The Federal Law on Refugees and Exiles (German: Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge, lit.
Bundesvertriebenengesetz, BVFG) is a federal law passed by the Federal Republic of Germany on 19 May 1953 to regulate the legal situation of ethnic German refugees and expellees who fled or were expelled after World War II from the former eastern territories of the German Reich and other areas of Central and Eastern Europe.
The major force behind the law was the All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights party, which had among its supporters – besides German citizens, who had fled or were expelled from formerly German territory annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union – many formerly non-citizens, who experienced by the end of World War II and the post-war years of ethnic cleansing, denaturalisation, robbing and humiliation (1945–1950) carried out by the governments of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
The law also recognises as refugees and expellees entitled to German citizenship refugees from Germany, who emigrated or were expelled after 30 January 1933 to flee factual or impending persecution on the grounds of their political opposition, their racial classification, their religion or philosophy of life (Weltanschauung).
The argument goes that the Federal Republic of Germany had/has to administer to the needs of these foreigners, because their respective governments in charge of guaranteeing their equal treatment as citizens, severely neglected or contravened that obligation.