Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration, 1955-2005 (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism)

GERMANY IN TRANSIT

WEIMAR AND NOW: GERMAN CULTURAL CRITICISM E D W A R D D I M E N D B E R G , M A R T I N J AY , A N D A N T O N K A E S , G E N E R A L E D I T O R S

GERMANY IN TRANSIT N AT I O N A N D M I G R AT I O N

1955–2005

EDITED BY

DENIZ GÖKTÜRK DAVID GRAMLING ANTON KAES

University of California Press

Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2007 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Germany in transit : nation and migration, 1955–2005 / edited by Deniz Göktürk, David Gramling, Anton Kaes. p. cm. — (Weimar and now ; 40) Documents translated from German. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-520-24893-9 (cloth : alk. paper), isbn-10: 0-520-24893-7 (cloth : alk. paper); isbn-13: 978-0-520-24894-6 (pbk. : alk. paper), isbn-10: 0-520-24894-5 (pbk. : alk. paper). 1. Germany—Ethnic relations—History—20th century—Sources. 2. Germany—Ethnic relations—History—21st century—Sources. 3. Germany—Race relations—History—20th century—Sources. 4. Germany—Race relations—History—21st century—Sources. 5. Pluralism (Social sciences)—Germany—History—20th century— Sources. 6. Pluralism (Social sciences)—Germany—History—21st century—Sources. 7. Xenophobia—Germany—Sources. 8. Immigrants—Germany—Social conditions—Sources. 9. Germany— Emigration and immigration—Sources. I. Göktürk, Deniz, 1963–. II. Gramling, David, 1976–. III. Kaes, Anton. IV. Series. DD74.G47 2007 304.8'43009045—dc22 2006011622

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).

CONTENTS

List of Documents vii List of Illustrations xv Preface xvii List of Abbreviations xxi INTRODUCTION: A GERMAN DREAM?

WORKING GUESTS: GASTARBEITER AND GREEN CARD HOLDERS

OUR SOCIALIST FRIENDS: FOREIGNERS IN EAST GERMANY

IS THE BOAT FULL? XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, AND VIOLENCE

105

WHAT IS A GERMAN? LEGISLATING NATIONAL IDENTITY

RELIGION AND DIASPORA: MUSLIMS, JEWS, AND CHRISTIANS

PROMOTING DIVERSITY: INSTITUTIONS OF MULTICULTURALISM

AN IMMIGRATION COUNTRY? THE LIMITS OF CULTURE

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS? DOMESTIC SPACE, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY 331

WRITING BACK: LITERATURE AND MULTILINGUALISM

149

285

383

A TURKISH GERMANY: FILM, MUSIC, AND EVERYDAY LIFE EPILOGUE: GLOBAL ALREADY? Chronology 497 Glossary 513 Bibliography 517 Filmography 543 Internet Resources 553 List of Credits 555 Index 561

469

425

193 241

DOCUMENTS

WORKING GUESTS: GASTARBEITER AND GREEN CARD HOLDERS

1. A Hundred Thousand Italian Workers Are Coming (1955) 26 2. Recruitment Contract between the Republics of West Germany and Italy (1956) 27 3. The Verona Bottleneck (1960) 29 4. Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, The Turks Are Coming (1961) 30 5. Giacomo Maturi, The Integration of the Southern Labor Force and Its Speciﬁc Adaptation Problems (1961) 31 6. Conny Froboess, Two Little Italians (1962) 34 7. Turkish Labor Placement Office, How the Turkish Worker Should Behave and Defend His Character in a Foreign Country (1963) 34 8. Big Welcome for Armando sa Rodrigues (1964) 36 9. Federal Labor Placement Office, Support for the Foreign Employees (1965) 37 10. Come, Come, Come!—Go, Go, Go! (1970) 39 11. Turkish Labor Placement Office, Invitation for Labor Placement (1973) 41 12. Friedrich K. Kurylo, The Turks Rehearsed the Uprising (1973) 42 13. Recruitment of Guest Workers Stopped (1973) 44 14. Helmut Kohl, For a Politics of Renewal (1984) 45 15. Irina Ludat, A Question of the Greater Fear (1985) 46 16. Florian Schneider, The Card Trick (2000) 51 17. Karin Steinberger, The Campus That Never Sleeps (2000) 54 18. Bernd Hof, Scenarios for the Development of Labor-Force Potential in Germany (2001) 56 19. Marc Brost, Carte Blanche in Green (2002) 59 20. Fotini Mavromati, Odyssey into the Promised Land (2005) 62 2

OUR SOCIALIST FRIENDS: FOREIGNERS IN EAST GERMANY

1. Warm Welcome for 200 Korean Children (1955) 70 2. Vietnamese Children Accepted into the GDR (1955) 71

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DOCUMENTS

3. Vietnam’s Children Gave Thanks for the Presents from Their German Friends (1958) 71 4. Seventeen Wounded Cubans Received for Rehabilitation in the GDR (1963) 72 5. Ly Thuong Kiet, Report on the Solidarity Movement in the German Democratic Republic in Support of the Struggle of the Vietnamese People (1966) 73 6. Peter Bethge, What Status Do Foreign Workers Have Here? (1972) 74 7. Apprentice Training Workshops for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: More Vietnamese Interns Come to the GDR (1973) 75 8. Marlies Menge, In the GDR, They’re Called Friends (1973) 76 9. Service Protocol on the Residence of Noncitizens in the German Democratic Republic (1976) 78 10. Union Members from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Recover in the GDR (1977) 79 11. Kurt Seibt, Solidarity: An Important Force in the Freedom Struggle (1979) 80 12. Siegfried Mann, How Do Foreign Workers Live in the GDR? (1985) 82 13. Hans Schueler, Panic Is the Wrong Answer (1986) 84 14. Agreement on the Procedures Concerning Pregnancy among Vietnamese Women Laborers in the GDR (1987) 88 15. Just Go to Israel (1990) 89 16. Robert von Lucius, Nostalgia Despite Unfulﬁlled Promises (1994) 90 17. Mark Siemons, Smuggling Discerned—Fingers Burned (1995) 93 18. Dennis Kuck, Those Foreign Socialist Brothers (2001) 97 3

IS THE BOAT FULL? XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, AND VIOLENCE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

105

The Turks Are Coming! Save Yourself If You Can! (1973) 110 Heidelberg Manifesto (1982) 111 Heinrich Lummer, Victims of Freeloaders (1985) 113 Theo Sommer, Closed Due to Overﬂow? (1986) 114 Advanced Chemistry, Foreign in My Own Country (1992) 116 A Riot in the Eyesore (1993) 118 Article 16 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (1993) 120 Giovanni di Lorenzo, A Protector Who Yearns for Protection (1993) 121 Lothar Baier, The Grace of the Right Birth (1993) 123 May Ayim, The Year 1990: Homeland and Unity from an Afro-German Perspective (1993) 126 Alice Schwarzer, Hate in Solingen (1997) 129 Alexander Böker, He Is Not as Sweet as He Seems (1998) 131 Uta Andresen, Generation Hate (1999) 132 Rüdiger Rossig and Erich Rathfelder, Welcome! Bon Voyage! (1999) 135 Caroline Fetscher, The New Wall (2000) 138

DOCU M E N T S

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 4

Daniel Bax, In Praise of Provocation (2000) 140 Brother’s Keepers, Adriano (Last Warning) (2001) 141 Republican Party of Germany, Excerpts from the 2002 Party Program 142 Republican Party of Germany, The Last Germans (2002) 144 Martin Hohmann, Speech on the Day of German Unity (2003) 145 Against Forgetting (2004) 147

WHAT IS A GERMAN? LEGISLATING NATIONAL IDENTITY

149

1. 1913 Empire- and State-Citizenship Law 154 2. 1919 Article 110 of the Weimar Constitution 155 3. 1933 Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and Denial of German Citizenship 155 4. 1949 Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany 155 5. Christian Wernicke, The Long Road to the German Passport (1989) 156 6. 1990 Foreigner Law 160 7. Irina Wießner, Conservative and Manipulated (1994) 161 8. Franco Foraci, Three-Pronged Arsenal of Malice (1994) 163 9. Sonja Margolina, Ethnicism in the Cloak of Multiculturalism (1995) 165 10. Jürgen Gottschlich, Bravo Almanya! (1998) 168 11. 1999 Reform of the State Citizenship Law 169 12. Jeannette Goddar, Women—An Impediment for Naturalization (1999) 170 13. Roger de Weck, Pro: Two Passports (1999) 173 14. Jan Ross, Con: One Passport (1999) 175 15. Michael Brenner, Rewarded for Good Behavior (1999) 176 16. Dieter Grimm, The Other May Remain Other (2000) 178 17. Christian Democratic Union, Working Principles for the Immigration Commission of the CDU Party of Germany (2000) 180 18. Rita Süssmuth, Report of the Independent Commission on Immigration (2001) 182 19. Central Council for Muslims in Germany, Statement of the Islamic Council on the Report of the Immigration Commission (2001) 184 20. PRO ASYL, Counterfeit Labels Are Becoming Law (2004) 186 21. Rainer Münz, We Would Rather Be among Our Own Kind (2004) 187 22. 2005 Immigration Act 190 5

