International migration [1] in Germany has always been strongly influenced by political, social and economic factors. There are several time periods over the last two centuries, where specific types of international migration can be distinguished:
The focus of this unit are mainly the immigrants to Germany. In this respect, a first important wave has already taken place in the first decades of the 20th century. At that time, the mining and steel industry in the Ruhr Area had an enormous shortage of labour. Therefore, in addition to people from the eastern provinces of Germany, migrant workers from Poland and the Ukraine were recruited in important numbers. As early as 1905 168,000 Poles had already immigrated to the Ruhr Area - five years later the number had increased to 249,000. However, this first immigration flow of migrant workers was by far exceeded in the early 1960s when a second wave occurred. Main pull factor for this second wave was, once again, the economic situation in Germany during the 1950s and early 1960 which was the phase of reconstruction after World War II, known as the so called Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). Especially by the end of the 1950s the demand for labour in West Germany had reached a peak and was impossible to be satisfied from the domestic labour market, despite the high numbers of refugees who crossed the border from the German Democratic Republic at that time. To make the situation worse, the East German government decided to build the Berlin Wall in 1961 in order to prevent people from leaving the country. Consequently, a recruitment policy [2] to hire migrant workers especially from Mediterranean countries was launched by the federal government, apparently a promising endeavour for both sides involved. In Germany the shortage of labour was covered by these recruitments, while high unemployment rates in the home countries of the migrant workers were considerably reduced. Moreover, the money these workers gained in Germany was at least partly transferred to the countries of origin and helped to improve the economic situation of the family members left behind. The government of the Federal republic of Germany (FRG) signed bilateral agreements of this kind with a number of countries. Thus, migrant workers from many European countries settled in Germany and contributed actively to the economic growth of what was then called the Industriestandort Deutschland (Industrial Site of Germany).
By 1961, the percentage of foreign citizens in Germany was as low as 1.2 % but raised to 6.4 % in 1973. In West Germany the term "Gastarbeiter " (literally guest worker) became a very popular denomination to describe these migrant workers, of which the greatest numbers came from Italy and Turkey, later from the former Yugoslavia. Their distribution within Germany, however, was very uneven. One could even say that special distribution patterns [3] evolved, which can still be identified today, although in a less distinct form. It must be mentioned here that during the 1960s, a general north-south shift of the German population has taken place following the frostbelt-sunbelt shift of its economy. This was superimposed by a hierarchical process, meaning that big cities and metropolitan areas were more affected than medium and/or small sized cities. Furthermore, a regional concentration of ethnic entities can be observed in accordance with the time when the agreements had been signed. Italian guest workers came in great numbers to the province of Baden-Wurttemberg, while Turks were mainly hired in the Ruhr Area and in West Berlin. On a more local level, new ethnic environments developed according to family links or regions of origin. In many cases there was even a ghettoisation which was a deliberately chosen pattern by many of the migrant workers in order to create their own social environment. Migrant workers from different nationalities often tried to stay apart from each other, and the companies preferred to hire workers of the same nationality to avoid problems. Despite these specific aspects it can be said on more general grounds that the immigration of foreign workers [4] contributed not only to the economic growth of Germany but changed to a great extent the appearance of German cities or regions and the daily way of life. One of the impacts can be seen in the variety of the ethnic cuisine that mirrors the broadness of the ethnic mosaic of Germany today. Italian Pizza, Greek Gyros, Turkish Döner-Kebap, or Italian ice-cream, mostly unkown to Germany until 1960, have become very visible components of the multi-ethnic cultural landscape in Germany's cities.
A first economic recession occurred in the FRG in 1967 and set an end to the economic miracle. Economic growth rates slowed down, the demand for labour distinctly decreased and the unemployment rocketed. One consequence of this development, which was aggravated by the oil crisis, was the so-called "Anwerbestopp" (recruitment stop) in 1973. This federal Act prohibited further recruitment of migrant workers and can be interpreted as the beginning of a structural transformation from a fordistic (manufacturing oriented) towards a tertiary economy by developing new, more flexible industries (e.g. high tech electronics) and production methods. This process led to an over-proportional unemployment rate among the foreign workers - in West [5] as in East Germany [6], because they matched the required qualifications much less than many of the German workers due to their professional education and training. There are only very few exceptions to this, e.g. some highly qualified Japanese working [7] in so-called high-status jobs that can be found in some special fields of the service sector. Their numbers though are extremely limited.
