 Europe: Political and Economic Developments,’ 19 June 1951, FRUS.

47 Council of Europe, No Room for Them: Commentary on the Problem of Refugees and Surplus Elements of Population in Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1953), 13: quoted in Cohen, In War’s Wake, 122–3.

48 Joseph Boris Schechtman, The Refugees in the World: Displacement and Integration (New York: Barnes, 1963), 44.

49 Ibid.

50 Haddad, The Refugee in International Society, 139–43; D. Segeš, “Remigration Tschechoslowakischen Staatsbürger aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in die ČSR in den 1950er-Jahren,” in Flüchtlinge und Asyl im Nachbarland: Die Tschechoslowakei und Deutschland 1933 bis 1989, ed. Detlef Brandes, Jiří Pešek, and Edita Ivaničková (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2018), 231, 233.

51 Hope Millard Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–61 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 24, 27, 51, 72, and 100.

52 John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 129–30.

53 Quoted in: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 27.

54 Cited in Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 51.

55 Zahra, The Great Departure, 220.

56 Veto of the Internal Security Bill, Doc. 254, Public Papers Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum.

57 NSC 86/1, US Policy on Soviet and Satellite Defectors. Mentioned in: Report by the Operations Coordinating Board, 1955–57, Dwight D. Eisenhower XXV, 19, State Department, S/S-NSC, Lot 63 D 351, NSC 86 Series, FRUS.

58 NSC 174, “United States Policy Toward the Soviet Satellites in Eastern Europe,” 11 December 1953: in Csaba Békés, Malcolm Byrne, and János Rainer, eds., The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002), Doc. 3.

59 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, 74.

60 “Steps to be taken towards the moral re-adaptation of young refugees from behind the Iron Curtain,” Consultative Assembly, 8th ordinary session (1st part), 16-21 April 1956, Documents, Working papers, Vol. I, Doc. 492, 16 April 1956, ACE.

61 NSC 174, “United States Policy Toward the Soviet Satellites.”

62 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’; Clayton, “‘Communists of the Stomach’.”

63 Displaced Persons Act of 1948, U.S. Statutes at Large, 80th Cong., Sess. II, Ch. 647, 1009-14.

64 David Jacobson, Rights Across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 49–50; Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 195.

65 Refugee Relief Act of 1953, U.S. Statutes at Large, Public Law 203, Ch. 336, 400–7.

66 See citations in the introduction for previous scholarly attention to this piece of legislation.

67 Matthew Frank and Jessica Reinisch, eds., Refugees in Europe, 1919–1959: A Forty Years’ Crisis? (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 186.

68 This completes: Frank and Reinisch, eds., Refugees in Europe, 122–7, 136.

69 “Vorschlag der deutschen Delegation,” 15 February 1950, AAPA.

70 Report relating to the Draft Constitution of ICEM, Consultative Assembly, 5th ordinary session (2nd part), Documents, Working papers, Vol. III, Doc. 158, 23 June 1953, ACE.

71 Emigration outre-mer, Résolution (53) 20 (7 May 1953), Res(53)20, ACE.

72 Frank and Reinisch, eds., Refugees in Europe, 127.

73 OEEC Film 84, C(52)002, Appendix 1, Annexe 4, 15 October 1951, OECD Archives.

74 Report of the Manpower Committee, July 1950, OEEC Film 124, MO(50)28, OECD Archives.

75 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 296.

76 Ibid., 192.

77 Andrew Paul Janco, “Soviet ‘Displaced Persons’ in Europe, 1941–51” (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2012), 340–1.

78 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 147–9, 169, and 205.

79 Ibid., 191.

80 OEEC Film 124, MO(52)6, Annexe II, 10 April 1952, OECD Archives.

81 OEEC Film 124, MO(51)13, 16 April 1951, OECD Archives.

82 OEEC Film 48, CE(50)003, 28 December 1949, OECD Archives. Lorenzo Mechi, L’Organizzazione internazionale del Lavoro e la Ricostruzione europea: Le basi sociali dell’integrazione economica (1931–57) (Rome: Ediesse, 2012), 136–7.

83 OEEC Film 49, C(50)045, 13 February 1950, OECD Archives.

84 Council Meeting, OEEC Film 46, C/M(50)011, 21 April 1950, OECD Archives.

85 OEEC Film 49, C(50)123(Final), 9 June 1950, OECD Archives.

86 OEEC Film 46, C/M(50)016, 9 June 1950, OECD Archives.

87 Report of the Committee on Social Questions, Consultative Assembly, 2nd session 1950, Documents, Working papers, Part 1, Doc. 1, Appendix IX, Conclusions adopted by the Preliminary Migration Conference in Geneva, April–May 1950, 10 August 1950, ACE.

88 OEEC Film 84, C(52)128, 6 May 1952, OECD Archives.

89 Resolution on European Migration, Migration Conference (Naples, October 1951), OEEC Film 84, C(52)002, Appendix 1, Annexe 1, OECD Archives.

90 Recommendation for immediate action (Proposal by the Delegations of Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands), OEEC Film 84, C(52)002, Appendix 1, Annexe 2, OECD Archives.

91 OEEC Film 129, MO/M(51)5, 12 September 1951, OECD Archives.

92 Maritime Transports Committee Meeting, OEEC Film 283, MT/M(51)7, 30 October 1951, OECD Archives.

93 Frank and Reinisch, eds., Refugees in Europe, 127, 136.

94 Extra- and intra-European migratory movements in recent years, OEEC Film 125, MO(54)54, Annexe I, 27 October 1954, OECD Archives. See also: 2nd report on the activities of ICEM, Consultative Assembly, 6th ordinary session (1st Part), 20–29 May 1954, Documents, Working Papers, Vol. III, Doc. 233, Annexe I, Final report of numbers of migrants moved, 1 January–31 December 1953, 15 May 1954, ACE.

