Screening migrants and containing disease

Ruhleben went into operation in November 1891. It can hardly be described as a “normal” railway station. No passenger was expected to leave the station other than by train. Almost all passengers “arrived” in order to depart as quickly as possible – usually after about one hour, or somewhat longer, if they had to wait for a connecting train. This is why a Berlin journalist characterized the station in 1900 as the “strangest and in more than one respect most interesting railway station of the Imperial capital”.Footnote 8

A young Jewish migrant recorded a rare and harrowing description of Ruhleben in its early days. In the spring of 1894, Mashke Antin, a Jewish teenage girl, left her hometown of Polotzk in the western part of the Russian empire, together with her mother and sister, to join her father, who had moved to Boston two years earlier. After crossing into Germany with some difficulties – a Jewish aid organization helped them across the border after the German border officials had refused them entry – Antin, her mother, and sister boarded an overcrowded emigrant train bound for Berlin. But this train did not stop at any of Berlin’s stations. Several miles outside the German capital, the train came to a halt in a deserted area – in Ruhleben. Germans, some in white overalls, rushed the migrants off the train, separated men from women and children, and threw the luggage on a big pile. Antin describes a scene of complete chaos as the bewildered and terrified migrants were driven into a small building. Antin captures the angst which befell the migrants:

The migrants were forced to undress and washed with a disinfectant soap – only to be quickly hurried back onto the train, which took them to Hamburg. After a fourteen-day quarantine, the family boarded the ship to Boston where they arrived safely two weeks later.Footnote 9

This description of Ruhleben is, of course, well known. In 1899, when she was just eighteen years old, Antin published an English language memoir of her passage from Shtetl to America under the title From Plotzk to Boston.Footnote 10 Antin’s Ruhleben experience has been quoted by different authors, more recently even in a study on the history of Auschwitz.Footnote 11 Nevertheless, the harsh treatment of transmigrants in Ruhleben should not be taken out of its respective context. The screening and disinfection of long-distance migrants, although relatively new at the time, was hardly unique, nor was it a peculiarly German invention or practice. In the same period, American authorities treated Jewish and other European migrants similarly, for the same reason – the fear of contagious disease.Footnote 12

Health checks were a crucial element of the screening procedures at Ellis Island. Only a month after the new American reception centre had gone into operation, a typhus epidemic claimed several victims on New York’s Lower East Side in February 1892. The city authorities detained a number of recent Jewish and Italian immigrants, suspected of having been infected with typhus. The migrants were quarantined on a small island near New York under ghastly conditions. Jews were specifically targeted by the authorities and portrayed by newspapers as disease carriers.Footnote 13

Later in the same year, a cholera epidemic struck parts of central Russia, and the important transatlantic port of Hamburg, claiming more than 8,000 victims. In response, Prussia immediately closed its border with the Russian empire. But since the border could not be sealed, large numbers of migrants made their way to Berlin and the ports. In September 1892, the United States brought transatlantic migration from all European ports almost to a standstill for several months, stranding thousands of migrants. In Hamburg, and again in New York, Jewish migrants were accused of spreading the disease – unjustly as two detailed studies on New York and Hamburg have shown. In Hamburg the main cause for the rapid spread of the disease was an inept local government. Berlin and Bremen, also important transit destinations for migrants from Russia, were hardly affected by cholera in 1892.Footnote 14

In response to the 1892 cholera epidemic, the US Congress passed the 1893 Quarantine Act, requiring the obligatory disinfection of suspicious immigrants before embarkation in Europe, quarantine in the last European port of embarkation – and proof of it.Footnote 15 American legislation helps to explain why even migrants from Russia, who had crossed the border illegally evading the German controls, eventually had to enter the transit system at some point because they faced rejection in America, or even at the port of embarkation, without proof of having undergone disinfection and having spent several days in quarantine in Europe. American concerns were a major factor driving the stringent disinfection procedures the Antins experienced in Germany. When Mashke and her family journeyed across Germany, memories of the cholera outbreak along the East-West corridor were still fresh. The harsh treatment of the migrants clearly reflects fear of another outbreak with potentially devastating consequences, not least even more severe American restrictions.

Origins of the east–west transit corridor

The spectre of contagious disease alone does not sufficiently explain the increasing controls and screening procedures which migrants from eastern Europe en route to the United States had to undergo in Germany and across the Atlantic.Footnote 16 Ruhleben went into operation only a few weeks before Ellis Island. Both centres were already screening migrants shortly before the 1892 health scare.

