Muslim Guest Workers and Integration Challenges in Germany

Introduction: Economic Need and Social Resistance

Following World War II, Germany experienced a booming economy and a pressing need for healthy male workers to fill industrial demand. The country required men who could serve as laborers in both factories and mines during this period of rapid economic expansion. Turkey and Germany established a recruitment treaty that set out terms for these guest workers, and subsequent Islamic nations — including Morocco and Tunisia — formed similar agreements. For many workers from Islamic nations, finding employment in Germany was a practical decision: it meant good wages that could be sent home to their families, and it allowed them to build skills that would make them more competitive workers if and when they returned to their home countries.

However, despite this arrangement being advantageous to both Germany and the incoming Muslim workers, there were serious integration problems rooted in the friction between Islam and Christianity, as well as a broader German intolerance toward foreigners. Turks in particular soon found that massive social obstacles undermined any prospect of successful integration. While East Germans were readily embraced into West Germany after reunification, Turks were far less fortunate. As Fetzer documents, "Scores of opinion polls, hundreds of anti-Turkish hate crimes, and the ubiquity of vicious 'Turkish jokes' all testify to the extreme public opposition that most Gastarbeiter have faced in the Federal Republic" (70).

Germany had long established itself as a nation that did not welcome immigration. Even in the postwar period, when Germany desperately needed a massive influx of able-bodied labor, there remained a powerful social resistance to the idea. As Mandel explains, immigrants from Islamic states created a sense of Überfremdung — best translated as "over-foreignization" (2008). Mandel quotes the writer Max Frisch, who memorably observed: "We called for labor, but people came instead" (2008, p. 51). This remark aptly describes the core problem with Islamic-based immigration in Germany. Immigrants of Islamic heritage had been arriving in Germany since the early 1960s, but Germans tended to think of them as temporary "guest workers" rather than people who were becoming permanent members of the nation. The overwhelming mentality was that these workers would eventually return to Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, and the other Islamic nations they came from. For decades, Germany consistently failed to face reality and adopt a coherent immigration policy — an omission that created problems the country continues to grapple with today.

References

Abali, Oya S. "German public opinion on immigration and integration." Migration Policy Institute Report. (2009).

Bartsch, Matthias. "Turkish Immigration to Germany: A Sorry History of Self-Deception and Wasted Opportunities." Spiegel Online International. Last modified September 7, 2010.

Fetzer, Joel S. Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Joppke, Christian. Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Clarendon Press, 1999.

Mandel, Ruth. Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany. Duke University Press, 2008.

Rubio-Marin, Ruth. Immigration as a Democratic Challenge: Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press, 2000.