They didn’t come voluntarily. The first raccoons were transported to Germany as fur suppliers. They were commercially bred. However, a few of them were deliberately released to supposedly enrich the native fauna, such as in 1934 at Lake Edersee in northern Hesse. The living conditions there were apparently favorable. The animals reproduced and began to slowly spread. In the chaos at the end of the war in 1945, more raccoons were set free east of Berlin. They also became established.
Meanwhile, about a thousand kilometers eastward, the establishment of another species was taking place. The raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), also known as the enok, originated from East Asia. They were intended to boost the fur industry in the western Soviet Union at the time. Thousands of individuals were released into the wild. Soon, these quadrupeds also appeared in Finland and Sweden.