Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 January 10

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January 10

Internal freedom of movement in 20th century right-wing authoritarian and totalitarian regimes?

Just how much internal freedom of movement was there in 20th century right-wing authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? For instance, if a person in the Italian countryside wanted to move to Rome or Turin or Milan under Mussolini's rule or a person in the Hungarian countryside wanted to move to Budapest under Horthy's rule or a (non-persecuted) person in the German countryside wanted to move to Berlin or the Ruhr in the Nazi era, just how easy would it have been for all of them to do this?

I know that there was a propiska system in the Soviet Union and possibly other Communist countries that severely restricted internal freedom of movement in those countries under Communist rule, but I was wondering if there was ever anything similar to this in right-wing authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century.

Anyway, any thoughts on this? Futurist110 (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Internal passport doesn't mention those countries, although given the state of that article, I don't think that can be taken as evidence that they didn't have any such restrictions. Iapetus (talk) 10:28, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Internal exile was used extensively, particularly against dissident intellectuals, under Mussolini (e.g. Carlo Levi and Curzio Malaparte) but I have no idea whether there were restrictions on regular folks moving around the country. --Xuxl (talk) 13:25, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

In Nazi Germany, freedom of movement seems to have been restricted only for Jewish people. "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (pp. 170-171) says that the first restriction came on 28 November 1938 but was only applied in Berlin where it was used to exclude Jews from main streets and squares. By the end of 1939, Jews were banned from driving and from going out at night. On 1 September 1941, new regulations confined Jews to their local communities, unless they had a police permit to use public transport under strict conditions. In October they were banned from using the long-distance postbuses. From March 1942, a permit was required for journeys of more than 7 km (5 km for schoolchildren) within their own community. However, mass deportations began in late 1941, so these restrictions became somewhat academic. Alansplodge (talk) 19:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

In the UK we had our very own Exclusion orders in various Prevention of Terrorism Acts, which allowed us to prevent people from coming to the UK mainland. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)