Trading of East German political prisoners

In addition to the release of political prisoners, approximately 250,000 exit visas were purchased by West Germany on behalf of East Germans who wished to emigrate.

Adenauer had faced a crisis within the governing coalition earlier in the month, which had resulted in the appointment on 14 December 1962 of Rainer Barzel as the Minister of Intra-German Relations.

The prisoner release transactions were negotiated informally at government level, initially as individual deals, and later according to a more consistently established set of processes.

[12] Ludwig Geißel of the Diakonie was also involved in purchasing the freedom of political prisoners,[13] along with members and senior officers of the West Berlin City Council.

[6] Although the German governments attempted to keep the transactions secret, as more and more former detainees turned up in the west, awareness of the "Häftlingsfreikauf" programme seeped into public consciousness.

[14] It was alleged that the long-standing, Minister of Intra-German Relations between 1969 and 1982 Egon Franke and a senior ministerial official, named Edgar Hirt, had presided over the questionable disappearance of 5.6 Million Deutsche Marks into East Germany.

There was a suspicion that it might give an incentive to the East German authorities to increase the number of political prisoners, seeing them as a source of potential income.

[18] Sources are not consistent over the total amount paid by West Germany for the release of East German political prisoners, and the issue is further complicated by changes in the value of money – even of the Deutsche Mark – between 1962 and 1989.

Estimates tended to increase over time, with one source, in 1994, suggesting that the total cost to West Germany of the Häftlingsfreikäufe programme might have been as high as 8 billion Deutsche Marks.