Resettle, Repatriate or Remain : Soviet ‘Displaced Persons’ in Germany and their Options in the Early Cold War

The end of World War II left many problems that, within a couple of years, had acquired a Cold War colouration as the former wartime allies, Britain and the United States on the one side and the Soviet Union on the other, moved apart. Not least among them was the problem of so-called displaced persons (DPs)—men and women who found themselves outside their own countries as a result of becoming prisoners of war (POWs) to the Germans, being taken by the Germans to Germany as forced labour or simply departing with the retreating Germans from occupied regions at the end of the war. Eastern Europeans, including Soviet citizens, formed the majority of the millions displaced, and were the hardest to dispose of.

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