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In 2015, the German government sought to address its current migration challenges by drawing on its experience during the immediate post-war period. More than 20 million people were in flux at the time: foreigners in the process of emigrating or being repatriated crossed paths with German refugees and expellees flowing in from the East, a process that resulted in the ethnicisation of the German population. While the burden of its Nazi past still weighed heavily and the nascent Cold War affected the management of migration movements, how did German society cope with this challenge, and what policies did the German state and their foreign occupiers put in place to ensure social inclusion? While both sides of Germany initially enacted similar measures, divisions ultimately occurred along ideological and symbolic lines. Depending on whether the experience of forced migration was repressed or recognised, this led to assimilation in East Germany and integration in West Germany.