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population increase up to 1948. From that time until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the flight of East German residents to West Berlin and West Germany was a major cause of the decline in the population of East Germany. During this period about 2.3 million East German inhabitants fled their country. The Flow of these refugees fluctuated according to the intensity of international and domestic tensions. The highest monthly refugee flow (58,605) was recorded in March 1953, when Stalin died. The next highest number (47,433) came across the borders during August 1961, capping a steady, high rate of flow during the previous 2 years occasioned by recurring Soviet efforts to force the Western Allies out of Berlin and by the agricultural collectivization campaign in 1960. The erection of the Berlin Wall cut the refugee flow to a trickle. From August 1961 until the end of 1970, only an estimated 135,000 East Germans succeeded in fleeing to the West, 52,000 of them between August and December 1961.

Some legal and semiofficial emigration has been permitted by the East German authorities. Legal emigration has been confined largely to retired individuals or people in ill health who are no longer economically productive. The authorities in effect encouraged such emigration when, in November 1964, they began allowing men over age 65 and women over age 60 to visit relatives in West Berlin and West Germany for a specified period each year. Only a small fraction of those who have availed themselves of this privilege have opted to remain in the West. The reunion of families has also been a contributing factor to East German emigration, and hundreds of children have crossed the border under semilegal agreements to be reunited with parents in West Germany or West Berlin.

Over the years West Germany has conduced secret negotiations for the ransom of several thousand political prisoners held in East German prisons. The first prisoner release agreement was concluded in 1964, and subsequent agreements have been concluded each year. The ransom is usually in the form of hard-to-obtain trade items, although sometimes lump-sum cash payments are made and the transactions are kept out of normal trade channels. On occasion, East German has included regular criminals among those ransomed in order to increase the payment. Most of those freed have chosen to remain in East Germany, but many have elected to resettle in West Germany, an option included in the agreement. According to West German figures, approximately 146,000 East Germans have resettled legally in the Federal Republic from 1962 through 1970.

Migration to other Eastern European countries is discouraged because of the limited East German labor

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7