Czechs in Berlin, political emigration 1968-1989

This qualitative study strives to capture the strategies and motivations for emmigration of Czechoslovak citizens to former West Berlin between the years 1968 and 1970, describing it from emmigrants' perspective. The main focus of the study is an analysis of emmigration incentives and strategies utilized by the then Czechoslovak citizens, currently living in Berlin. The theoretical base for the study consists of the theory of collective historical memory, the problem of secondary and tertiary socialization, the (mal)adaptation to new host environments and the biographical approach to emmigration studies. The incentives and strategies of political emmigration are analyzed within the context of the political and social development between the years 1946 and 1970. The study is chronologically organized according to the following historical periods and political events: (1) the takeover of power by communists in 1946-1948, (2) the political persecutions of the 1950s, (3) the liberalization of the communist regime during the 1960s, (4) the events of Prague Spring, (5) the military intervention of the Warsaw Treaty countries, (6) the consolidation and normalization era, (7) the Czechoslovak citizens' mass emmigration between the years 1968 and 1970. In this study, the historical facts and figures are supplemented..