Rostock's eventful history: leadership and lecture on the post -war period!

Rostock's eventful history: leadership and lecture on the post -war period!

The exciting special exhibition "Rostock 1945. Twelve months between war and new beginning" in the Cultural History Museum Rostock will be enriched by a public leadership on Thursday, July 17, 2025. The event begins at 5 p.m. and illuminates the profound events that the city shaped in 1945. From the last days of war to the first steps into a new time, destruction, uncertainty, violence, hope, departure and new beginning are discussed. Participation in the tour costs 3 euros per person and registration is not necessary, so that interested parties can spontaneously set off to learn more about this eventful time.

afterwards, at 6 p.m., a lecture by PD Dr. Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers, who deals with the topic "more than Mecklenburg. Linguistic (over-) adaptation of immigrant displaced people since 1945". Ehlers, who works at the Institute for German Studies at the University of Rostock and specializes in dialects and collar languages in Northern Germany, will deal with the effects of refugee and displaced movements on the regional language landscape of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The realization that descendants of the displaced people often speak a stronger "Mecklenburg" dialect than the long -established residents. Admission to the lecture is also 3 euros per person, and here too no registration is necessary.

migration and their effects

migration movements have shaped Germany for centuries. As early as the 19th century, the move within Germany was seen as a migration, with many for economic reasons or in search of better living conditions started their way out of their homeland. In particular, industrialized areas such as the Ruhr area attracted numerous workers. In the years between 1871 and 1910, the number of registered foreigners in the German Reich rose from 206,000 to almost 1.3 million, and over five million Germans hiked to overseas between 1880 and 1914, especially to the USA.

The post -war period was also characterized by significant migration movements. Around 14 million people fled in front of the Red Army and other displacement actions after the Second World War. In the period from 1946 to 1961, around 800,000 Germans hiked to overseas, while 3.1 million moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic. These developments not only led to an increase in the foreign population, but also to difficulties in integration and sometimes to political arguments in the early 1990s.

The research and documentation center at the University of Rostock is dedicated to these complex subject areas. The focus is particularly on interviews with various groups of people, including refugees and displaced persons who lived in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania after 1945. Here an impressive insight into the stories of "wolf children" and politically persecuted are given and the variety of experiences and fates, which is associated with migration, are impressively documented.

The connection of historical processing, as is currently taking place in Rostock and the research of migration stories shows how stories are interwoven. The future public leadership and the lecture invite not only to understand the past, but also offer space to think about the bridge to the present and future.