RELIGION AND DIASPORA: MUSLIMS, JEWS, AND CHRISTIANS

193

1. Wilhelm Hilpert, The Synod Speaks for Guest Workers (1973) 198 2. Petra Kappert, What Remains for Turks Abroad? (1982) 198 3. Heinrich Billstein, An Islamic Boot Camp: The Khomeini from Cologne (1988) 200 4. Rudolf Walther, Foulard and Cruciﬁx: Thoughts on the Culture Wars (1995) 202

DOCUMENTS

5. Ezer Weizman, With a Backpack of Memories and the Staff of My Hope (1996) 203 6. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, As a Jew—Here? (1996) 204 7. Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Germany, Your Islamists (1997) 206 8. Meike Wöhlert, The Hype over the Star of David (1998) 209 9. Dilek Zaptçıoglu, The Universalist Swindle (1998) 212 10. Micha Brumlik, Angelika Ohland, and Rainer Jung, Jews in Germany: A Delicate Relationship (1998) 214 11. Michael Brenner, No Place of Honor (2000) 216 12. Jan Ross, Ernst, the Moslems Are Here! (2001) 219 13. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Muslims Cannot Be Integrated (2002) 223 14. Federal Constitutional Court, Decision Regarding Animal Slaughter as a Religious Practice (2002) 226 15. Bassam Tibi, Between the Worlds (2002) 228 16. Federal Constitutional Court, Decision Regarding the Wearing of Head Scarves among Schoolteachers (2003) 231 17. Arnfrid Schenk, Allah on the Blackboard (2004) 233 18. Zafer Senocak, Between the Sex Pistols and the Koran (2005) 236 6

PROMOTING DIVERSITY: INSTITUTIONS OF MULTICULTURALISM

241

1. The German Council of Municipalities, Suggestions for Supporting Foreign Employees (1973) 246 2. Heinz Kühn, The Present and Future Integration of Foreign Workers and Their Families in the Federal Republic of Germany (1979) 247 3. Ecumenical Planning Committee for Foreigner Day, In the Federal Republic We Live in a Multicultural Society: Theses from September 24, 1980, Day of the Foreign Fellow Citizen (1980) 249 4. Barbara John, With Each Other, Not against Each Other (1982) 251 5. Berlin Commissioner of Foreigner Affairs, What Is German? (1991) 252 6. Deniz Göktürk, The Naked and the Turks (1994) 254 7. Rainer Braun, Good Reception: Radio Multikulti Berlin (1996) 256 8. Workshop of Cultures, Why a Carnival of Cultures in Berlin? (1998) 257 9. Anonymous, We Are Still Our Own Best Foreigners (1998) 259 10. Kanak Attak, Manifesto (1998) 260 11. Johannes Odenthal, Heimat Art: New Urban Cultures (1999) 263 12. Günther Coenen, The First Years of the House of World Cultures (1999) 264 13. Leslie A. Adelson, Against Between: A Manifesto (2000) 265 14. Julia Naumann, Multikulti—Or What? (2000) 270 15. Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen, Where Are the Turkish Teachers and Doctors? (2001) 271 16. Eckhard Michels, German as a World Language (2001) 273 17. Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany, Recommendations for Immigrants (2001) 277

DOCUMENTS

18. 19. 20. 21. 7

Wolfgang Mackiewicz, German Is Necessary (2001) 278 Safter Çınar, Berlin after PISA (2002) 279 Mechthild Küpper, The Woman from Kreuzberg (2003) 281 Voices in Support of the Migration Museum (2003) 283

AN IMMIGRATION COUNTRY? THE LIMITS OF CULTURE

285

1. Theo Sommer, Breach of Contract or Breach of the Dam? (1985) 289 2. Dieter Oberndörfer, The Open Republic (1987) 292 3. Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Thomas Schmid, When the West Becomes Irresistible (1991) 293 4. Heiner Geissler, Germany: An Immigration Country? (1991) 295 5. Klaus Bade, Germany and Immigration (1994) 296 6. Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Claus Leggewie, Multiculture: Just a Motto for Church Congresses? (1994) 298 7. Return to Charlottengrad (1995) 299 8. Günther Beckstein, An Approach to the Guiding Culture (1999) 303 9. Andrea Böhm, Harmony of Cultures? (2000) 305 10. Johannes Rau, Without Fear and without Illusions: Living Together in Germany (2000) 308 11. Hans-Herbert Holzumer, False Dreams of a Brilliant New Beginning (2000) 311 12. Friedrich Merz, Immigration and Identity: On the Freedom-Based German Guiding Culture (2000) 313 13. Gustav Seibt, No Greater Country (2000) 314 14. Mark Terkessidis, German Guiding Culture: The Game of Origins (2000) 316 15. Moshe Zimmermann, The Word Games Are Over: More Immigration, Less Guiding Culture (2000) 319 16. Ulrich K. Preuss, Multikulti Is Only an Illusion (2001) 321 17. Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, After the War: The Rebirth of Europe (2003) 325 18. Cem Özdemir, Mehmet and Edeltraud Too (2005) 327 19. Franz Müntefering, Claudia Roth, and Angela Merkel, How Should the Immigration of Jews from the Countries of the Former Soviet Union Be Regulated in the Future? (2005) 329 8

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS? DOMESTIC SPACE, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY 331 1. The Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Order, Guidelines for Housing Accommodations for Foreign Employees in the Federal Republic of Germany (1971) 336 2. Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hans Günther Pﬂaum, At Some Point Films Have to Stop Being Films (1974) 337

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DOCUMENTS

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Nasty Rascals, Little Pigs, Throw Them Out! (1977) 339 Justin Westhoff, Turkish Children with Stomach Ulcers (1979) 340 “ Toilet Decree” for Foreigners (1979) 341 Letter from Renters to Their Housing Development, “ New Homeland” (1979) 342 Mustafa Tekinez, Are We Not All Human Beings? (1982) 343 Dilek Zaptçıog˘ lu, Living in Two Worlds (1993) 345 Tanja Stidinger, At Most Half a Homeland (1993) 348 Elke Eckert, Saying “I Do” for the Certiﬁcate (1994) 351 Wulf Eichstädt and Deniz Göktürk, All Quiet on the Kreuzberg Front (1994) 354 Konrad Schuller, Last Days on German Soil (1995) 356 Hüseyin A., Apartment Wanted (1996) 358 Hajo Schumacher, More Foreign Than the Turks (1997) 358 K. Berger, The Thai Wife: Medicine for German Men Damaged by Women’s Libbers? (2000) 362 Klaus Hartung, Enterprise Kreuzberg (2001) 365 Susanne Gaschke, Colorful and Speechless (2001) 368 Regina Römhild, When Heimat Goes Global (2002) 371 Andreas Rosenfelder, The Campsite Is Growing (2002) 376 Stefan Willeke, Our Pearl Julia (2004) 379 The Turkish Federation of Berlin, Ten-Point Plan of the Turkish Federation of Berlin for Combating Intolerance toward Women (2005) 381

WRITING BACK: LITERATURE AND MULTILINGUALISM 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

383

Klaus Pokatzky, Akif Pirinçci: I Am a Token Turk (1982) 388 Harald Weinrich, The Adelbert von Chamisso Prize (1986) 390 Aras Ören, Chamisso Prize Acceptance Speech (1986) 391 Maxim Biller, The Turkicized Germans (1991) 394 Jens Jessen, The Tempting Call of Vanity (1991) 395 Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Black Eye and His Donkey (1992) 398 Zafer Senocak, The Bastardized Language (1994) 402 Feridun Zaimog˘lu, Preface to Kanaki Speak (1995) 405 Sinasi Dikmen, Who Is a Turk? (1995) 408 Bahman Nirumand, Crafty Germans (1997) 411 Günter Grass, In Praise of Yas¸ar Kemal (1997) 413 Yoko Tawada, I Did Not Want to Build Bridges (1997) 416 Abbas Marouﬁ, I Will Leave This Country: A Letter to Günter Grass (1998) 416 14. Henryk M. Broder, Novelist Güney Dal: I Am Not a Bridge (2000) 419 15. Wladimir Kaminer, Why I Still Haven’t Applied for Naturalization (2000) 421 16. Asfa-Wossen Asserate, In Praise of Squareness (2003) 423

DOCUMENTS

A TURKISH GERMANY: FILM, MUSIC, AND EVERYDAY LIFE

xiii

425

1. Fehlfarben, Millitürk (1980) 429 2. Danja Antonovic, More Than Schnapps and Folklore (1982) 429 3. Hark Bohm, Rita Weinert, and Wilhelm Roth, Appeal for a Narrative Cinema (1988) 432 4. Annette Ebenfeld-Linneweber, Despite the Passport, I Am Still Not a German (1989) 433 5. Udo Lindenberg, Colorful Republic of Germany (1989) 436 6. Tayfun Erdem, Down with the Turk Bonus! (1989) 437 7. Dietmar H. Lamparter, Discrimination of the Noble Kind (1992) 440 8. Christiane Peitz, Everywhere Is Better Where We Are Not (1994) 442 9. Klaus Hartung, Let the Berliners Barbecue in Peace! (1994) 445 10. Daniel Bax and Dorthe Ferber, Is Linden Street Closed Off to Turks? (1995) 446 11. Thomas Jahn, Türksün—You’re a Turk (1996) 448 12. Eberhard Seidel-Pielen, The Billion-Mark Coup (1996) 452 13. Gunnar Lützow, Okay, We Are Kanaks (1999) 455 14. Stephan Ley, The Deutschländer Hardly Read Anything German (1999) 456 15. Mark Terkessidis, Migrants’ Struggle for Representation (2000) 459 16. Zafer S¸enocak and Martin Greve, Coming to Life (2000) 461 17. Oliver Hüttmann, Country Code TR (2000) 463 18. Katja Nicodemus, Getting Real (2004) 465 EPILOGUE: GLOBAL ALREADY?

