On October 3, 1961, at six in the morning, there was a sudden banging on her front door. The Klatt family is still in bed. But not for long:several people's police officers and employees of the state security storm in, three trucks are parked in the yard. "Questions are not welcome!" is the first sentence the Klatts hear. "They are coming to the safe areas where they are safe from the West," they are simply told. The "safe area" that is to protect them from hostile influences in the FRG is on Rügen, hundreds of kilometers from their previous home in Sülsdorf. Sülsdorf is a small village in northwest Mecklenburg in the border area. Since the Wall was built in August 1961, the German-German border has been guarded even more closely than before, as it is everywhere in the GDR.
Nationwide operation
The Klatts are not the only ones to be relocated on October 3, 1961. The nationwide operation, which went down in GDR history as "Operation Cornflower", had been planned for a long time. Thousands of GDR citizens from the border area who are classified as "politically unreliable" meet the same fate. The legal basis for the GDR regime is the residence restriction ordinance of August 24, 1961, which states:"The residence restriction can be ordered if keeping the person away from certain places and areas is required in the interest of the general public or an individual or public security and order is threatened." The "Cornflower Campaign" has a well-known forerunner:the first large wave of expulsion took place in June 1952 under the name "Vermin Campaign". In the course of the two actions, almost 1,000 people were uprooted in the former GDR districts of Rostock and Schwerin.
Rügen terminus
In the afternoon at around five o'clock the trucks stop in the municipality of Dreschwitz on the island of Rügen:the final stop. "My wife landed there on felt slippers and in a kitchen apron," recalls Heinrich Klatt. In Dreschwitz, his family is given a tiny apartment as a new home. The farmer Heinrich Klatt is supposed to work as a field brigadier on a state-owned estate. The Klatts are then carefully monitored by the State Security, which monitors whether and how they settle into a foreign country.
But Sülsdorf remains her home. After reunification, the Klatts are drawn back there. Heinrich Klatt asks the responsible district administration every week when and how he can get his former possessions back, until his request is granted:in the early 1990s, the family gets their belongings back. Today the Klatts live again in their old house. In the driveway to their farm there is a boulder with the inscription "Homecoming 1991".
Forced resettlement in Lankow
The inner-German border has become increasingly insurmountable since the 1960s.Others cannot return to their homeland - many Mecklenburg border villages no longer exist today, such as the village of Lankow. The Schmidt family lived here until October 3, 1961. She also has to leave her property that day. The Schmidts live in a large house on the eastern shore of Lake Lankow, they own 62 hectares of land on which they till their fields and keep cattle. Brigitte Schmidt is not actually from here, she "married", as they say in this area. In January 1945 she fled West Prussia from the advancing Red Army. October 3, 1961 was "the second escape for her, just not for four and a half weeks, but for a few hours," she says. That morning, paramilitary combat troops and Stasi employees approach the Schmidt family. At noon they are taken away in three trucks:in the first truck, grandfather and son Hans, in the second Mr. Schmidt and the dog, in the third his wife Brigitte with their two small children.
Warped by locals
You land in Diestelow, on the Mecklenburg Lake District. The accommodation they are given is in a sorry state. Hans Schmidt says:"... three attic rooms, that was all, you couldn't put a double bed in there. You can't tell that at all! The furniture was downstairs in the hallway, we couldn't lock it, so a few things came with us stolen from time." Brigitte Schmidt writes a letter to her sister-in-law:"You will probably be amazed when you read our new address, but don't worry about it, we have to meet our fate. We were expelled... We weren't the first from our village and probably won't be the last either."
In Diestelow, the Schmidts are suspected by the locals. The student Hans has to sit alone in his class. He remembers:"We sometimes had to live with that for 30 years, until the fall of the Wall, so that many said and thought:'Well, you must have screwed something up, otherwise they wouldn't have brought you here!'"
The expropriation of the Schmidts is not a problem for the GDR regime. With a sweep, she declares the registered ownership on the documents invalid. "My father-in-law couldn't cope with that, and neither could my husband," says Brigitte Schmidt. A family of officers moves into the spacious property of their family. The house was eventually blown up during the expansion of the border installations in the 1970s. In 1976 the village of Lankow disappeared from the map and has been a nature reserve ever since.
Late recognition of the victims
After reunification, some of the expellees manage to get their former property back. In addition, their difficult fate is finally recognized. On June 17, 1992, the German Bundestag issued a declaration of honor for the victims of communist tyranny. Special mention is made of those who "were expelled from their homeland, from house and farm and from their apartments in disregard for elementary principles of humanity". Even if October 3rd, the day of German unity, is a day of joy for many - for those affected by "Operation Cornflower" it remains pitch black. "One eye weeps, one eye laughs" when he thinks of this date, says Heinrich Klatt.