MOBILITY AND MIGRATION 451
as in the case of the mass exodus from the GDR in the summer of 1989.^12
The praxis of migration can therefore be analyzed as a driving force in
history.
Second, migration research can profi t from the perspectives off ered by
mobility studies that examine diff erent forms of mobility in relation to one
another.^13 Such approaches investigate the transitions and entanglements
between tourism and migration while interpreting travel as an overarch-
ing praxis, which ultimately questions the separation of seemingly clear
categories such as tourists and migrants.^14 This does not mean that all
forms of mobility should be treated as equivalent, but rather that the con-
tinuities between diff erent types of mobility should be taken into account.
For example, an East German visiting relatives in the West might decide to
stay in that country, which meant that what was once a tourist trip became
a permanent act of migration. Similar transitions also occurred among
non-German labor migrants in West Germany, many of whom entered
the country on a tourist visa, but then sought work and often remained as
illegal or sometimes legal immigrants in the country. Moreover, although
the political and legal classifi cations that make distinctions between tour-
ism and migration, but also between labor migration and refugee move-
ments, as well as voluntary and involuntary mobility, need to be taken
into account, they also need to be critically interrogated.^15
Migration and Mobility in Divided Germany
from the 1950s to the 1980s
The loss of the former eastern German territories and the division of
Germany led to mass migration across these new borders after 1945.
Whereas the millions of people who had to leave their homes in Eastern
Europe in 1945 and the years that followed came to be referred to com-
monly as (Heimat)vertriebene (expellees) in West Germany, they were
called Übersiedler (akin to “resettlers”)—and as early as 1950 as former
Übersiedler—in the GDR, the latter of which suggested that the problem
of integration had been overcome. Similarly, each of the two German
states went about the process of integration in its own particular and
clearly separate way. In the GDR, the Neubürger (new citizens) were sup-
posed to be integrated, or rather assimilated, into work and daily life as
quickly as possible. Whereas the GDR granted only short-term sociopolit-
ical support for this group, the politically mandated restructuring of soci-
ety that took place well into the 1960s off ered greater chances for upward
social mobility. In West Germany, however, the government instituted
a comprehensive aid program within the framework of the Lastenaus-