During the 1860s and early 1870s the United States and Germany transformed into large industrial economies. The rise of global migration in the 1870s coincided with an important turning point in German migration history. The number of German overseas migrants, bound especially for the United States, began to decline, while Germany emerged as an important destination for labour migrants from eastern and southern Europe. After the early 1870s, internal migrants from rural areas in Prussia, including Poles with Prussian citizenship papers, found work in the rapidly growing industrial centres on the Ruhr, in Upper Silesia, and in Berlin. Poles from the Russian empire were employed as seasonal agricultural labourers. In fact, it was relatively easy to walk across the long border that divided Russia and Austria-Hungary from Germany, but obtaining permanent residence and a work permit was difficult, even if, for instance, a “Russian” Pole married a “German” Pole and wanted to settle in an overwhelmingly Polish area within imperial Germany. Only in rare cases eastern European migrants managed to obtain citizenship in Germany.Footnote 17

Faced with rising migration across the eastern border, German state authorities, especially in Prussia, resorted to harsh administrative measures, explicitly refusing to accept immigrants. In the mid-1880s the Prussian government expelled more than 30,000 foreign “Poles” (an estimated 15,000 were Jews). These mass expulsions were a response to increasing migration from the east and reflect the strong influence of anti-immigrant forces with strong anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic undertones.Footnote 18 The sharp differentiation between Germans and unwanted foreigners – both relatively new categories – was also, however, tied to the origins of the German welfare state in the same period. Persons categorized as non-German aliens by state authorities faced increasing problems finding work and were regarded as a threat to the emerging welfare state.Footnote 19 After protests from large landowners who were deprived of cheap Polish labour, Prussia stopped the expulsions. A thorough work permit and rotation scheme for Polish labour migrants made it hard for illegal migrants to find employment or remain undetected.Footnote 20 Prussia, by far the largest German state, pressured smaller states to follow its lead, resulting in the notorious 1913 German citizenship law, which based citizenship on descent (ius sanguinis).Footnote 21 Thus Germany “successfully” prevented large-scale immigration before World War I. Transmigration through Germany, however, was a different matter, not least because it represented a highly lucrative business opportunity, especially for Germany’s steamship lines.Footnote 22

Rising transmigration from eastern Europe to the West was already alarming the Prussian authorities during the early 1880s. Prussia was Germany’s largest state, stretching from the eastern to the western German border. In most cases Prussian officials were involved with issues regarding foreign migrants. They checked migrants to make sure that nobody who might become a financial burden to the state crossed the border. But many transmigrants remained undetected because the Prussian state could not control its long eastern border. Since most subjects of the Russian empire, especially Jews and Poles, could not usually obtain Russian passports, they crossed the border illegally and without papers. The Russian government guarded only a few major crossings on its long western border and did little to interrupt the officially illegal departure of hundreds of thousands. Occasionally, Russia refused to readmit “its” citizens who were being deported from Prussia. Since 1884, Prussia had required transmigrants to prove that they possessed sufficient funds as well as rail and ship tickets. According to an 1885 Prussian decree, every transmigrant coming across the Austrian border had to carry at least 400 Marks (100 Marks for each child) in cash to finance a possible return journey. Few migrants possessed such amounts; the decree simply allowed Prussian officials to return “problematic” transmigrants. This requirement was already a response to more stringent American policies against unwanted “paupers” who were returned to German ports in the mid-1880s.Footnote 23

Most migrants from eastern Europe had to travel through central Berlin to make connections between different railway stations. Disorderly conduct and the strange foreign looks of some migrants waiting at stations became an issue in the local press during the 1880s. The steady rise of transmigration led to renewed calls to isolate transmigrants. Initial plans for an “emigrant railway station” at Berlin-Ruhleben took shape in early 1891. At the same time, a large barrack complex was built in Hamburg to prevent suspicious transmigrants from staying at various hotels in the city. The issue of disorder, or rather of upholding social order, was of major concern for the Prussian Interior Ministry. Transmigrants were to be removed from public spaces and travel under supervision, so that they could not disturb the civil order. State authorities in Germany and Switzerland opted for similar solutions regarding Italian labour migrants. These were transported to the Ruhr area in separate trains and had to wait in poor quality Italienerbarracken [barracks for Italians] at stations between 1890 and 1914.Footnote 24 When Ruhleben was already under construction during the summer of 1891, the United States reversed its hitherto laissez-faire policy towards immigrants from Europe.