469

1. Claus Leggewie, The Foreign Self: Xenological Considerations (1990) 473 2. Frank-Olaf Radtke, In Praise of In-Difference: On the Construction of the Foreign in the Discourse of Multiculturalism (1991) 474 3. An Appeal by European Authors, Actors, and Producers for a Cultural Exception in GATT Negotiations (1993) 476 4. Tom Stromberg, The End of Pure Culture (1999) 477 5. Michael Naumann, An Endless Series of World Formations (2000) 478 6. Ulrich Beck, What Comes after the Volkswagen-Export Nation? (2000) 479

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Armin Nassehi, Minarets in Upper Bavaria (2000) 481 Hartmut Böhme, Global Cities and Terrorism (2001) 484 Andreas Tzortzis, Vanquishing the Ghost of Mohammed Atta (2002) 488 Germans Outraged over “Florida Rolf” Case (2003) 490 Christoph Hein, Third World Everywhere (2004) 491

I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Portable plenitude, 1962. / 2 The millionth guest worker, 1964. / 22 Solidarity and progress, 1980. / 66 Solingen, 1993. / 106 Demonstrating for visa reform, 1977. / 150 Freimann mosque, 1973. / 194 A television studio in Cologne, 1970s. / 242 Kültür in Berlin-Schöneberg, 1986. / 286 Satellite dishes in Berlin-Kreuzberg, 2005. / 332 Celebrating transnational writers, 2005. / 384 Head-On, 2003. / 426 Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, 2005. / 470 Ausgang. / 495

P R E FA C E

OW DOES MIGRATION change a nation? At the beginning of the twentyﬁrst century, nearly 200 million people reside outside their countries of birth. Their personal histories vary as greatly as the routes that have led them across borders and continents to new homelands. Their presence is often contested, especially in times of war, and the transnational ties they maintain challenge the very idea of a territorially bound nation-state. In Germany, the economic, legal, and cultural transformations associated with global migration have generated fervent public debates over the past ﬁfty years—debates that provide a particularly instructive case study for understanding the dynamics of nation and migration. Germany’s increasingly diverse immigrant population routinely surpasses efforts to document and represent it. A rough sketch at present would include former guest workers, primarily from Turkey, repatriated ethnic Germans, Jews from the former Soviet Union, asylum seekers and political refugees from Asia and Africa, high-tech industry recruits from India, citizens of other European countries, and an estimated 1.4 million undocumented migrants. According to the 2005 German microcensus, no fewer than 15 million of the country’s current population of 82 million have a “migration background.” This means that every ﬁfth German is an immigrant or has parents or grandparents who came to Germany from elsewhere. Today every third German child is born to non-German parents, and schools in urban centers enroll students of more than 100 nationalities. Large-scale immigration has arguably changed the face of contemporary Germany in more lasting ways than reuniﬁcation. This book presents 200 texts and documents that chart Germany’s irreversible transformation into a multiethnic society against the backdrop of the Cold War and European integration. The documentation spans half a century, beginning with the ﬁrst labor recruitment contract in 1955 and ending with the country’s long-awaited comprehensive immigration legislation in 2005. The collection is divided into eleven thematic clusters that serve as an analytical grid for identifying the divergent yet overlapping aspects of migration history. Using the principle of montage to juxtapose multiple perspectives, we seek to do justice to the complexity of such issues as citizenship, religion, and globalization. Included are a variety of genres, from newspaper editorials, political manifestoes, and legal statutes to interviews, song lyrics,

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P R E FA C E

and autobiographical essays. By adhering to a chronological order within each chapter we have tried to capture the immediacy and vigor of past debates. Although these debates are inevitably bound to their historical moment, they set forth arguments that have not lost their poignancy and critical acumen for the present. As the U.S. Congress weighs the possibility of a German-style guest worker program, parallels between the two countries become all the more striking: a recurring need for foreign labor in both low-wage and professional sectors, multilingual neighborhoods and classrooms, and a perennial stalemate regarding the question of illegal immigration. What renders mass migration to Germany unique, however, is the constant interplay between labor-market forces and the ethical imperatives of the nation’s history. In a deliberate attempt to make amends for the genocidal crimes of the Third Reich, Germany accepted more political refugees and Jewish immigrants throughout the 1980s and early 1990s than any other European country. Germany in Transit is a cultural history of postwar Germany through the lens of migration. The texts articulate bold visions, tragic setbacks, and unintended consequences. They exemplify the rhetoric of integration and intercultural exchange and of racial prejudice and discursive violence. Above all, the book offers a rich archive for readers who wish to situate Germany’s cultural production over the past half-century in its historical context. For instance, R. W. Fassbinder’s 1974 ﬁlm Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) resonates more fully when viewed alongside documents about the status of guest workers at that time. Even ﬁlms and novels that do not explicitly address immigration tend to reveal a Germany in a state of transition.

This volume grows out of the Multicultural Germany Project, an interdisciplinary research initiative started in 2001 in the German Department at the University of California, Berkeley. A companion Web site, which includes periodic updates and additional materials, may be found at www.german.berkeley/mg. The venture has been generously funded by the Institute for European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and we would like to thank Gerald Feldman and Beverly Crawford for their steadfast support. Our special thanks go to Tes Howell, who was principal research assistant and translator from 2001 to 2003. This book would not have been possible were it not for a devoted research team of undergraduate and graduate students: Sener Aktürk, Joseph Baumgarten, Cristelle Blackford, Christian Buss, Erin Cooper, Paul Dobryden, David Eaton, Jeffrey Ezell, Nicola Gladitz, Priscilla Layne, Gabrielle Owen, Lore Phillips, Sabrina Karim Rahman, Alexander Randolph, Rob Schechtman, Leilah Vevaina, Yasemin Dayıoglu Yücel, and Jennifer L. Zahrt. We also thank Hilary Menges for her superb editorial skills

P R E FA C E

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and Efthymia Stathis Drolapas and Mettabel Law for their expert help in proofreading. Leslie A. Adelson, a pioneer in German-Turkish studies in the United States, gave us invaluable feedback, and her enthusiasm for the project kept us going when its sheer scope threatened to overwhelm us. We would also like to thank Pipo Bui, Pheng Cheah, Tom Cheesman, Edward Dimendberg, Aytaç Eryılmaz, Fatima El-Tayeb, Ulrich Everding, Angela Göktürk, Roger Hillman, David Hollinger, Peter Kaes, Claire Kramsch, Claus Leggewie, Oliver Lubrich, Rolf Mehldau, Barbara Mennel, Minoo Moallem, Damani Partridge, Peggy Piesche, Patrice G. Poutrus, Martin Rapp, Eric Rentschler, Regina Römhild, Tim Rosenkranz, Werner Schiffauer, Hinrich C. Seeba, Zafer Senocak, Werner Sollors, and Barbara Wolbert for their input, critical commentary, and suggestions of texts for inclusion. We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their helpful comments. We appreciate the interest of our editor, Niels Hooper, the dedicated collaborative work of Suzanne Knott and Adrienne Harris, and the elegant design by Nola Burger of the University of California Press. Berkeley, September 4, 2006

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

ADN ARD AL APO BRD CDU CSU DAAD DDR DGB DW EC ECSC EEC EU FAZ FDP FRG GATT GDR IAB IBA KPD NATO

Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst / General German News Service Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands (First German Television station) Alternative Liste / Alternative List Ausserparlamentarische Opposition / Extra-Parliamentary Opposition Bundesrepublik Deutschland / Federal Republic of Germany Christlich-Demokratische Union / Christian Democratic Union Christlich-Soziale Union / Christian Social Union Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst / German Academic Exchange Service Deutsche Demokratische Republik / German Democratic Republic Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund / German Trade Union Federation Deutsche Welle (radio and television station equivalent to BBC World Service) European Community (1958–) European Coal and Steel Community (1951–2002) European Economic Community (1957–92) European Union (1993–) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (newspaper) Freie Demokratische Partei / Free Democratic Party Federal Republic of Germany / Bundesrepublik Deutschland General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade German Democratic Republic / Deutsche Demokratische Republik Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung / Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research International Building Exhibition Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands / Communist Party of Germany North Atlantic Treaty Organization xxi

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A B B R E V I AT I O N S

NPD PDS PISA PKK R AF RTL SED SFB SPD SRV taz TBB TRT UNHCR UNESCO WDR WTO ZDF

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands / National Democratic Party of Germany Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus / Party of Democratic Socialism Program for International Student Assessment Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan / Kurdistan Workers’ Party Rote Armee Fraktion / Red Army Faction Radio Télévision Luxembourg (ﬁrst private German television station) Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands / Socialist Unity Party of Germany Sender Freies Berlin / Radio Free Berlin Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands / Social Democratic Party of Germany (“Red”) Socialist Republic of Vietnam die tageszeitung (newspaper) Türkischer Bund Berlin / Turkish Federation of Berlin Turkish Radio and Television United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization Westdeutscher Rundfunk / West German Radio World Trade Organization Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen / Second German Television

INTRODUCTION

A GERMAN DREAM?

