Processes of violence-induced mobility. "Displaced persons" between repatriation, resettlement and integration in Lower Saxony municipalities after the Second World War

The research project examines the reception and ‘integration’ of so-called ‘homeless foreigners’. These individuals were ‘Displaced Persons’ (DPs) who, after the Second World War, were neither repatriated to their home countries nor able to emigrate to third countries willing to accept them (resettlement) and who were therefore intended to settle in the Federal Republic of Germany. The study focuses on the categorisation of these people as ‘stateless foreigners’ in the Federal Republic from 1951 onwards, as well as the negotiation of their recognition and their options for settlement and participation. Particular attention is paid to the role of local authorities in the negotiation processes in order to reveal, at the micro level, the concrete implementation of overarching political directives as well as the conditions and perspectives of the negotiations. The study also examines the transformation of the social space in the urban context associated with settlement and its discursive production in the local press. Overall, the aim is to analyse how the consequences of violence-induced migration and the migration-induced changes in local society were dealt with in a historical precedent.