American “remote control”

In the early 1880s, the United States too had responded to the increasing immigration of people from around the globe who were not “white” by excluding certain groups from immigration. Immigration policy, hitherto the responsibility of the states, was moved into the domain of the federal government and Congress. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act explicitly targeted a specific group. In the following years the ban on immigration from China was tightened and Chinese aliens living in the United States were subjected to a number of severe restrictions. Nativist voices in America were calling for the restriction of immigration of other “undesirable” groups. In 1891, rising immigration, but also Nativist pressures, led to the creation of a new federal administration, the Immigration Bureau – and more stringent controls on America’s borders.Footnote 25

Ellis Island was by far the largest of a number of immigration reception centres set up in the wake of the 1891 reorganization of US immigration policy. On 2 January 1892 the fifteen-year-old Irish girl, Annie Moore, became the first migrant to enter the new immigration station. This day was her birthday and she was presented with a golden $10 coin for the occasion. While most of the twelve million immigrants who would follow passed through without much hassle, they were met with more suspicion. Migrants were not only checked thoroughly for contagious disease. Immigration inspectors interviewed them to establish whether they were able to support themselves. “Lunatics”, prostitutes, criminals, and not least, persons “likely to become a public charge” were refused entry. Due to pressure from trade unions, “contract labourers” who worked far below average wages were also excluded (if they were discovered).

Before World War I, only third-class passengers had to pass through Ellis Island – first- and second-class passengers were checked only superficially on the ship itself. Admittedly, this system excluded very few Europeans from immigrating to the United States before 1914, but it served as a blueprint for future immigration restrictions. Especially after 1900, immigration rates reached record highs. In 1904 Jewish migration to the United States crossed the 100,000 threshold for the first time, in 1907 general net immigration to the United States peaked at 1.3 million. Migrants from Asia faced more severe controls. On Angel Island, opened in 1910 in San Francisco Bay, many aliens, mostly Chinese, were interned for lengthy periods. Reception centres such as Ellis and Angel Island were extra legal spaces, serving as precursors to contemporary screening and internment facilities for unwanted migrants at international airports.Footnote 26 In 1893/1894 the United States posted immigration inspectors at Canadian ports to prevent Chinese and European migrants from circumventing immigration controls by crossing the unguarded northern border with Canada.Footnote 27

Many migrants from Europe never reached Ellis Island because it was only one element in a control system that extended to Canadian ports and across the Atlantic. The transatlantic perspective reveals that the rigid German policy towards “suspicious” transmigrants can only be understood fully in the context of the American policy of “remote border control”. Aristide Zolberg, who coined this term, traces it back to the early nineteenth century, but links its “triumph” especially with the post 1921/1924 period, when the United States effectively closed the door to eastern European migrants, forcing transit countries, especially Germany but also Britain and the Netherlands, to deal with the consequences.Footnote 28 But American “remote control” had already made a very major impact during the 1880s when “suspicious” migrants were rejected at the German–Russian and German–Austrian borders, or prevented from boarding transatlantic steamships at European ports because the American immigration inspectors might refuse to admit them.Footnote 29

In the 1890s, the safeguarding of civil order gave way to a policy of containing unwanted migrants and efficiently handling unsuspicious transmigrants. Only persons who would not be rejected on the western border were admitted across the eastern border. Most transmigrants never really entered Germany, travelling in an increasingly hermetic transit corridor with no real possibility of leaving the system. The transit corridor was not managed by German state authorities but by the two German steamship lines, the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-Amerika Line (HAPAG).

German steamship lines and control stations

The far-reaching impact of American immigration regulations becomes obvious by taking a closer look at the eastern German border. At the very moment that the United States began to step up controls in the mid-1880s, the strong German migration to North America declined and the German shipping lines eagerly embraced the new eastern European passenger market. The repressive Prussian policy against unwanted eastern European immigrants, however, foiled these efforts. Few migrants possessed 400 Marks (as required) and many were arbitrarily rejected near the border or along the way to the ports.

Soon migrants from the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian empires began to circumvent Prussia, travelling in increasing numbers through Vienna or Bohemia, Saxony, and the south German states, to the French, Belgian, and British ports of the western European steamship lines. After protests by the German lines, the Prussian state changed its policy against transmigrants, shortly before also halting the expulsions of unwanted “Poles”. After 1887 HAPAG or Lloyd ticket holders could pass without having to prove the possession of 400 Marks. Prussian officials tolerated the illegal crossing of the border by migrants from the Russian empire and their lack of papers, especially if these migrants were customers of a German steamship line. Passengers of the western European lines were treated less favourably in some cases. Without proof of the required 400 Marks and a passport they faced rejection if they came to the attention of the police during the journey through Germany. In 1888 Prussia pressured Saxony to step up controls on its border with the Austro-Hungarian empire, thus closing one bypass route.Footnote 30

The severe crisis of the early 1890s – stricter American access regulations, the cholera outbreak, the (largely unsuccessful) Prussian closure of the Russian border, and the interruption of transatlantic migration – prompted the managers of the German steamship lines to conceive a public–private partnership model that would safeguard their dominance of the eastern European passenger market. In May 1894 the director of the HAPAG passenger division, Albert Ballin, and the director-general of North German Lloyd, Heinrich Wiegand, suggested transplanting the Ruhleben model to the eastern border. Some time in 1893 Ruhleben had been equipped with disinfection facilities. Mary Antin’s report confirms that migrants were examined and disinfected at Ruhleben in the spring of 1894.

