1944 and 1945 saw industrial-scale ethnic cleansing in the eastern part of Germany . Following frontier changes mandated by the Soviet Union and her allies Poland had moved and Danzig had become Gdansk , so that when Bartsch was released in June 1945 there could be no question of going home . Instead he made his way to Saxony-Anhalt in the central part of Germany which was now being administered as the Soviet occupation zone . The slaughter of war had left a desperate shortage of working age labour , and during 1945/46 Karl-Heinz Bartsch worked as a farm labourer on the Lutzfeld estate . Passing his Abitur back in 1940/41 would , under peacetime conditions , have opened the way to university-level education , and in 1946 , with the war over , he enrolled at the Martin Luther University in Halle . He emerged in 1949 with a degree in Agriculture
mandated by
Yalta Conference
Karl-Heinz Bartsch