East Germany and the lost German East: Dresden–Wrocław ‘socialist friendship’ after Nazism and forced migration

Abstract In 1959, East German Dresden and western Polish Wrocław were twinned to promote cross-border contact between political leaders, worker delegations and cultural groups. Officially formed to promote worker solidarity among friendly East Bloc regimes, in practice the inter-relationship exposed a troubling history that was just below the surface. In the recent aftermath of Nazi defeat, the German population of Breslau (over 600,000 people) had fled or been expelled from a city which had long been German. At the same time that Breslau became Polish Wrocław, a significant number of old Breslauers settled in the East German province of Saxony, especially Dresden. This article uses archival and published sources to show how, under the umbrella of worker exchanges, field trips and official amity, the sister-city programme unintentionally became a venue for German exiles from Breslau to encounter Wrocławian delegations in Dresden and to return ‘home’ to discover Wrocław’s post-war Polish reality.