The situation was only resolved in the 1950s as the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) enabled physical reconstruction, raised living standards, and aided in integrating the hundreds of thousands of new residents.
[2] Refugees began to enter Schleswig-Holstein as early as 1943, when 200,000 people north of the Lower Elbe fled cities such as Hamburg, which was destroyed by Allied bombing campaigns, to rural areas in neighbouring states.
Even then, over 200,000 former so-called "foreign workers" and forced labourers remained in the camps, and a further 365,000 refugees and displaced persons took refuge in them by the end of 1946.
[1][2] All employees and workers suffered from the job shortage in the first few years, but the refugees and displaced persons were hit harder than locals.
The Refugee Settlement Act of August 1949, and the so-called "30,000 Hectare Agreement", which obliged large landowners to surrender land, provided relief.
Given the catastrophic situation, in October 1945 provincial president Otto Hoevermann warned of tensions between the refugees and the local inhabitants.
In his book Kalte Heimat ("Cold Homeland"), historian Andreas Kossert describes examples of prejudice directed against refugees and displaced persons by locals in Schleswig-Holstein.
Records of violent sentiment survive, such as „In de Nordsee mit dat Schiet“ ("Into the North Sea with that shit [the refugees]").
In 1947, the Danish minority magazine Slesvigeren published a cartoon titled "Pied Piper", depicting Minister-President Hermann Lüdemann leading a pack of rats, labeled "refugees", to South Schleswig.
[6] The British authorities decided that in order to counter the widespread discontent and to prevent potential conflict, refugees should be involved in the future development of the state, and that political parties dedicated specifically to their interests should be banned.
In 1950, the League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights (BHE) was formed, a right-wing party appealing to refugees and displaced persons.
Notably, the coalition also included the "South Schleswig Community", represented by the German Party, a group formed by local Schleswig-Holsteiners to oppose the BHE.
As the economic miracle resolved many of the difficulties of refugees, the party attempted to broaden its appeal to nationalist voters and ex-Nazis, and in the process lost much support among its core demographic.
Purely refugee-populated settlements such as Trappenkamp emerged and the first systematic, uniform and centrally controlled post-war housing construction program began.
In 2011, the Center Against Expulsions curated the exhibition "Arrived - The Integration of Expellees in Germany",[8] followed in 2013 by "Foreign Home - Refugees and Displaced Persons in Schleswig-Holstein after 1945".