People, Immigration

As a result of being defeated in both World War I and World War II, Germany lost large areas of land. After World War II, many ethnic Germans fled from lost territories and East European countries to what remained of Germany. About 8 million refugees fled from East Prussia, the Czech Sudetenland, and the region between the Oder and Neisse rivers in Poland. About another 3 million ethnic Germans fled from Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these ethnic Germans had lived for centuries in Eastern Europe. However, during and after the wars they were driven out, often with considerable violence and the loss of an estimated 2 million German lives. This process began with the collapse of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918 and the establishment of East European countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. The failed attempt of the Nazi Party to reconquer and expand German ethnic dominance by force led to the final flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe.

Once they arrived from their trek to East and West Germany, these millions of ethnic German refugees became integrated rather quickly into German society. Many refugees continued to move from rural to urban areas, and from east to west as 2.5 million East Germans fled to West Germany before the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.

A second great population movement began in the 1950s as the rapidly expanding West German economy demanded a larger labor supply. To meet this demand, West Germany looked outside the country to fill labor needs. From 1955, under bilateral treaties with various countries that had underemployment, West Germany brought in thousands of so-called guest workers on limited-term contracts to work for a few years. When the economic boom slowed down in the early 1970s, West Germany stopped foreign recruitment and expected the guest workers to return to their home countries. However, most of them—including large numbers of workers from Turkey and Yugoslavia—did not leave. In addition, many workers had brought their families with them to share in Germany’s opportunities, living standards, and welfare benefits.

During the 1980s and 1990s Germany continued to experience waves of migration. The disintegration of Eastern European Communist regimes led ethnic Germans from as far away as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, and Romania to seek a new life in Germany, where the Basic Law offers them instant citizenship even if they do not speak the language. The crumbling of Communist rule in East Germany was also accompanied by a massive migration of East Germans to West Germany. Finally, since the late 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people a year from Sri Lanka, Lebanon, West Africa, and other countries have sought refuge in Germany under Article 16 of the Basic Law, which provides asylum for victims of political persecution.

Some Germans have not welcomed these immigrants; many believe that the immigrants came only to participate in Germany’s high living standards. Official responses to these different kinds of immigration challenges have been varied and at times inconsistent, especially since Germany is a federal country and different states and cities have widely varying labor needs and problems. Ethnic German “resettlers” and East German migrants still encounter prejudice even though they are German citizens. Asylum-seekers have been kept in hostels all over the country, barred from jobs and social integration while individual cases for political asylum are examined. This process can take years and has resulted in as many as 97 percent of them being turned away. By 1993 the major political parties agreed to a more restrictive procedure for the admission of asylum-seekers, which reduced their numbers by two-thirds.