Ballin and Wiegand now proposed a simple bargain to the Prussian state. The two German lines would manage and finance the transmigration, including all control and disinfection measures required by the United States. Unwanted and ill migrants would be identified at control stations near the main crossing points on the eastern border and immediately rejected without a chance to venture into Germany. Transmigrants would have to enter the control stations voluntarily because they would not be able to board a ship without proof of having passed through a control station. Further control stations at the major railway hub, Leipzig, and at Ruhleben (the only station operated by the Prussian state through the state railway company) would screen transmigrants who somehow evaded the border control stations or crossed the border at little-used crossing points. The lines would cover all potential costs, especially the return journey of rejected migrants (and pocket the profits). They also promised to pay the salaries of local policemen who would guarantee general order at the control stations and would escort rejected migrants back to the border. In return, the Prussian state would protect HAPAG and Lloyd against unwanted competitors. Prussia and the lines reached formal agreement in September 1894. Even before this agreement was signed the United States Immigration Bureau welcomed the new model because Germany was “protecting itself against undesirable immigrants […] and at the same time protecting us”.Footnote 31

The control-station system was an immediate success. The two German lines could direct a large part of the eastern European migration to “their” ports, Bremen and Hamburg respectively. In 1902, the state-of-the-art HAPAG Auswandererhallen [emigrant halls] replaced the barrack complex at the Hamburg-Amerika dock. The HAPAG Auswandererhallen were located at the periphery of the huge Hamburg port, several miles from the city. Transmigrants arrived by train and had to pass a medical inspection and, if necessary, disinfection. They were housed and fed in clean and well-kept buildings, without the possibility of leaving the compound. Jewish migrants had access to Jewish aid workers and received kosher food. The Lloyd also modernized and expanded its facilities in Bremen and Bremerhaven to accommodate the rising number of transmigrants. Thus, the German lines were able to accommodate ever larger numbers of migrants in transit. Their managers had a genuine interest in channelling unsuspicious (and paying) migrants as efficiently as possible from border to port.

Tellingly, the state did not intervene if employees of the steamship lines rejected migrants in the control stations. If migrants could not prove sufficient funds for a potential return journey, appeared “suspicious”, or more importantly, did not have a ticket for a German steamship line, they often could not continue their journey into Germany and enter the transit corridor. This practice unfairly favoured the German steamship companies. Admittedly, not all foreign steamship companies provided the German authorities with guarantees to cover the cost of an eventual return journey for the rejected passengers. By the turn of the century, HAPAG emerged as the world’s largest steamship line, thanks to its thriving global freight business, but also because it exploited the eastern European passenger market so successfully. In 1899, Ballin, who was on good personal terms with the Kaiser, was promoted to Director-General of HAPAG.Footnote 32

The main competitors of the German lines, the British Cunard, the Belgian-American Red Star, and the Dutch Holland-America lines tolerated occasional rejections of their passengers by the German lines on the eastern border because they had joined a “pool” or price-fixing cartel that was the brainchild of Ballin. Since the mid-1890s the pool agreement had guaranteed each line a fixed share of migration from the European continent (without Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the Mediterranean). If its share dropped below the negotiated limit, the respective steamship line could claim payments from the other lines. By joining the cartel, the western European lines tacitly recognized the dominance of the two German lines over the eastern European passenger business.

In 1903, against the background of strongly increasing migration from eastern Europe, the Cunard line abandoned the pool, hoping to secure a larger share of the Austro-Hungarian market. An intense price war ensued. For years migrants had been overcharged, now suddenly prices dropped substantially. In 1904 Cunard offered second-class tickets for less than the German lines charged for third class or steerage. Thus, passengers could bypass the dreaded controls on Ellis Island, which applied only to third-class passengers. In response, the German lines began systematically to reject Cunard passengers at their control stations. Most had prepaid tickets sent to them by relatives in the United States. As in the mid-1880s, Cunard advised its passengers to avoid Prussia, travelling via Vienna or Prague, through Bavaria and Frankfurt, to the North Sea and Channel ports. The German lines had anticipated such “detours” and were consulting with the Prussian and Bavarian authorities to establish additional control stations at the border with Austria-Hungary and at the main West German railway hub, Frankfurt am Main (which belonged to Prussia).Footnote 33

The rejection of hundreds of migrants on the eastern border triggered growing protests in Germany in the autumn of 1904. The left-wing press was particularly acerbic in its disapproval, but mainstream papers also expressed concern. The Berliner Tageblatt deplored the “unbearable and disgraceful situation” on the border. It described how immigrants in America were advised not send their relatives prepaid tickets from Cunard. Germany’s leading left-wing daily, the social democratic Vorwärts, even dispatched an investigative reporter, disguised as an Orthodox Jew from Kiev, through the transit corridor in December 1904. His report was serialized under the title “Mit Ballin Unterwegs” [Travelling with Ballin], and confirmed the arbitrary practices in the control stations, not least the absence of state officials. Tellingly, HAPAG informed the Hamburg authorities, that “our Director-General” had decided to “ignore” the Vorwärts reportage.Footnote 34

