TNVP

Migration is not a peculiarity of modernity, of course not. 
After the destruction of the Thirtys Years War`, Brandenburg was particulary dependent
on immigration, having lost about half of its population. 

Even in the 1670s, almost 30 years after the war the results were disastrous. 
When the Elector`s horsemen were sent out to report on the state of the villages in Brandenburg, 
they found almost one in three abandoned in the Prignitz. It was 37 percent in the Ruppiner Land, 
and as many as 70 percent in the Uckermark, which had long suffered under Swedish occupation.
In order to compensate for the population losses, 
not only were skilled workers recruited from agriculture
and crafts, but refugees of the faith were also granted sanctuary.
	
The Edict of Potsdam of 1685 is also called the Edict of Tolerance. 
The elector Friedrich Wilhelm offered his Protestant co-religionists, the Huguenots, 
who had been persecuted in France for their religion, free and safe settlement in Brandenburg. 
On the one hand, his invitation was connected with the hope of an economic revival of Brandenburg and, 
on the other hand, the elector wanted to consolidate his own position vis-a-vis the Lutheran estates.
								
	There came 20,000.
								
The refugees came not only from France, but also from the Netherlands, Switzerland, 
the Palatinate and other Protestant countries. 
	    All of them came in the hope of better living conditions. 
       And it is still a question of the quality and the general conditions.
								
The term migration is defined by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees as follows: 
"One speak of migration when a person spatially relocates his or her center of life.
      
       One speaks of international migration when this happens across national borders".