The article examines the attempts to return the Volgagermans, deported in 1941, to their places of pre-war residence. The author gives a periodization of these processes and reveals the features of each period. Attempts to relocate to the Volga from Siberia and Kazakhstan began to be undertaken since 1956 after the abolition of the special settlement regime for the Germans (1955). Until the end of 1972, they were illegal, the settlers faced many difficulties, since there was a ban on the return of the Germans to the places of the pre-war accommodation.