Ballin could disregard the press reports because he had reached an agreement with the Cunard line in December 1904. In early 1905 the pool agreement was resurrected. The German lines now formally recognized the right of passengers of the large Western lines to use the transit corridor, but only if these steamship lines had obtained a “concession” from the Prussian state. Such a concession was granted if a steamship line pledged to cover all eventual costs that might be caused by “its” passengers. The strong position of the German lines, especially their unrivalled penetration of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian market through an established network of experienced agents, the rise in transatlantic migration after 1905, and large profits made this agreement acceptable.Footnote 35

Even after 1904 the German lines tried to prevent smaller lines from getting a share of the lucrative business. The local government files on the German–Dutch border crossing at Bentheim confirm such unfair practices. In 1910, Lloyd and HAPAG advised the Prussian government not to grant a concession to the Dutch-American transatlantic steamship line Uranium. Such a concession would have covered the passage of Uranium passengers through Germany via Bentheim and Rotterdam to New York – and back on the same route for rejected migrants. Lloyd and HAPAG accused the Uranium line of illegally channelling migrants through Germany and treating them badly. In an internal communication, a high-ranking Prussian customs official in Berlin commented that the German lines made a dishonest case, in order to “eliminate a competitor completely or partially”.Footnote 36

For the huge majority of migrants, circumventing the control stations or the German transit corridor was not a realistic option because the long train journey was more expensive than the difference in ticket price. Imperial ports such as Fiume (Hungary), Trieste (Austria), or Libau and even Odessa (Russia) had primitive facilities, limited service, and required paperwork that many migrants either could or did not want to provide (such as young males facing the draft). Migrants who travelled on their own through Germany quickly caught the attention of the police, often with unfortunate consequences. In September 1905, small groups of destitute Russian Jews arrived daily at the small railway hub, Bebra in the state of Hesse. Although they had valid train tickets for Antwerp and steamship tickets for New York, the police arrested them because they had evaded the control stations in Leipzig and on the German–Austrian border in Myslowitz in Upper Silesia. The migrants without means were forcibly returned to the eastern border. To blame were apparently “ruthless agents” who had given these migrants wrong advice or cheated them.Footnote 37

The German transit system offered some protection against countless criminals in various guises. Repeatedly, swindlers, who often pretended to be agents of the steamship lines, took advantage of migrants, leaving them without money and with forged tickets at border crossings or train stations. The border crossing between Oświęcim and Myslowitz, the main western gateway for migrants from Galicia, was one of the busiest and most notorious on the east–west transmigration corridor. Already during the mid-1880s, the Austrian authorities had uncovered a notorious swindling operation at the Oświęcim railway station. Agents claiming to work for the German steamship lines had cheated thousands of Polish, Ruthenian, Slovak, and Jewish migrants, selling them overpriced and forged tickets. They had also bribed railway officials, customs officers, the local police, and even the regional governor. Large numbers of migrants had been smuggled across the nearby border into Germany. The Hamburg authorities assembled a detailed file on the trial of the Oświęcim “agents” in 1889/1890. This illustrates that German state authorities early on closely watched any attempt to undermine the transit and control system.Footnote 38

The role of jewish philanthropic organizations

In 1904, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden [Aid Association of German Jews], Germany’s leading Jewish philanthropic organization, publicly blamed HAPAG Director-General, Albert Ballin, for the ill-treatment of Jews at the eastern control stations. This attack occurred in a period of mounting criticism towards the rejection of Cunard passengers during the 1904 price war. One year after the notorious Kischinew pogrom, the much-despised Jewish migrants met with a degree of sympathy from the general public. Ballin, who was himself Jewish and repeatedly the target of anti-Semitic abuse, could shrug off protests by Social Democrats, but not the Hilfsverein attack. It was extremely rare that German Jews criticized each other in public. Within days after these reports were published, Ballin met the Hilfsverein leaders, James Simon and Paul Nathan, and allowed their representatives permanent access to the control stations.Footnote 39 Non-Jewish migrants also benefited from more transparent procedures.

Figure 2. “Giving advice at the [Hilfsverein] central office for Jewish emigration affairs, Berlin”, 1906. Fünfter Geschäftsbericht (1906) des Hilfsvereins der Deutschen Juden (Berlin, 1907), p. 123.

Figure 3. “Lunch at the Hilfsverein hostel in Königsberg”, 1906. Fünfter Geschäftsbericht (1906) des Hilfsvereins der Deutschen Juden (Berlin, 1907), p. 138.

