Occupational Breakdown of Refugee Movement in Percentages (1952-1961) In the 1950s, massive numbers of refugees left the GDR and headed to West Berlin and the Federal Republic. It was hard for the GDR to make up for the resulting personnel loss. According to statistics, around 2.7 million people fled to the West between the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 and the closing of the border between the two German states in August 1961. A large percentage of these refugees had been employed in the GDR in industry and manufacturing, and a disproportionately high number of those who fled were young.
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page 1 of 1 Occupational Category 1952-1957 1958 1959 1960 First six months of 1961 Crop production and animal husbandry 7.6 4.5 5.0 7.4 6.1 Industry and manufacturing 20.7 19.3 20.1 21.3 22.3 Technical fields 1.9 2.1 2.4 2.6 2.9 Trade and Commerce 11.8 11.8 12.0 11.8 12.0 Household work, medical services, personal hygiene 4.9 5.8 5.3 4.8 4.7 Law and administration 2.9 4.4 3.8 3.5 3.3 Intellectual and artistic fields 1.5 2.6 2.0 1.9 1.6 Employed persons with unspecified occupations 11.0 10.0 10.1 7.4 8.9 Employed persons in total 62.3 60.5 60.7 60.7 61.8 Pensioners and Retirees 4.4 6.8 10.3 7.6 8.4 Stay-at-home wives 11.9 11.3 10.3 10.5 9.4 Children and pupils (grades K-12) 21.0 20.2 17.7 20.4 19.5 University-level students 0.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.9 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 Source: Der Bau der Mauer durch Berlin [The Building of the Wall through Berlin], edited by the Federal Ministry for Inter-German Relations. Bonn, 1984, p. 16.
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