The Trade in Political Prisoners between the Two German States, 1962-89

Abstract

The building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 greatly increased the number of people who were sent to prison for their opposition to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or for trying to leave it. Shortly after the wall was built, pressure by different groups in the Federal Republic led to the release of some GDR prisoners in exchange for payments to the GDR government. After the first few successful releases, the Federal Republic’s government and the GDR started to institutionalize these release payments in 1964. This system was secretly maintained without any major changes until 1990. Overall, 33,755 prisoners were released from the GDR, for a total amount of 3,436,900,755 DM and 12 pfennigs. This article discusses the advantages and drawbacks of the prisoner purchases for both systems. It questions the common interpretation that the prisoner purchases were a form of blackmail by the GDR and shows that the idea for the scheme originated in the West. It demonstrates that the prisoner purchases were, at some points, a convenient and necessary institution for the Federal Republic’s government and political parties. The research presented here reveals how the emotionally-charged post-reunification period has influenced public perception of the GDR in such an oversimplified way that history has become misrepresented.