Objects

of East Germany, the collectivisation of private and state-owned agricultural land was the progression of a policy of food security (at the expense of large scale bourgeois farmers). It began in the years of Soviet occupation (1945–48) as part of the need to govern resources in the Soviet Sector. Beginning with the forced expropriation of all land holdings in excess of 100 ha (250 acres), land was redistributed in small packets of around 5 to 7 ha (12 to 17 acres) to incoming landless refugees driven off formerly German-held territories to the east. These Neubauern (new farmers) were given limited ownership rights to the land, meaning that they kept it as long as they worked it. In the early 1950s, remaining farmers with largish holdings (60 to 80 ha (150 to 200 acres)) were effectively driven out of business through means such as denying access to pooled machinery and by setting production targets that rose exponentially with amount of land owned to levels that were impossible to meet.