When the federal government launched its recruitment policy in the 1960s, it acted under the assumption that the migrant workers would return to their home countries after the expiry of the contracts. From reality, however, the government had to learn that the majority of these people had established new social and economic environments during their years in Germany which encouraged them to stay. To prevent them from doing so, the federal government started in the middle of the 1970s to allocate special good bye packages and bonus payments in order to stimulate departure. Since this policy failed almost entirely, new strategies had to be developed in the early 1980s to facilitate social integration by opening ways for the families of the migrant workers to come to Germany as well, thus reunifying families that had often been separated for many years. This of course caused a remarkable change in the age and sex pyramids of the foreign fellow-citizens. Today, after some 40 years of "guest worker migration" three generations of various nationalities live in Germany: the original in-migrated guest workers (= grand parent generation), the parent generation, born in the foreign countries but grown up in Germany and their children born and raised in Germany. This means, however, that many of these families live "within two societies" [8] each of which having its own value structures and traditions. The Turkish migrant workers, statistically the biggest group [9] of foreign people living in Germany, demonstrate this dualism most strikingly. Problems arise from their cultural and religious background, but is also caused by legal regulations (non EU member), which reduces the border crossing mobility and is limiting certain rights and privileges other migrant workers may have. But unfavourable economic and uncertain political conditions in Turkey make it difficult for these people to go back to their roots which explains why there is such a big discrepancy between those who intend to go back and those who effectively do it. Re-migration of migrant workers to other Mediterranean countries with better economic and political conditions are much more frequent.
What are the impacts of the "guest worker migration" on the German society? First of all, there has been an important increase in the numbers of foreign peoples living in Germany. Thus, the socio-demographic structure [10] of the German society, but also the one of the foreign workers [11] themselves, has changed considerably over time. One has to bear in mind that new elements have contributed to make the situation yet more complicated in the 1980s and 1990s when many political parameters have changed in Germany and in Europe as a whole. Besides the already mentioned different kinds of migration including long-term immigration, short time contracting, the immigration of family members, etc. the rapidly growing number of refugees and asylum seekers [12] as well as a dramatically increasing number of illegal border crossings has to be mentioned. Especially the collapse of the socialist bloc has released a fundamental economic and political transformation process in Eastern Europe which was first of all characterized by a massive emigration [13] from these nations towards West Germany and other West European countries. Though they were most important in numbers, people from former East Germany were not the only ones to immigrate into West Germany. There was also an increasing number of migrants from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe [14], with peak numbers coming from former Yugoslavia [15] as a result of the wars and ethnic cleansings in the Balkans. Much less of a problem are the seasonal migrations from Eastern European countries during harvesting times, e.g. the harvest of asparagus, a labour intensive and extremely low paid activity in Germany. Under present market conditions this activity would hardly be possible without the East European migrant workers.
Germany is without any doubt an interesting study case to examine problems of a country that traditionally is not composed of an immigrants society but needs, on the other hand, migrant workers to keep its economy going. The problems of how to integrate socially and politically these migrant workers and give them full German citizen status is still unsolved. It is even more complicated with the asylum seekers who are very often difficult to define and even less to integrate. In this situation, an intensive and often very emotional debate on the question of the asylum seekers (Asyldebatte) took place in the 1980s, without final conclusions up to now. New regulations concerning asylum seekers where issued in 1993, known under the label of Asylkompromiss (asylum compromise). They have led to a remarkable decrease [16] in the number of asylum seekers in Germany for the time being. The problem of awarding German citizenship to people of non-German origin is fundamental and is still not solved, despite year long discussions on the issue. The prevailing regulation is based on the "ius sanguini" (law of blood) and does not incorporate elements of the "ius soli" (law of birthplace), which determines citizenship according to the country of birth. The ongoing debate on the introduction of a double citizenship [17] mirrors the extremely controversial positions of the German people (and the politicians as well). The pros and cons in the debate about the integration of foreign fellow-citizens or even on the building of a multicultural society include a great variety of arguments that reach from very committed statements [18] in favour of an unrestricted opening of the German society to extremely opposed viewpoints, which are most often formulated by members of a new ultra right wing movement.
Interestingly, there seem to exist underlying regional patterns in the question of whether or not to accept immigrants as part of the German society, particularly between the so-called old and the new Länder. This can in parts be explained by the fact that in the former GDR (=new Länder) the number of migrant workers or foreign immigrants was almost non existent. In 1991, only 1.2 percent of the total population in this part of the country consisted of foreign citizens, mainly immigrant workers and/or students from North-Vietnam or from Cuba. Moreover, during GDR times these foreign people lived more or less strictly separated from the rest of the society so they were almost not visible in the daily life situation. Regardless these regional differences and particularities it can certainly be stated, as a general conclusion that Germany has yet to learn how to handle immigration and at the same time the citizenship question. More integration or even assimilation can only be achieved within a society that tolerates and respects all groups it is composed of, without looking at their ethnic origin, cultural background or whatever may be different from the norm (which is yet to define). Important contributions to overcome the obvious problems are already made by public [19] and private organizations [20], initiative groups [21] and many other associations, hopefully leading to a better understanding of each other in the future.
| Top | Content | VGT Home |