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Sporting four new battery-powered radios, Italian guest workers at the VW plant in Wolfsburg delight in their ability to listen to music while on the move. As early as 1961, West German radio stations began airing weekly half-hour programs for the country’s 120,000 Italian migrants. The image depicts Germany’s guest workers as members of a dynamic consumer society in an age of border-crossing technologies.

P O R TA B L E P L E N I T U D E , 1 9 6 2 .

By now, all the survivors, all who avoided headlong death were safe at home, escaped the wars and waves. —homer, the odyssey “Well, what’s your name?” you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. “And where do you live?” “Residence unspeciﬁed,” he says and laughs. —franz kafka, the cares of a family man

“ We Are Not an Immigration Country” Picture the following scene: Several hundred immigrants wearing native garb from their homeland line up on a stage. They march through a huge “melting pot” and, after a quick change of clothes, emerge as Americans in workers’ uniforms. This spectacle was Henry Ford’s way of celebrating the mandatory Americanization of his immigrant workforce in 1908. Since then, the mythic ideal of an American melting pot has undergone a century of revision and critique, but the collective swearing-in ceremony that transforms immigrants into American citizens continues to this day. Drawn by the promise of the American Dream, more than 100 million immigrants, including 6 million Germans, have come to America in the past 150 years, making the United States the world’s preeminent immigration country. Germany, in contrast, has never been known as a country of immigrants, and a German Dream is difficult to imagine. Indeed, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s insistence that Germany is not an immigration country accurately represented the legal realities throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike France, which was eager to grant citizenship to new immigrants, Germany held fast to its notorious Empire- and State-Citizenship Law of 1913, which invoked an ethnic, descent-based principle of national belonging. Under this law, a person could be born, work, and die on German soil without ever becoming a German citizen. For decades, German governments (regardless of party or political orientation) responded to the presence of immigrants with ad hoc regulations, ambiguous policies, cultural initiatives, and social programs, but the basic legal deﬁnition of Germanness remained unchanged. Though residency laws for foreign nationals were relaxed as early as 1965, the federal governINTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

ment did not establish a coherent system to naturalize migrants who wished to reside permanently in Germany. Guest workers on temporary visas were expected to go back home eventually; refugees and asylum seekers were informally “tolerated” year after year; and “ethnic German” migrants from the former Soviet Union were already considered de facto citizens according to the 1913 citizenship law. A confusing array of residency categories substituted for a clear path to citizenship. As a consequence, native Germans tended to refer to all migrants, regardless of their residency status, as Ausländer, or foreigners—a pejorative shorthand for any person not born into the national community. Although several attempts were made in 1977 and again in 1990 to reform the exclusionary citizenship policy, naturalization was rare because no uniﬁed principles existed to promote it. Each state of the Federal Republic could apply its own rules as to the desirability of an applicant. This strong federalist structure delayed legislative progress on immigration policy throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As late as 2004, the Bavarian CSU party declared: “Germany is not a classic country of immigration, and because of its history, geography, and economic conditions, it cannot be one.” Naturalization in the 1970s and 1980s was restricted to immigrants who had lived in Germany at least 10 years and could prove a “lasting commitment to Germany.” Dual citizenship was only granted under exceptional circumstances. For their part, most migrants found the beneﬁts of pursuing a German passport dubious at best. Giving up their previous citizenship often meant forsaking ancestral property, as well as the unrestricted right to seek employment and visit relatives in the home country. It is thus not surprising that no more than 1 percent of the non-German population opted for citizenship. A sea-change occurred in 1999, when the newly elected government of Gerhard Schröder complemented the blood-concept of German citizenship with a territorial principle akin to that in France and the United States. As of January 1, 2000, a child of non-German parents with eight years of residency is automatically entitled to German citizenship at birth. Because children of immigrant parents are now counted as Germans, the percentage of “foreigners” is slowly declining. After a ﬁve-year struggle with the opposition CDU/CSU parties, Schröder’s coalition government passed the country’s ﬁrst-ever comprehensive immigration law in June 2004, bringing Germany’s immigration statutes into accord with those of other European states. The Immigration Act took effect in 2005 and was widely hailed as the end of one chapter in German history and the beginning of a new one. However, naturalization remains a cumbersome and mundane bureaucratic procedure, and no collective, American-style ritual marks the conferral of German citizenship. Nonetheless, the demographic shifts of the past 50 years are indisputable.

INTRODUCTION

The 2005 German microcensus revealed that some 15 million of Germany’s 82 million inhabitants are of immigrant descent, including 6.76 million noncitizens. Between 1955 and 1973, approximately 11 million guest workers came to Germany; many of them brought their families and stayed. Between 1991 and 2004, 2 million ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union moved to Germany and became repatriated; in the same period, 2 million asylum seekers from eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa applied for residency. In 2004, 1 million political refugees and asylum seekers were living in Germany. At some schools in Berlin-Kreuzberg today, more than 90 percent of the student body is of Turkish or Arabic descent. Berlin boasts 100 mosques for its 200,000 Muslims, out of a total 3.5 million Muslim residents throughout Germany. Though ethnic distribution differs widely by region and within major cities even by district, the statistics show that Germany’s multiethnic population resembles that of other Western European countries. Migration to Germany would not have been possible without the larger framework of the European Union and its predecessor organizations, which emerged in the wake of the Marshall Plan in the 1950s. West Germany’s postwar economic dynamism necessitated the recruitment of migrant laborers from its European neighbors; labor migration in turn helped bring down Europe’s internal borders. During the 1960s, European Community members saw the need for collaboration in matters of law, defense, agriculture, environment, energy, and transportation, as well as immigration. In 1985, the Treaty of Schengen abolished passport and customs controls at most borders between European Community states, allowing workers to move freely among 15 member countries. Since the treaty took full effect in 1995, Germany has become one of the “Schengen countries” that does not share a border with any non-EU member state, thereby making coordination with neighboring European countries a necessity. In 2002, Germans gave up their beloved German mark and adopted the euro as the common currency among 15 states. Like migration, European integration has become fundamental to German everyday life. Mobility within Europe is now considered as much of a basic right as citizenship, and civic affiliation is no longer purely a national matter.

A Brief Prehistory Germany has always been more ethnically diverse than the Nazi assertions about the purity of the “Aryan race” claimed. Located in the middle of Europe, it was at the crossing point for ethnic groups from the West and East, North and South. In 1685, Brandenburg-Prussia provided refuge for 20,000 Huguenots ﬂeeing France because of their Protestant faith. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, nobility was transnational, from Prussia’s French-speaking Frederic the Great to the German-born Russian em-

INTRODUCTION

press Catherine the Great. For centuries a conglomerate of territorial states comprising the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Germany did not become a modern nation-state with deﬁned borders and a uniﬁed national government until 1871, when it vanquished France in the FrancoPrussian War. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, boisterously vowed to make the belated nation powerful and give it a “place in the sun.” As Germany’s economy boomed, its universities attracted top scholars and scientists, especially in the new electrical engineering and chemical industries. When German agriculture and heavy industry suffered a serious labor shortage in the 1870s and 1880s, German businesses recruited close to half a million unskilled laborers from the eastern provinces (now Poland) to work in the coal mines and steel factories of the Ruhr region. Industry leaders saw only advantages in this program: the foreign workers did the hard work that German workers were unwilling to perform, they kept the wages down, and they could be sent back when German industry no longer needed them. But many of the so-called Ruhr Poles (derided as Pollacken) married Germans, settled, and created a distinct subculture proud of its Polish-Catholic origins. In reaction to discrimination and harassment, they organized themselves and founded a combative Polish workers’ union that staged well-publicized strikes in 1899, 1905, and 1912. Under pressure from nationalist circles interested in preserving “Germany for the Germans,” the government felt compelled to pass a law in 1908 that regulated and curbed the inﬂux of foreign labor. At that point, the number of non-German workers had already reached 1 million, and Germany’s reputation as a destination for migrant laborers was second only to that of the United States. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 changed the status of seasonal workers. The German government forbade them to return home because the country needed them (along with its prisoners of war) to ﬁll in for millions of young men who had been drafted. In 1918, when German soldiers returned from the front, the foreign workforce of some 2 million was ordered to leave, although not everyone heeded this command. World War I also uprooted millions of German military recruits, who found themselves ﬁghting in faraway countries they would otherwise not have known. Escaping the upheaval of the Russian Revolution, about 200,000 Russians emigrated to the West throughout the 1920s. Most of them ended up in Berlin, which soon became the most Russian city in Western Europe. Vladimir Nabokov, for instance, lived in Berlin from 1923 to 1930, before moving on to Paris and the United States. The German capital, boasting 4 million inhabitants in 1920, was also the destination for 70,000 Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe. These immigrants formed a Yiddish-speaking community in the Scheunenviertel, a shtetl-like district of Berlin. As their num-

