(Alfred Pletsch)

Teaching aim: Population development in Central Europe with special emphasis on the general characteristics and the specific situation in Germany in both, historical and contemporary perspective Keywords: Phases of population development since the Middle Ages, demographic transition, internal migration, emigration, Population today: demographic features, regional variation, sex-age pyramid

As it is very difficult to define Germany as a nation through time, historical data concerning its population are not easy to collect. Although figures cannot be determined with any accuracy, the population of Europe as a whole has undergone important fluctuations, due to wars, diseases or emigration. Rough estimates are given for the Middle Age, when Germany's population was supposedly to be close to 15 million in 1350. With the Black Death, however, a rapid decline took place that left the country with less than 10 million people one hundred years later. Although the numbers recovered quickly in the 17th and 18th century, they were hampered again by numerous wars over that time period. It is only by 1750 that the total population reached the numbers it had 400 years earlier. Germany was, nevertheless, the country with the highest population in Europe at that time, second only to France. Due to growing birthrates and better medical treatment, though far from being sufficient to decrease death rates noticeably, the numbers skyrocketed in the following two hundred years. By 1800, Germany's population [1] was 25 million, by 1850 35 million, by 1900 56 million, by 1950 68 million and by 1997 82,1 million. A closer analysis shows that Germany has undergone the classical development process as described in the demographic transition model.

Even though Germany was one of the European countries where industrialization had an early start, it suffered nevertheless of overpopulation during the 19th century. True, the rapidly growing industrial cores absorbed hundreds of thousands of people from the rural areas who were seeking a better life in the cities. But in many cases the living conditions there were no better. The alternative for many people was emigration to the opening New World, mainly the United States which became the new home for more than 6 million Germans between 1850 and 1950 alone. Canada, too, was an emigration option, but the numbers were lower: only 1 million in the same time period. The footprints of these emigrants [2] can be found everywhere in North America, be it through family or place names, through folklore and language maintenance or through many other ways people express their heritage. But it must be mentioned that, during the late 19th century, Germany also imported cheap labour, especially from Poland. From here many guest workers migrated to Germany, especially to the industrial Ruhr region.

Immediately after WWII, population development [3] has been characterized by an increase of more than 14 million people, mainly refugees and expellees from Germany's former eastern territories. After 1949, when the two Germanies came into being, the people from East Germany fled by the hundreds of thousands towards West Germany, a movement that was abruptly stopped after the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. The fall of this wall in 1989 [4] set an end to Germany's separation. In the ensuing years after the 1960s, the population of the FRG continued to increase (1960 = 55.5 million, 1974 = 62.1 million), despite decreasing birth rates. In fact, its rate became the lowest of the industrialized countries of the world by 1973 (as low as 9.4 per thousand). The reason for the total population increase was the large influx of guest workers coming into the Federal Republic, mainly from Mediterranean countries. Many of these foreign workers [5] and their families preferred to stay. Their number today is more than 7.5 million, some 9% of the total population, almost half of them or their ancestors came from Turkey and former Yugoslavia. Many of these people are second or third-generation German residents. Now they often face difficulties integrating into either German or their native societies.

Since 1974 the population of the FRG kept declining, because the influx of guest workers had decreased and birth rates were still low. This trend was reversed at the end of the 1980s, when thousands and thousands of immigrants of German ethnic origin, who lived mainly in the former USSR, started to return to Germany. Secondly, an increasing number of asylum seeking people arrived in Germany, an estimated 1.5 million people altogether.

On the other side of the former so called iron curtain (fortified border between the two Germanies), East Germany's population numbers declined since WWII. From 18.8 million in 1949 it decreased as low as 16.6 million during the 40 years the East German state existed and is down to 14.1 million people in the new Laender [6] today. When the borders opened in 1989, a tidal flood of migrants moved west, some 2.5 million people (a quarter of a million per year). The cause was the search for better living conditions. The trend has hardly slowed down, and there probably will be an ongoing migration from east to west for years to come, since unemployment rates in the East are still high, wages somewhat lower and many elements of one's daily life's needs are missing or at least not sufficiently in place. Prognostics for the future project another loss of 2 million people, since natural growth as well as net migration will stay negative for many years to come.

One of the consequences of declining birth rates and longer life expectancies is the changing structure of Germany's age-sex population pyramid [7]. In 1910, the proportion of people 65 years or older was slightly more than 5%. Shortly after WWII, this percentage had increased to 10%, by 1990 it had reached even 15% and it is expected to be (if the present trend continues), over 27% by the year 2030. On the other hand the percentage less than 14 years old decreased from 43% in 1910 to 23% by 1950 and 16% by 1992, and it may be as low as 13% within another three decades. The same sources expect, that today's population of 82.1 million will increase modestly to reach some 83.8 million by the year 2003, but will descend after this slowly but continuously and may fall to 75 million in some thirty years from now.

It has already been mentioned in unit 1 that Germany has a high but spatially unevenly distributed population. City states have very high population numbers on very limited land areas. Population density also varies between the Laender from 80 inhabitants per sqkm in Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania to 521 in North Rhine-Westphalia. Detailed information can be gathered from Internet sources [8] which each Land provides. The by far most densely populated area of Germany is the Rhine-Rhur region within North Rhine-Westphalia (some 11 million people within one immense agglomeration), followed in size by the rapidly growing greater Berlin region which has presently 4.5 million and is expected to reach 5.5 million people by the end of the century. Other concentrations are found in the Rhine-Main area around Frankfurt, the Rhine-Neckar region around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and the regions around the cities of Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover/Braunschweig, Halle/Leipzig, Dresden, Nuremberg/Fürth and Saarbrücken. But there are still many places where people can retreat to and be alone - or at least almost.

Questions that may be asked: Make some general comparisons of the origin of population in Europe/Germany and Canada! Does the demographic transition model apply to the North American realm? Try to explain the migration flows between East and West Germany after 1945 and 1990! What are some of the consequences of an ageing society? Compare the population of different German towns by using the National Atlas of Germany [9]! Interactive Quiz

[1] http://www.statistik-portal.de/Statistik-Portal/en/en_jb01_jahrtab1.asp
[2] http://www.oktoberfest.ca
[3] http://www.bmgs.bund.de/download/statistiken/stat2004/Stb2_1.xls
[4] http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/index_de.html (27.08.2003)
[5] http://www.statistik-portal.de/Statistik-Portal/en/en_jb01_jahrtab2.asp
[6] http://www.statistik-portal.de/Statistik-Portal/en/en_jb01_jahrtab2.asp
[7] http://www.destatis.de/basis/e/bevoe/bev_svg_var.htm
[8] http://www.destatis.de/allg/e/link/linke981.htm
[9] http://www.ifl-leipzig.com/daten/deutsch/nationalatlas/demo/index2.htm