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Turkish GermansThe largest group of immigrants in Germany today is the Turkish Germans, a group which comprises 2.7 million people—or three percent of the total population—living in Germany. Although Turkish people have always been present in Germany in very small numbers, the oldest of whom have long since assimilated into German society, there are no concrete records of any Turks residing in Germany before the early nineteenth century. The rapid influx of Turkish Germans is a phenomenon that has taken place largely during the last century, as the expanding job markets during the Cold War era drew many immigrants to the German Federal Republic. The first mass migration of Turkish Germans began in the 1960s and ’70s with a time of widespread prosperity that Germans call the Wirtschaftswunder, or “economic miracle.” The flourishing German economy created a severe labor shortage in 1961, and the West German government acted quickly to fill the gap. Officials from the Federal Republic negotiated an exchange of labor with Turkey, inviting Turks to relocate to Germany in order to take unskilled, repetitive jobs. A group of guest workers, or Gastarbeiter that was primarily made up of Turks, but also included Italians, Yugoslavs, Spaniards, and Greeks, as well as others, began immigrating to Germany on a temporary basis, where they worked 60-80 hours per week. After a few years, many of these guest employees were allowed to move their families to Germany as well, and many of them decided to settle permanently, having established ties to the German community. This represented the beginning of the Turkish German wave. Turkish Germans can be found primarily in the former West German urban areas, such as West Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart and Hamburg, although some have migrated to more rural areas. North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse have the highest population of Turkish Germans of all sixteen German states. Politically, they tend to fall to the left, voting for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which supports the interests of the working class. Turkish Germans are also the least integrated minority group in Germany, as well as the least educated. Until recently, Turkish Germans did not enjoy jus soli, Latin for “right of soil,” which confers citizenship of a country to any child born within its borders. Although many Turks living in Germany settled down and had families, their offspring were not German citizens by virtue of birth. As such, a large portion of the Turkish German population—nearly forty percent in 2004—consisted of permanently resident non-citizens. However, the German government has passed legislation to correct this, allowing Turks born in Germany to become German citizens. Dual citizenship is not allowed; a child born to foreign parents in Germany must choose which citizenship to keep and which to forfeit by the age of 23. |