INTRODUCTION

bers increased during the Weimar Republic, nationalist critics engaged in increasingly aggressive polemics that blended anti-Semitism with xenophobia. In 1933, many Jews emigrated to the United States; those who remained faced imprisonment and deportation. Even assimilated Jews with German passports were not safe after a change of the citizenship law on September 15, 1935 (the so-called Nuremberg law), which deprived all Jews of their German citizenship. The industrial genocide of the 1940s killed 6 million Orthodox, secular, and assimilated European Jews, regardless of their nationality. One of the sources of Germany’s geographical and political instability since the Middle Ages has been its lack of a natural frontier in the East, leading to repeated encroachments on Slavic territory. Vulnerable to German conquest and colonization, the border regions were often traded back and forth in treaties. In their century-long push to the East, migrant Germans settled and stayed, even if the territories were reclaimed, thus forming German enclaves throughout Eastern Europe and Russia. At the end of World War I, 8.5 million ethnic Germans lived outside the borders of Germany: 3.5 million in Czechoslovakia, 1.8 million in the Soviet Union, 1.2 million in Poland, 800,000 in Romania, 700,000 in Yugoslavia, 550,000 in Hungary, and 50,000 in the Baltic States. Hitler’s pan-German ideology sought to unite the various ethnic Germans into one Reich with a newly expanded eastern border. The annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland (now part of the Czech Republic) and the occupation of Poland in the fall of 1939 were supposed to create sufficient Lebensraum, or living space, for all Germans from farther east. Native Poles were brutally driven from their farms to make room for resettled Germans. The Nazis brokered treaties with most of the affected countries for a transfer (or more precisely, forced emigration) of all ethnic Germans who lived there. A total of almost 1 million (a third of them Germans from Russia) were thus “brought home” into the Reich. When the Red Army advanced toward the Reich’s borders in 1944, millions of Germans were forced to ﬂee to the West under chaotic conditions. Rightly blamed for the ruthless expulsion of native Slavs, Germans were now themselves mercilessly expelled from Eastern Europe. Joseph Stalin ordered the newly installed Polish government to incorporate large parts of Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia, where approximately 5 million Germans resided. Over a million from the Sudetenland and former German territory east of the rivers Oder and Neisse were driven out. Of 16.5 million Germans living in the eastern provinces in 1945, close to 12 million survived the trek to the West, 2 million perished, and the rest, some 2.5 million, did not leave. They formed the bulk of the Russian and Eastern European population that could later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, claim

INTRODUCTION

German ancestry and move to Germany as Aussiedler, or ethnic German resettlers. The National Socialists had relied on forced laborers, euphemistically called Fremdarbeiter, or foreign workers, to build highways, toil in agriculture and the armament industry, and supply the country’s workforce when 10 million Germans were called to arms. Estimates indicate that as many as 13.5 million foreign laborers worked involuntarily in Germany, including prisoners of war, Sinti and Roma, political prisoners, Jews, as well as foreign-born civilians and Ostarbeiter, or workers from the East—half of whom were women and children. Because of Nazi paranoia about miscegenation, the Slavic laborers were strictly separated from the German population and housed in barracks, which incidentally were reused in the postwar period to accommodate the ﬁrst guest workers. In 1945, most of these foreign laborers left Germany to return to their home countries. At the same time, about 8 million to 10 million displaced persons—liberated prisoners of war, political detainees, deserters, refugees, and survivors from the concentration camps—were stranded in the four occupied zones. Some 4.6 million were repatriated in massive transports by the end of 1945, but many refused to go back, especially to the Stalinist eastern zone. After the fall of the Third Reich, 11 million Germans were prisoners of war: 7.7 million on the western front, 3.3 million on the eastern front. Although most of the POWs from the West returned to Germany between 1945 and 1950, the last POWs in Soviet hands were not released until 1955; the fate of about a million of them remains unknown. Many returning veterans found themselves in competition with refugees, expellees, and evacuees for housing and food. At the close of the war, no fewer than 12 million people, among them 2.5 million children, wandered across a scarred landscape of ruins and rubble. This mass migration within Germany and across Europe had enormous consequences for the future of both Germanys. The inﬂux of Germans from the East who had lost their homes and were compelled to make their way in the new environment gave the Federal Republic the labor and energy necessary to rebuild the country in a relatively short time. Their number soon exceeded the 5 million Germans who were killed in the war. Because of the destruction of urban areas, the refugees often ended up in places like rural Bavaria or Holstein, thereby changing the villages’ demographics for the ﬁrst time since the seventeenth century. Although the refugees spoke their own dialects and organized themselves politically around their status as expelled persons, the domestic population did not call them “foreigners.” Over time, they integrated into the community and exempliﬁed upward mobility. In its economic dynamism, West Germany of the 1950s and 1960s resembled an immigrant society, but it was also radically different: the majority of

INTRODUCTION

migrants were German refugees who had escaped to their “native land,” which welcomed them. West German society for all its large-scale displacement and dislocation remained fundamentally homogeneous. In 1955 the number of those living in Germany without German citizenship hovered around 1 percent.

Coming to Germany In the early 1950s, the United States, Britain, and France had a vested interest in reconstructing West Germany as an anti-Soviet, market-oriented society. After initial assistance of the Marshall Plan, domestic corporations boosted productivity and revenues. To maintain the “Economic Miracle,” the private sector needed a highly mobile workforce that it could deploy to speciﬁc sites throughout the country. Most of West Germany’s 1 million unemployed workers were unable or unwilling to relocate with their families to these new industrial sites, and the labor shortage was becoming acute. In December 1955, the Labor Ministry devised a plan to recruit Italian workers to operate machines, work assembly lines, haul trash, and perform other hard labor that did not require more than a rudimentary knowledge of the German language. Unlike the forced “foreign laborers” of the Nazi period, these foreigners were “guest workers”—welcome to stay for a restricted period and expected to return home with the host’s gratitude. In the midst of a roaring economy, this stopgap measure appeared to be a winning solution for all parties. From the outset, the language of the bilateral guest-worker agreements presaged the Europeanization of the West German labor market, promoting a “spirit” of labor mobility among postwar European states. This initially European rationale for labor recruitment signaled the beginning of a common economic policy that culminated 40 years later in the dismantling of border controls in the European interior. The postwar German labor shortage worsened drastically in August 1961, when the newly constructed Berlin Wall abruptly cut off the steady ﬂow of workers from East Germany. A total of 3.8 million East Germans had left the Communist-ruled country for the West between 1949 and 1961. Less than half a million moved in the other direction. Each year during that 12-year period, hundreds of thousands of Übersiedler, or settlers from “the other side,” had relocated to the Federal Republic for political, economic, or personal reasons. The moment this inﬂux stopped, the call for more guest workers became inevitable. In the sphere of international relations, the expansion of the temporaryworker program appealed to the diplomatic objective of economic collaboration with anticommunist allies such as NATO member Turkey. The West German Labor Ministry also saw the program as the perfect supplement to the curtailed “internal” migration from the communist East to the capitalist

INTRODUCTION

West. After initiating labor recruitment contracts with Italy, Spain, and Greece, the federal government signed agreements with Turkey in 1961, Portugal in 1964, and Yugoslavia in 1968. The guest workers rapidly altered labor relations throughout the country. Between 1960 and 1970, approximately 2.3 million West Germans left industrial and agricultural jobs to become managers and clerks, while foreign “temporary” laborers took up the vacated positions. The West German Ministry of Labor also reported in 1976 that guest workers had paved the way for a shorter workweek and longer vacations for Germans. In September 1964, a representative of the Employers’ Association opened the welcome ceremony for West Germany’s millionth guest worker by acknowledging the cooperation of guest workers, who made the country’s economic development possible. The strictly rotational design of the program proved too expensive for industry, and it was quietly abandoned in 1964, when Germany renewed its contract with Turkey. Although immigrants had become an integral feature of West German workplaces, the government had passed no new legislation on foreign residents since the Nazi period. Germans hailed the 1965 Ausländergesetz, or Foreigner Law, as a progressive measure at the time, but it had a destabilizing effect on migrant workers and families. According to this law, foreigners could reside in Germany as long as they had a valid visa and continued to serve “the needs of the Federal Republic.” Interpretation of this notoriously vague concept was left up to thousands of semiautonomous agencies and their myriad employees throughout the country. Noncitizens had few options for challenging visa decisions made at their local Ausländeramt, or foreigner bureau. Ultimately, the 1965 law created general confusion about the legal status of labor immigrants, and ambiguity in bureaucratic procedures led to greater disparities in housing and workplace rights. The plight of guest workers and their status as outsiders attracted the attention of the New German Cinema, which perceived itself at the margin of the commercial ﬁlm industry. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ﬁlm Katzelmacher (1969) focuses on a Greek guest worker whose very presence disrupts the close-knit community of a Munich neighborhood. “Katzelmacher” is a derogatory Bavarian slang term for migrants from the South who breed “like cats.” The ﬁlm shows German society through the eyes of the outsider as bankrupt, dim-witted, and xenophobic. Fassbinder uses Brechtian techniques to lay bare the social and sexual forces unleashed by the arrival of the guest worker, and he ups the ante in his highly stylized parable by playing the “Greek from Greece” himself. In his later ﬁlm Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974), Fassbinder casts his Moroccan partner, El Hedi ben Salem, in the leading role of Ali. In the tradition of Sirkian melodrama, the camera comments on the doomed relationship between Ali and Emmi, an older German woman. As in Katzelmacher, a courageous female reaches out

