In 1949 and 1950, 1 128 refugees from the Greek Civil War, most of them minors, came to the Soviet Zone of Occupation resp. the GDR and stayed on until the 1980s. Being neither integrated into their new German social environment nor into GDR's political system as well as having no possibility for remigration, the emigres from Greece remained a group which was carefully watched by party officials and security services. Up to the mid-1960s, the German host party suspected the "Greeks without Home" of being hardcore Stalinists whereas from the late 1960s they were accused of "importing" Eurocommunism. A wave of repression in the early 1970s was followed in 1973 by diplomatic recognition of the GDR by Athens - an unexpected development which paved the way for remigration. By the implosion of the GDR in 1989, the majority of Greeks had returned to Greece.

There is a basic antagonism between the exclusive norms of the European nationstate and the much broader norms of the universal human rights, an antagonism which is as old as the modern European societies themselves. This conflict can be exemplified by the issue of the transnational migration in general, more so by the issue of political refugees in particular. The topic of this article is the quest for system-specific ways of dealing with the problem which both German states underwent in the light of the catastrophe of the National Socialist rule and under the specific conditions of the cold war.

This article treats the Spanish communist emigration which settled in Eastern Europe from 1951 on. Its author defends the thesis that both the banning of the Spanish Communist Party in France and the expulsion of dozens of Spanish communists executives and leaders towards 'people's democracies' were justified by the Westerners' desire - mainly that of the United States - to hamper the activities of the Spanish Communist Party on French territory. This Party was considered as the organiser and co-ordinator of a huge movement of guerilleros acting in Spain where the United States were about to establish military bases following the foundation of NATO in 1949.

This article deals with the way the SEDState handled the admission, residence, and return of Spanish political emigrants. It shows an overall ambivalent pattern. Admission is normally an act of sovereignty, but in this case it was made dependent on consent of the Spanish-Communist sister party. Spaniards were considered with a special sympathy due to historical reasons, but the SED nevertheless eyed them with a certain amount of distrust. They were expected to integrate into the GDR, but mainly into daily working life and less into society itself. And even in spite of the general assumption that everyone would eventually return, this particular issue sometimes turned out to be a disputed topic.

After the military coup against the leftist government of Chile on September 11th 1973, some 2000 Chileans fled to the GDR. This article shows that the SED-leadership hardly pursued humanitarian motives in welcoming them. Honecker and his functionaries rather wanted to strengthen both the position of socialism in Chile as well as their own power in Eastern Germany. Therefore they used the refugees for their propaganda, manipulated their political parties and helped "revolutionaries" to hide and organize themselves in Chile. The GDR authorities forced the Chilean refugees - who were mostly intellectuals - to work in jobs well below their professional qualifications, restricted their freedom of travel and suppressed possible dissent among them through means of the secret police.

Die große "historische Meistererzählung" des "Projektes Amerika" handelt von dem prinzipiell unabgeschlossenen Prozess, für alle Menschen ein hohes Maß an Freiheit erlangen zu wollen. Auch George W. Bush steht, wie seine republikanischen und demokratischen Vorgänger, in dieser zivilreligiösen Tradition. Sie wird auch nicht dadurch entzaubert, dass die USA ihre eigenen Ideale häufig mit Füssen traten. Dabei darf es nur nicht bleiben. Mit ihrem missionarischen Freiheitskonzept stoßen die Amerikaner in anderen Teilen der Welt auf Unverständnis - auch in Europa. Das Streben nach Sicherheit und Gleichheit unter dem Schutz eines starken Staates hat hierzulande einen höheren Stellenwert als die Risiken der Freiheit in Selbstverantwortung. Jüngste Debatten deuten allerdings auf ein Umdenken hin.