Calabria, together with Basilicata, Campania, Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily, was one of the regions of Italy that did not experience, or only partially and for a very short time, German occupation and the subsequent construction of the Italian Social Republic. With the exception of Campania, whose northern part was subjected to roundups and raids, this saved these regions from forms of forced recruitment.

People moved to Germany from here mostly as part of the migratory flows agreed between monarchical-Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1942, and were thus not transferred by force.

Above all construction workers left from Calabria, but also, from 1941, large numbers of peasants, mainly from the Catanzaro area. The number of emigrants to Germany amounted to over 5,000 people.