Transnational Jewish philanthropic associations such as the Hilfsverein did indeed have some impact in protecting, especially Jewish, transmigrants and calling for more transparency. Since the late 1860s, German Jews had organized local aid committees along the east–west travel routes, especially at border crossings and large railway stations. Without the help of a Jewish aid worker stationed on the Russian side of the border, the Antins would not have been able to cross the border, although they had sufficient funds, a passport, and steamship tickets. Members of the Berlin Jewish community were present in Ruhleben since 1891, providing kosher food to transmigrants. Italian seasonal migrants too were supported by grassroots Italian organizations at German stations.Footnote 40

Jewish philanthropic organizations were important forerunners of contemporary transnational NGOs because they combined specific Jewish interests with universal goals, especially minority protection and human rights. The Berlin-based Hilfsverein closely networked with other Jewish aid societies in the United States, western Europe, and the eastern European empires, organizing international conferences and collecting as well as publishing precise data and information that could be of use for Jewish migrants (and is today for scholars working on international migration). The lengthy and detailed annual reports of the Hilfsverein contained numerous photographs and tables proving to its donors and the public that the funds were sensibly invested.Footnote 41

The protective cover of the Hilfsverein, however, had clearly defined limits. Jewish philanthropic organizations successfully guarded the east–west corridor across the Atlantic, publicizing abuse and ill-treatment of Jewish migrants, but they were not in a position to push for more liberal migration policies. Rather, these organizations attempted to mitigate the effects of harsher policies towards migrants. Hilfsverein representatives repeatedly met government officials in Germany, the Russian empire, and the United States to learn about new policies and to lobby for the interests of Jewish migrants. In 1905 Britain, an important transit and destination country, introduced the Aliens Act, which was aimed primarily against Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe (but not strictly enforced before 1914). And between 1904 and 1906 Prussia deported hundreds of “illegal” Russian Jewish migrants from Berlin. Although the Russian empire was in state of virtual turmoil in 1905 and a wave of pogroms had claimed dozens of Jewish victims, the Hilfsverein leaders worried not only about the desperate situation for Jews in the Russian empire (and Romania). Should America close its doors, the Hilfsverein agonized in 1911, “a catastrophe would ensue, so terrible, that it will overshadow the persecutions and pogroms”.Footnote 42

Even though the Hilfsverein protest forced HAPAG to introduce more transparency in 1904, decisions over rejection at the control stations continued to be made by the steamship line employees, not by state officials. In April 1905 a Jewish couple from Russia committed suicide at the Ostrowo control station after they were turned back because of insufficient funds. The Vorwärts sarcastically remarked that these “Ballin Opfer” [Ballin’s victims] were actually too poor to be “exploited” by Ballin. In August the Vorwärts reported another rejection case with the headline “Gesetz Ballin” [Ballin’s Law], complaining about the total lack of legal protection for migrants, who were at the mercy of a private company at the control stations.Footnote 43 In spring 1905 the leaders of the Social Democratic opposition raised the treatment of migrants at the control stations in the Reichstag parliament. MP Hugo Haase described the control stations as “Menschenfallen” [traps for humans], criticizing the exploitation of “poor tortured souls” by the steamship lines.Footnote 44

The private handling of the border controls increased the effectiveness of the American remote control system. Any change in immigration regulations were transmitted and readily executed by companies interested in smooth and well-organized procedures. The profitable business depended almost entirely on American access rules, only to a lesser extent on the immigration policies of other destination countries such as Britain, Canada, or Argentina. The German authorities were only too happy to leave the details of control and the organization of the transit to private companies, as long as migrants did not escape from the transit corridor or became a financial burden.

Until 1914 only few loopholes remained in the transit corridor. In 1907, the Dillingham Commission of the United States Congress, composed of several parliamentarians and public figures in favour of much more stringent immigration restrictions, inspected several German control stations. They even sent an investigator disguised as a migrant through the German transit corridor. The commission was clearly impressed, describing the control stations in the final report as “one of the most interesting instances of emigrant inspection in Europe”, and noting with satisfaction that “every year thousands are turned back”.Footnote 45 In most other European countries the commission observed far less satisfactory inspection procedures. In the Austro-Hungarian port, Fiume, the American consul screened boarding passengers together with a physician employed by the Cunard line. But the rejection rates of passengers arriving from Fiume at Ellis Island remained high.Footnote 46

West–east transmigration

The east–west transit corridor was not a one-way street. Migrants also travelled from west to east: persons who had been refused entry by American immigration inspectors, but also return migrants who arrived at Hamburg or Bremen, or at the German border with the Netherlands, Belgium, or France. In 1910 the Hilfsverein reported an increase in rejections at New York, “the implementation of the immigration laws has already been strange in many instances, and harsh, now it has become even more ruthless”.Footnote 47 The above-mentioned files on the German–Dutch border crossing at Bentheim do indicate a rise in rejections. In the fall of 1910, policeman Rebenklau at Bentheim reported five transports between mid-September and mid-November, each with several hundred eastern European passengers of Dutch steamship lines who had been refused admission in the United States.Footnote 48 Nevertheless, relatively high rejection rates also reflect strongly increasing immigration to the United States in 1910.