INTRODUCTION

to the foreigner, but the social reality of Germany in 1974—unemployment, racism, discrimination—takes its toll. Fassbinder’s ﬁlm, which won him international recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, was an early response to a shift in the economic climate. By 1973, a global oil crisis and recession had stunted the burgeoning West German economy. In November of that year, the federal government ordered a moratorium on guest-worker recruitment. By that point, the guestworker population had reached 2.6 million, with 605,000 Turks forming the largest group. In the period between 1973 and 1979, immigration emerged as a major national topic. Politicians and employers strategized to limit West Germany’s reliance on the foreign labor force. The government made only rare exceptions to the 1973 moratorium until the end of the Cold War, when it reimplemented smaller-scale recruitment programs with Yugoslavia (1988), Hungary (1989), and Poland (1990). At the time of the moratorium, Turks formed 23 percent of the noncitizen population, followed by Yugoslavs (17 percent), Italians (16 percent), Greeks (10 percent), and Spaniards (7 percent). When the Labor Ministry announced the ban, non-EC immigrant workers realized that they could no longer leave Germany if they intended to return safely. In 1974, the German government passed a law that enabled their families to join them. This law resulted in a population boom diametrically opposed to the state’s intentions. By 1980, the noncitizen population climbed to 4.4 million, as workers’ spouses, children, and parents entered Germany from non-EC countries under “family uniﬁcation” statutes. The circumstances for migrants and refugees in the communist German Democratic Republic were a different story. Whereas the West German guest-worker program embodied the idea of an economic symbiosis between developed and developing capitalist countries, East German initiatives appealed to an internationalist doctrine of solidarity and struggle against the capitalist West, particularly during the period of the Vietnam War. Addressing its comparatively small number of guest workers as “our socialist friends,” the East German government maintained networks with Mozambique, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, and other emerging socialist states. As a result, the GDR could promote its forays into international labor recruitment as a visionary measure, strengthening a global movement of like-minded socialist citizens. East German critiques of the West’s “exploitative and racist” guest-worker program grew ﬁercer as the 1970s drew to a close. In 1982, Helmut Kohl’s call for a “change in our Ausländerpolitik,” or foreigner politics, and his promise of a 50 percent reduction of the guest-worker population aided his successful run for West German chancellor, a position he held for the next 16 years. In the early years of the Kohl administration, the right of Turkish citizens to travel back and forth between Turkey and Ger-

INTRODUCTION

many remained a sore diplomatic subject, particularly after Kohl paid a state visit to Ankara in 1983, during which the “mobility question” was left unresolved. During this period, metropolitan areas with high percentages of noncitizen residents, like Frankfurt am Main, considered ordinances that would essentially close the city to new immigrants. As members of the EC, Greek and Italian citizens enjoyed a mobility unavailable to Spanish and Portuguese citizens, whose countries would not join the EC until 1986. The early 1980s also ushered in new statutes on the minimum amount of domestic space required for each noncitizen family member. The 1971 minimum standard of 12 square meters per resident increased steadily throughout the 1980s, introducing a requirement for immigrant families that even 1.2 million German-born wage earners could not meet. The debate about domestic space found its way into a range of stories and ﬁlms, such as Tevﬁk Baser’s drama about the entrapment of a migrant woman from rural Turkey in a Hamburg apartment, 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland (40 Square Meters of Germany, 1986). An ironic reversal of this scenario of spatial conﬁnement occurs in Sinan Çetin’s ﬁlm Berlin in Berlin (1993), which was produced in Turkey. In this comedy, a German man on the run must seek “asylum” in a Turkish family’s home in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, eventually adopting their customs and integrating into the microcosm of their apartment. In the 1980s, bureaus of foreigner affairs began to emerge in West Germany, popularizing the concept of an open, multicultural society. Commissioner of Foreigner Affairs Barbara John mounted a large-scale poster campaign with the motto “Living Together in Berlin,” which depicted German and immigrant workers harmoniously coexisting in various workplace settings. Immigrants often understood the bureaus as one more mediating buffer between them and the federal legal apparatus; activists, academics, and immigrant community leaders criticized the paternalistic attitude of these agencies’ employees. Nonetheless, throughout the 1980s, foreigner bureaus and church organizations played a major role in defending immigrants’ rights to social and legal equality amid rising anti-immigrant sentiments in the German Parliament.

After the Wall Debates on asylum took the national stage during German reuniﬁcation in 1990. The liberal asylum policies in the West German constitution contributed to a xenophobic backlash, fueled by the notion that foreign “freeloaders” were abusing the Federal Republic’s magnanimity. This alarm about alleged abuses of asylum rights was not new in West Germany; as early as 1949, refugees ﬂeeing the Soviet Occupied Zone were often met with ambivalence and rancor for invoking article 16 of the West German constitution, which clearly stated, “The politically persecuted enjoy the right to asylum.”

INTRODUCTION

In the early 1990s, resentment toward foreigners led to physical assaults and arson attacks on asylum residences in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Hoyerswerda, Frankfurt an der Oder, and Magdeburg in the former German Democratic Republic. Arson attacks occured in the West as well—in Mölln and in Solingen, where ﬁve Turkish women and girls burned to death in their home. Such crimes, which reminded Germans of the Nazi persecutions, triggered nationwide protests. In December 1992, close to half a million Germans gathered in Munich for nighttime Lichterketten, or candlelight vigils, to take a public stance against neo-Nazism and racist violence. All other major cities followed, and by the end of the year, about 3 million Germans had come out to declare their solidarity with the foreigners in their midst. The government initiated publicity campaigns for tolerance. Simultaneously, however, the major political parties were calling for a constitutional amendment to implement strict limits on claims to asylum. The so-called asylum compromise of 1993 resolved that no one could seek asylum in Germany if he or she had set foot in a “secure” country before entering German territory. Asylum policy and deportation strategies subsequently focused on airports rather than traditional checkpoints. As a consequence of the open borders, illegal immigration increased at an unprecedented rate in the mid-1990s. Like other immigration countries, such as France and the United States, Germany has yet to develop policies to deal with its undocumented migrants. The categories “asylum seeker” and “refugee” became all the more complex in 1994, when the government granted temporary residence to 200,000 war refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Osman Engin’s novel Kanaken-Gandhi (1998) gives a comic edge to this shift from guest-worker to asylum politics. The main character, a guest worker without any desire or need for asylum, suddenly receives notiﬁcation that his asylum request has been rejected and that he is scheduled for deportation. The narrator, Osman, alarmed by his unclear legal standing in Germany, spends the remainder of the novel attempting to clear up this bureaucratic ﬁasco, but to no avail. The novel also satirically stages the competition for resources between former East Germans and former immigrants—all residents of the new Germany. Historical events in 1989 and 1990—the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, and the opening of the entire East Bloc—once more triggered mass migration that changed the demographics of the Federal Republic. No fewer than 1.4 million people emigrated from the former East Germany to West Germany between 1989 and 1993, whereas only 350,000 moved to the East. The drain from the East to the West has since slowed, and economic incentives (new factories, universities, and improvement of infrastructure) have tried to reverse the trend. In the glow of reuniﬁcation, the West German government handed all East Germans who came west a small gift of a 100-mark bill, the so-called Begrüs-

INTRODUCTION

sungsgeld, or greeting money; it also levied against its own citizens a special Solidaritätsbeitrag, or solidarity tax, to help defray the enormous costs of rebuilding the East. The hurried absorption of the communist German Democratic Republic (a population of 23 million) by the capitalist Federal Republic has left many wounds and mutual suspicion. Terms like Ossi and Wessi (diminutive shorthand for East and West Germans, respectively) highlight the lingering divisions to this day. Wolfgang Becker’s international ﬁlm hit, Good Bye Lenin! (2002), put a satirical spin on the sudden disappearance of East Germany as an independent state. With a light touch, the ﬁlm emphasizes displacement and disorientation in the newly uniﬁed Germany. The end of the Cold War and fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990 brought new waves of immigrants to the Federal Republic. Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche, also known as Aussiedler, or resettlers) from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union saw economic opportunity and a generous social-welfare system in the West and migrated in the hundreds of thousands to Germany. These so-called resettlers had an easy time crossing the border because the Kohl administration extended citizenship to anyone who could prove German ancestry. In 1989, amid reports of rising anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, the German government also offered unrestricted residence and eventual citizenship to Soviet Jews. Both of these groups, German-heritage resettlers and Jews from the former Soviet Union, were entitled to German citizenship, whether or not they had any practical, linguistic, or emotional ties to Germany. Many liberal critics in the 1990s charged the Christian Democratic Kohl government with courting the socially conservative votes of resettlers. A prominent Christian Democrat even referred to resettler children as “our gold treasure.” At the same time, many German Jewish community leaders discovered that the mostly secular Soviet Jews entering the country had little interest in worship services or religious community. Religion became one of the rallying points for post-Wall immigration politics. In 2003, the Federal Constitutional Court reached a key decision defending the right of an Afghan-born schoolteacher to wear a head scarf in her southern German classroom. The plaintiff, Fereshta Ludin, a German citizen, insisted that her wearing a head scarf had no effect on her teaching of German history. Nonetheless, her home state of Baden-Württemberg interpreted head scarves as religious symbols and banned them among teachers in 2004. Currently seven of sixteen German states have enacted such a ban. Right-wing violence against non-Germans ﬂared up again in the summer of 2000. In July, a bomb in Düsseldorf injured nine immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In August, three German skinheads in Dessau (a city with an unemployment rate of 21 percent) were charged with the brutal murder of a Mozambican asylum seeker. The German chancellor himself went on a trip through East Germany, pleading for “civic courage against right-wing