95 OEEC Film 84, C(52)002, 16 January 1952, OECD Archives.

96 Mechi, L’Organizzazione internazionale del Lavoro, 143.

97 Letter of Belgian Permanent Delegate Count de Meeus to OEEC Secretary General Robert Marjolin, OEEC Film 73, C(51)344, 21 November 1951, OECD Archives.

98 OEEC Film 171, SGD(1952)118, 18 October 1952, OECD Archives.

99 Report on the activities of ICEM, Consultative Assembly, 5th ordinary session (3rd Part), 15-26 September 1953, Documents, Working Papers, Vol. IV, Doc. 176, 2 September 1953, ACE.

100 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 127; Elie, “The Historical Roots of Cooperation,” 350.

101 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 108, 121. For comparable IRO figures: Matthew and Reinisch, eds., Refugees in Europe, 184.

102 OEEC Film 107, C/M(53)007, 20 March 1953, OECD Archives.

103 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 77.

104 Ibid., 59.

105 Doc. 233, 15 May 1954, ACE.

106 Doc. 331, 10 February 1955, 26, 37, ACE. Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 176.

107 Report on the activities of ICEM, Consultative Assembly, 6th ordinary session (2nd Part), 13-24 September 1954, Documents, Working Papers, Vol. IV, Doc. 268, 8 September 1954, ACE.

108 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 201.

109 Ibid., 194, 196, and 203.

110 U.S. Congress, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations Appropriations of the House Committee on Appropriations, 84th Congress, 1st Session, Hearing on 28 June 1955, 428, 433: cited in Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, 74.

111 Doc. 102, 25 August 1950, ACE.

112 Resolution for the establishment of PICMME, Migration Conference (Brussels, 5 December 1951), OEEC Film 84, C(52)002, Appendix 3 and 4, OECD Archives.

113 For a different analysis: Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 47.

114 Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 114.

115 Andrew Paul Janco, “‘Unwilling’: The One-Word Revolution in Refugee Status, 1940–51,” Contemporary European History 23, no. 3 (2014): 441–5.

116 Summary Record of the 19th Meeting in the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons: quoted in Cohen, In War’s Wake, 153.

117 Gilad Ben-Nun, “From Ad Hoc to Universal: The International Refugee Regime from Fragmentation to Unity 1922–54,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2015), 31–2.

118 UNHCR, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 28 July 1951, http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10 (accessed 9 May 2019).

119 Kazimierz Bem, “The Coming of a ‘Blank Cheque’–Europe, the 1951 Convention, and the 1967 Protocol,” International Journal of Refugee Law 16, no. 4 (2004): 617.

120 UNHCR, States Parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, http://www.unhcr.org/3b73b0d63.html (accessed 9 May 2019).

121 Bem, “The Coming of a ‘Blank Cheque’,” 626.

122 UNHCR, States Parties to the 1951 Convention.

123 Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate, 64. NSC 5608/1, “U.S. Policy toward the Soviet Satellites in Eastern Europe,” 18 July 1956, Record Group 59, Lot 63D351, Box 88, NARA.

124 NSC 5616/2, “Interim U.S. Policy on Developments Poland and Hungary,” 19 November 1956, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Records 1953–61, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 19, White House Office, NARA.

125 Arthur A. Markowitz, “Humanitarianism Versus Restrictionism: The United States and the Hungarian Refugees,” The International Migration Review 7, no. 1 (1973): 47.

126 Dwight David Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–61, Vol. II (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 84.

127 For what follows: Doc. 699, 23 September 1957, ACE. Report on the refugee situation in Austria, Consultative Assembly, 11th ordinary session (2nd part), 14–18 September 1959, Documents, Working papers, Vol. IV, Doc. 1034, 12 September 1959, ACE.

128 FO 371/124082, NA: cited in Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, 83.

129 Speech of Oskar Helmer before the UNREF Meeting in Geneva, 29 January 1957, Bundesministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten, Carton 433, Pol-II, Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv, Archiv der Republik: cited in Zahra, The Great Departure, 213–14.

130 Doc. 699, ACE.

131 Ackermann, “Migration in Deutschland 1945–55,” 21.

132 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 139.

133 Doc. 699, 24, ACE. Elie, “The Historical Roots of Cooperation,” 354.

134 Doc. 1034, ACE. Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 229.

135 Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate, 62, 67.

136 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, 87.

137 UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees, 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Geneva: UNHCR; Oxford University Press, 2000), 31.

138 Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire,” 134–5.

139 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 140.

140 Doc. 1034, 4, ACE.

141 Venturas, ed., International ‘Migration Management’, 182.

142 Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire,” 129.

143 Cohen, In War’s Wake, 158; Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire,” 132.

144 Kecskés, “Les Composantes d’une action humanitaire,” 128, 136.

145 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, 87.

146 Békés, eds., The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Doc. 109, 16 January 1957.

147 Cohen, In War’s Wake, 124.

148 Schechtman, The Refugees in the World, 9. Report on the activities of ICEM (1 January–31 December 1964), Doc. 1893, 12, ACE.

149 Elie, “The Historical Roots of Cooperation,” 348.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emmanuel Comte

A Senior Researcher at CIDOB, Barcelona,

Emmanuel Comte is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and holds a PhD in History from Sorbonne University. He has held academic positions at the European University Institute, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Vienna School of International Studies. He has recently published. The History of the European Migration Regime: Germany's Strategic Hegemony (Routledge, 2018).

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