Occasionally, migrants without means were stranded on the German–Dutch border after having been returned by the United States to Rotterdam. German officials deported such destitute migrants repeatedly back across the border to the Netherlands, refusing to cover the cost of the transit through Germany. The Prussian concession obliged representatives of the Dutch steamship line to accompany sealed trains with “its” rejected passengers through Germany from Bentheim to the eastern border crossing with Russia or Austria. Sometimes migrants escaped from the train or disappeared, triggering frantic search operations, which appear to have involved primarily German railway officials. Repeatedly, the local government official in Bentheim sent circulars to every major station along the east–west corridor to ask for assistance in tracing transmigrants, who had “escaped”. In one case, a Dutch agent employed by the Dutch-American Uranium line, recounted his desperate search for three migrants in the small East Prussian town of Soldau.Footnote 49 Clearly, the Uranium line was afraid of being stripped of its valuable Prussian concession because it had “lost” transmigrants during the German transit. The unsuccessful searches also indicate that the west–east transit corridor was much less hermetic than the east–west corridor. Until 1914 only one local policeman (who was sometimes supported by a colleague) could be found at the relatively busy Bentheim crossing, also proof of a relatively limited state presence on the outer German border.Footnote 50

Permanent transit

Before 1914 most eastern European migrants bound for the United States and other overseas destinations could expect to arrive at their destination within a few weeks. But from the 1890s they were subjected to increasing controls, partly as a result of more restrictive American immigration policies, partly because of the refusal of the German state to accept immigrants. At the very moment most eastern European migrants left their home villages they stepped into an extra-legal space where they were deprived of agency. Private steamship companies especially had enormous leverage over their fate. Once migrants entered the east–west corridor by crossing the German border they could be returned, or worse, without explanation at any time. The small train crash in Berlin led to a rare and brief intersection between the spaces of transmigration and Berlin public life. The bewildered reactions in the press illustrate the degree of isolation imposed on transmigrants. The migrants had firm ground under their feet (in a legal sense) only when were admitted at Ellis Island (or in western Europe). While the number of rejected migrants at Ellis Island remained relatively small before 1914, many more were returned before they even reached the European port of embarkation, especially at the German borders with the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. The Ostrowo suicide hints at the torment which befell many of these migrants. Little is known about their fate, let alone precise numbers.

The control station system yielded huge profits for the German steamship lines. Yet transmigrants were offered – admittedly for a price – a relatively smooth passage from the German border to an overseas destination. Ironically, the control-station system increased the chances of migrants passing the American inspection at Ellis Island. The superficial screening measures at Fiume and other imperial ports made a rejection at an American (or Canadian) port more likely. And the transit through Germany had another advantage over the imperial ports: by crossing the open land border to Germany migrants could avoid the attention of imperial state officials.

The success of HAPAG was a major factor behind Hamburg’s rise to become one of the most important global ports around the turn of the century. The massive expansion of the port, rapid industrialization, and population growth sidelined Hamburg’s erstwhile rival, Bremen. Nevertheless, the Lloyd line remained a formidable player. While the western European and British lines largely concentrated on the North Atlantic, the two German lines expanded their passenger and freight business around the globe. The two lines largely divided the eastern European market: HAPAG dominated the Russian passenger business, while Lloyd successfully expanded its control over migration from the Austro-Hungarian empire.Footnote 51

The “Great War” interrupted transmigration almost completely. Overnight open borders turned into military front lines. Most Europeans faced massive internal mobility restrictions, or they were “moved” against their will. In 1915 the Russian authorities forcibly “resettled” thousands of ethnic Germans and Jews as potential collaborators. Soon hundreds of thousands became refugees, fleeing military conflicts and persecution across eastern Europe. Germany deported thousands of Poles and Jews from areas under its control as forced labourers for its war industries. A few managed to find a way out: the German military authorities in Warsaw and Kowno allowed small numbers of Jewish migrants passage through Scandinavia to the United States before 1917.Footnote 52