INTRODUCTION

extremism.” The government attempted to ban the openly racist NPD, or National Party of Germany. Foreign minister Joschka Fischer declared that antiimmigrant violence was doing “devastating damage to the image of Germany abroad.” Another antiracist campaign began. The most famous German soccer team, Bayern München, took out an ad boasting players from 13 nations. The automobile company Opel heralded the fact that workers from over 40 countries built cars in its German plants. These efforts to ﬁght right-wing violence came at a time when German industry was desperate to attract computer programmers from abroad. The shortage was so acute that the state lifted the moratorium on foreign labor recruitment by way of a so-called Green Card program. Whereas the American Green Card is equivalent to permanent residency and a ﬁrst step toward citizenship, the German Green Card was limited to ﬁve years. The program placed approximately 17,000 workers in German ﬁrms, with Indian nationals forming the largest contingent. Despite the Green Card’s relative success, German businesses still reported a continued need for informationtechnology workers. The 2005 Immigration Act renders the Green Card obsolete, but it incorporates controlled recruiting of high-tech professionals and ﬁnancially independent entrepreneurs. Although in this era of automation and outsourcing, German industry no longer needs a massive inﬂux of blue-collar workers, the informal labor economy of the service sector—from domestic help to restaurant workers and cleaning crews—depends on migrants more than ever.

A Multicultural Germany? In February 2004, Fatih Akın won the top prize at the International Berlin Film Festival for his feature Gegen die Wand (Head-On). It was the ﬁrst time in 18 years that a German ﬁlm received this prestigious award. The ﬁlm, set in Hamburg and Istanbul, depicts the relationship between Cahit, a suicidal widower, and Sibel, a headstrong woman in her twenties who is at odds with her family’s expectations. Both protagonists are Germans of Turkish background—like Akın himself, who was born in Hamburg in 1973. Though not a story of conﬂicts between Germans and Turks, the ﬁlm nevertheless persistently alludes to issues of citizenship, plural cultural identities, languages, and loyalties. This ﬁlm epitomizes genre cinema in the era of transnational networks, drawing on Turkish, German, and American traditions of melodrama. The characters show little concern for assimilation to either Germany or Turkey; instead, they challenge binary oppositions between native and foreign, here and there, them and us. Second-generation immigrants like Akın have established affiliations across ethnicities that have transformed the image of what and who is German. Just as Latin-, African-, and Asian-American literature, music, and ﬁlm have played a crucial role in circulating new hybrid forms of identity, bina-

INTRODUCTION

tional and multilingual artists in Germany are “writing back.” Authors, essayists, and ﬁlmmakers of migrant backgrounds have begun to take inﬂuential positions on the national stage—speaking out not only on domestic migration politics but also on language policy, education, and the global labor economy. The pejorative slur “Kanake” took on unexpected subversive power in the 1990s, as transethnic activist groups consciously appropriated the label. Akın’s ﬁlm Head-On draws on this countercultural aesthetics through its explosive energy but also in its wistful musical interludes that feature gypsy songs from Thrace. Although the ﬁlm enjoyed critical acclaim and even a brief run in American art cinemas, it did not draw a mass audience. It was soon pushed off the screen by dubbed Hollywood hits like Shrek II and a German science-ﬁction parody, (T)raumschiff Surprise. This spoof on both the American sci-ﬁ series Star Trek and the corny German television serial Traumschiff (Dream Ship), itself an adaptation of the American television series The Love Boat, illustrates the fusion of American and German pop culture. Since the 1950s, television has inundated German viewers with Hollywood blockbusters and American television shows, all dubbed into German. Sesamstrasse and Die Simpsons have become programming staples. In the 1950s and 1960s, Elvis Presley and rock and roll dominated American and British Forces network radio and helped “Americanize” West Germay’s postwar generation. East German youth craved Western rock bands, as Leander Haussmann’s ﬁlm comedy Sonnenallee (1999) demonstrates. There is no escaping the global culture industry today; even German-Turkish hip-hop groups adopt rap styles from American record labels. Quests for a purely German Kultur and its guiding value for new immigrants rest on shaky ground. As one of the leading eight industrial nations in the world, Germany cannot disengage from recent developments in information technology, outsourcing practices, and global markets that ignore the borders of the nationstate. Germany’s status as a ﬂourishing export nation has depended on immigration since the 1950s, and the country’s low birthrate of 1.37 children per woman makes immigrants indispensable—as workers, taxpayers, and guarantors of the older generation’s retirement. According to recent estimates, Germany would need as many as 200,000 immigrants annually to sustain its labor ranks and uphold its social welfare system. Not unlike other Western nations, Germany is busy asserting itself within the new global economy, torn between an insistence on national autonomy and the recognition of political, social, and cultural forces that continuously question this autonomy. In this light, German discussions about migration are part and parcel of a broader debate about the future of national sovereignty and the global distribution of labor. Today, Germany offers two divergent perspectives on its status as an immigration country. One view is that multiculturalism has utterly failed,

INTRODUCTION

not just in Germany but on an international scale. The 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the 2004 murder of Dutch ﬁlmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Moroccan Islamist (and Dutch citizen), the 2005 London suicide bombings perpetrated by four al-Qaeda members (all British citizens), and riots by disenfranchised youth in French cities in November 2005—each instance has been fodder for the media to decry migration as dangerous and multiculturalism as naïve. Further ammunition for this position is the high unemployment rate among immigrants in Germany, now approaching 30 percent. Racist assaults are reported to be on the rise, and in some former East German cities, skinheads and neo-Nazi vigilantes have declared certain areas “no-go zones” for foreigners. In addition, an undifferentiated fear of Islam is gaining legitimacy in the public debate. Yet in spite of the media’s often apocalyptic visions about unbridled migration and the unraveling of the social fabric, another, much less dramatic view pertains. Over the past ﬁfty years, millions of immigrants, their children, and grandchildren have made a life for themselves in Germany, selectively incorporating “German ways,” while maintaining their customs and communities. The Internet and other media connect global diasporas across national borders, and the German story of migration is not conﬁned to Germany alone. It is also being written in Istanbul, Maputo, and Mumbai. When Shermine Sharivar, an Iranian-German student, was crowned Miss Deutschland in 2004 (and Miss Europe in 2005), Iranian satellite television from Los Angeles broadcast her triumph with great pride. Such networks of communication transcend the idea of belonging to one single country. Migration today can no longer be framed as a one-way narrative of leaving home and settling in a new land. In the unspectacular realm of daily existence, even the German authorities are beginning to adapt to their new arrivals. On weekends in BerlinWilmersdorf’s Preußen Park, now commonly known as the Thai Park, ThaiGerman families and their friends gather to picnic and socialize in the mild afternoon sun, enjoying the freedom of assembly that the German Basic Law guarantees them. Old and new Berliners relax together, while their kids play soccer—all far removed from the official debates about integration and identity. To keep order, the city has posted rules for the use of the park in German, in English, and in Thai—a tacit, yet permanent acknowledgement that everyday life in Germany has become a transnational project.

DOCUMENTS

1 WORKING GUESTS G A S TA R B E I T E R A N D G R E E N C A R D H O L D E R S

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Amid banners, dignitaries, and ﬂashing cameras, Armando Rodrigues de Sá balances awkwardly on his welcome gift after a two-day train trip from Portugal to Cologne-Deutz. West Germany’s ﬁnancial newsweekly greets him with the following words: “Señor Rodrigues, welcome to the Federal Republic. . . . You shall be made as comfortable here as possible, as any guest should expect. . . . Now off to the ﬁght, Torero!”

T H E M I L L I O N T H G U E S T WO R K E R , 1 9 6 4 .

with documents tracing the turbulent itinerary of foreign labor recruitment in West Germany from the postwar era to the present. Though Italian seasonal workers had been employed in the southwestern province of Baden-Württemberg since 1952, recruitment on the federal level began in January 1956. Our ﬁrst text is a 1955 contract between Italy and West Germany “in the spirit of European solidarity” that would place Italian laborers for a maximum term of nine months. Members of the center-left Social Democratic Party objected to the program, claiming that the government should reduce domestic unemployment before hiring foreign labor power. Many questioned whether the postwar German infrastructure was prepared to house, transport, and provide basic services for the 100,000 new recruits expected in 1956. Despite the plan’s detractors, the “guest-worker initiative” evoked a progressive vision of pan-European mobility, foreshadowing many of the transnational features of 1990s labor policy. The contract idealized a ﬂexible, multifunctional laborer who, in contrast to unionized domestic wage earners, could be transplanted to new sites and milieus with ease. This mobile Italian worker would beneﬁt from a symbiotic relationship with the capitalrich, labor-poor West German economy, while continuing to support family members in Italy. The logic of the contract precludes classical immigration by assuming the recruits would neither desire nor need permanent civic membership in the host country. This pro-European, transnational outlook among the contract’s negotiators led them to ignore the concrete manifestations of the nation-state: borders, passport controls, xenophobia, and restricted visas. In the late 1950s, as industry leaders dubbed Italian recruitment a success, the Labor Ministry began to explore similar possibilities beyond the European Economic Community, which then had only six member states. Texts such as “The Verona Bottleneck” (1960) and “The Turks Are Coming” (1961) announce the recruitment of Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish workers. In these articles, government spokespersons and journalists question the prudence of expanding the guest-worker program beyond the European Economic Community. A 1961 press release from the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations suggests that West Germany should consider expanding its economic aid to Turkey instead of expropriating that country’s labor power.