In the wake of the collapse of the empires, large areas of eastern Europe experienced intense warfare long after 1918. At least 60,000 Jews were killed in Poland and the Ukraine in 1918/1919; many more were permanently displaced. After the war, refugees and migrants faced substantial obstacles. New and shifting borders and violence in east central Europe were not the only problem.Footnote 53 In the first months after November 1918, several of Germany’s western border crossings and the transatlantic ports were closed by the Allied powers, and transmigration resumed only slowly. More decisive was the end of the laissez-faire era in transatlantic migration. The international passport and identity-control system created new categories of people: illegal immigrants and – the stateless. Many Jews and other eastern Europeans lost their citizenship with the collapse of the empires, without automatically receiving a new one. The rise of identity control was closely tied to the instability of the international system after 1918. Immediately after the war, for instance, western European countries like the Netherlands and Belgium demanded transit visas, making the migration from eastern Europe to North America more difficult.Footnote 54

The Russian Revolution, the short lived left-wing takeovers in central and eastern Europe, the huge number of displaced persons in Europe, but also a postwar economic recession provided the opponents of relatively open immigration into the United States with the decisive momentum. In 1921 and 1924, Congress effectively closed America’s doors to immigrants from the major pre-1914 sending countries. Immigration from southern and eastern Europe as well as Asia was reduced to a trickle compared with the high pre-war levels. The basis for the notorious national quotas was citizenship. No quota was reserved for Jews and other transterritorial diaspora groups, let alone for stateless persons. The 1924 act shifted the responsibility for admission from the immigration officer at the port of entry to the consular officer in the immigrant’s country of origin. The application had to be sent to the State Department before a visa was issued (or refused). These administrative procedures literally deprived many migrants of mobility.

As migrants looked for alternatives to the United States, other destination countries such as Argentina and Canada tightened their migration policies. Britain never abolished the restrictions regarding immigration imposed in 1914.Footnote 55 Under the new American regulations, any migrant with valid papers, a visa, and a steamship ticket could get on board. The lengthy visa application and rigorous checks at the American embassy or consulate replaced the inspection at Ellis Island and by the German steamship lines. Admittedly, the near total loss of the eastern European business affected HAPAG and Lloyd much harder than the loss of their pre-war role as arbiters over granting access to America. The post-1917 history of Ellis Island symbolically illustrates the restrictive turn in American immigration policy. When the United States entered the war, the reception centre reversed its function. Several enemy aliens and other suspicious foreigners were interned on the island. In 1919, a number of prominent left-wing immigrant radicals were stripped of their citizenship, briefly detained at Ellis Island, and deported to Europe. From 1917 until its closure in 1954, Ellis Island served primarily as detention facility for suspicious or unwanted aliens, many awaiting deportation.Footnote 56

Germany pursued a less restrictive migration policy after 1918, partly as a result of the American closed-door policy, which stranded many migrants along the east–west corridor. Initially, the Weimar Republic was simply not in a position to deport large numbers of refugees and stranded migrants, nor to police its new borders. After the republic had stabilized, it did not want to cause offence to its western neighbours by deporting destitute refugees to the east. By the mid-1920s, when military conflicts had ceased, refugees were increasingly “returning” – to countries that had not existed when they had left. France partly replaced the United States as an important immigration country for eastern and southern Europeans. A few managed to reach far-flung destinations such as Buenos Aires or Harbin. Footnote 57

For a short time between 1918 and 1921 the transmigration system seemed to recover, albeit slowly. The steamship lines again organized transports to their ports. Transit points, which had been less important before 1914, experienced a sudden rush of activity. The initial Allied restrictions on Hamburg and Bremen turned Danzig in particular into an important transatlantic port for emigrants. But after 1921 the numbers recorded by Jewish migrant aid societies sharply declined. HAPAG and Lloyd never fully recovered from severe wartime losses and postwar restrictions. Just when the steamship traffic from Hamburg and Bremen gradually resumed, American immigration restrictions deprived them of the bulk of their business. Albert Ballin did not live to see the complete destruction of the system he had helped to create. He died in what may have been a suicide, two days before Armistice Day, on 9 November 1918, the day Germany became a republic.Footnote 58

Before the east–west transit corridor through Germany could be fully restored, American immigration restrictions stopped the movement. Millions of unwanted migrants and refugees were stranded in international space, between real borders and often insurmountable “paper walls”. Points of passage were replaced by points of permanent transit. Refugee camps and makeshift barracks became a common sight across Europe. Eastern European transmigrants often spent months, even years, waiting for papers or searching for alternative destinations.Footnote ⁵⁹

Two important pioneers of migration history, the Russian Jewish brothers, Eugen and Alexander Kulischer, commented in 1932 in Berlin:

It would indeed be too simplistic to put the blame for cutting off a major artery of global movement entirely on the United States. Post-1918 migration restrictions were a global phenomenon and a symbol for the crisis of the international system, not least the inability to address sufficiently the plight of millions of refugees across Europe. No phenomenon better illustrates the loss of trust between nation-states than the rise of the passport as the new “currency” of movement between and across national borders – and the desperate fate of the stateless who did not possess “papers”.Footnote ⁶⁰