E BEGIN THIS VOLUME

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Like the recruitment contract with Italy, several of the documents in this chapter exemplify the more “performative” artifacts of early labor migration—informational pamphlets, sociological and demographic research studies, and invitations for labor placement. For example, “How the Turkish Worker Should Behave and Defend His Character in a Foreign Country,” a Turkish-language pamphlet distributed by the Istanbul-based Turkish Labor Placement Office in 1963, advertises West Germany as an anticommunist, nationalist country that values hard work above all. Recruits, it suggests, should honor and reﬂect the virtues of the Turkish Republic and its Ottoman predecessors at all costs. Another text, from 1973, “Invitation for Labor Placement,” notiﬁes the addressee of his pending placement in Western Europe and instructs him to present himself for transport at a speciﬁc date and time. Other texts document the public image of immigrants in these early years—whether as caricatures, homesick displaced persons, or future citizens. Giacomo Maturi’s 1961 lecture at a nationwide meeting of employers advanced a culturalist theory of guest-worker productivity, suggesting that mental and emotional differences between German and Italian workers required two distinctly different managerial approaches in the workplace. Conny Froboess’s popular 1962 song, “Two Little Italians,” illustrates this exoticized nostalgia, picking up on the romantic image of the homesick Italian worker. Though the nine-month “rotation principle” was supposed to be one of the structural mainstays of labor migration in West Germany, it had been all but abandoned in practice by the mid-1960s. A 1965 text, distributed by the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Placement Office and entitled “Support for the Foreign Employee,” took initial steps to acknowledge the permanent nature of immigrant cultures in West Germany. This text asks politicians and citizens to support “coexistence” initiatives, occupational advancement, and cultural programs for guest workers. A further group of texts index a corpus of political journalism in West Germany that critiqued the inequities and political foibles arising from the guest-worker program. These texts reveal the persistence of a fundamental ambivalence in the mainstream press about the sustainability of temporary, rotation-based labor. “Big Welcome for Armando sa Rodriguez” (1964) reports on an official reception ceremony for the country’s 1 millionth guest worker. Later articles, including “Come, Come, Come!—Go, Go, Go!” (1970) and “Recruitment of Guest Workers Stopped” (1973), speak to the living conditions that had arisen from temporary recruitment, including workplace xenophobia and housing inequity. “The Turks Rehearsed the Uprising” (1973) documents a “wildcat strike” at the Ford factory in Cologne, where Turkish autoworkers led a sustained campaign against unfair labor practices and inadequate union representation. Two other texts from the postrecruitment era—Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s “Coalition of the Center”

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(1984) and Irina Ludat’s “A Question of the Greater Fear” (1985)—address the exclusionary after-effects of the 1973 moratorium. Ludat’s exposé critiques Chancellor Kohl’s “remigrant incentive” program, which sought to pay immigrants a one-time sum to leave Germany for good. “The Card Trick” (2000) comments on the federal government’s sudden announcement of a Green Card initiative to attract high-tech workers and suggests that parliamentarians across the political spectrum have bowed to corporate interests, instead of acknowledging immigrant communities’ pleas for equal rights in employment. “The Campus That Never Sleeps” (2000) and “Carte Blanche in Green” (2002) comment on the itineraries of high-tech migrants from India and Eastern Europe and on Germany’s struggle to counter its own IT brain drain to the United States. We conclude this chapter with Fotini Mavromati’s 2005 article “Odyssey into the Promised Land,” which surveys illegal immigration in a Europe that no longer has internal border controls. The guest-worker program of the 1960s and 1970s brought about the transcontinental shift of millions of families, along with their assets, ideals, institutions, languages, music, and food. No one at the Ministry of Labor in 1955 could have imagined the transnational cultures that would soon emerge from this experiment. A comparative look at the guest-worker program and the Green Card initiative reveals that, in both cases, the federal government relied on similar conceptions for securing ﬂexible, temporary “labor power” to boost German competitiveness in world markets. In surveying Germany’s two major international labor-recruitment programs of the past 50 years, we encounter a number of questions. Can temporary labor programs succeed without systematically exploiting those who participate in them? Could Germany have avoided the xenophobic developments of the 1980s if it had afforded migrant laborers permanent resident status or citizenship? What role did the ideal of a mobile, borderless Europe play in the guest-worker program, even in its early years? As the U.S. government considers implementing bilateral “guest-worker” programs with Latin American countries, what lessons can be learned from the German case?

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1 A HUNDRED THOUSAND ITALIAN WORKERS ARE COMING First published as “Hunderttausend italienische Arbeiter kommen” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (December 21, 1955). Translated by David Gramling. The term zone border in this text refers to the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, established in 1949.

Rome: Storch and Martino Have Signed the Contract With a certain celebratory air, Foreign Minister Martino and Federal Labor Minister Storch signed an agreement on the employment of Italian laborers at the Palazzo Chigi on Tuesday. Martino commented, “A new period of fruitful cooperation between the two countries has begun.” The preamble makes a pledge to the spirit of European solidarity. Italian workers will enjoy the same working conditions as are stipulated for German workers. The agreement was sketched out on July 18, though some details were resolved later by Director Dr. Rudolf Pertz and an advisory panel at the Federal Ministry of Labor. These details were primarily concerned with questions of social services and provisions for workers’ family members. The Italian negotiators did not conceal their contentment with one particular aspect: in contrast to Italy’s labor agreements with other countries, Germany will pay family allowances even when family members remain in Italy. The Federal Ministry of Labor was concerned that Italian workers in Germany could not be housed in as “homelike” a way as would be necessary in today’s times. This problem could, the officials contend, be overcome. But the ﬂow of Italian workers into Germany can only be promoted to the extent that housing is available for them. In the coming years, a hundred thousand Italian workers are expected, although the German economy could accept many more. Recruitment will begin in January [1956]. All economic sectors will be involved, but primarily the agricultural and building trades, as well as the mechanical industries. Later, when Italian workers have acquired the necessary German-language skills for occupational safety standards, mining positions will be added. A joint German-Italian advisory board will assess and regulate all issues that pertain to the agreement. The Social Democrats’ Concerns bonn—december 20. On Tuesday, the Social Democratic faction objected to the plan, claiming that organized recruitment of foreign workers should commence only when the domestic economic market has no more labor power. Such is their position on the German-Italian agreement. Here, the faction is referring to the high level of permanent unemployment in the zone-border regions and is calling on the government of the Federal Re-

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public to undertake all possible efforts to bring these unemployed people to the industrial centers. Federal Labor Minister Anton Storch responded by pointing out that the Federal Institute for Labor Placement and Unemployment Insurance in Nuremberg will only distribute work permits for foreign workers if the foreigners have the same working conditions and the same employment protections as German workers. State Secretary Sauerborn from the Federal Ministry of Labor spoke to the concern that recruiting Italians could lead to a destabilization of German salary standards, alleging that the German-Italian agreement mitigates such concerns. The costs of recruitment, he continued, would be covered by the Italian government and by German employers, who would have to pay a uniform ﬂat rate to cover travel costs from the Italian border to the German labor site. 2 DECLARATION OF ACCORD BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC CONCERNING THE RECRUITMENT AND PLACEMENT OF ITALIAN WORKERS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Published as “Bekanntmachung vom 11. Januar 1956” in Heimat: Vom Gastarbeiter zum Bürger (Bonn: Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für die Belange der Ausländer and Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1995), 79. Translated by Tes Howell. This document, signed on December 20, 1955, in Rome, represents the ﬁrst in a series of bilateral agreements on labor recruitment in West Germany. Subsequently, similar agreements were signed with Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Portugal (1964), Tunisia and Morocco (1965), and Yugoslavia (1968).

The government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the government of the Italian Republic, Guided by the desire to promote and deepen relations between their peoples in the spirit of European solidarity, to beneﬁt both countries, and to strengthen the existing ties of friendship between them; in the endeavor to achieve a high employment rate and to utilize productive potential to the fullest; and with the conviction that these efforts serve the common interests of their peoples and promote their economic and social progress, have reached the following Accord concerning the recruitment and placement of Italian workers in the Federal Republic of Germany. Section I: General Provisions Article 1: (1) When the government of the Federal Republic of Germany (herewith referred to as Federal Republic) determines a demand for workers, which it wishes to fulﬁll through an in-sourcing of workers with Italian citizenship, it will notify the Italian government as to which occupations or occupational groups and to what approximate extent there is a need for

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workers. (2) The Italian government will notify the Federal Republic whether there is a possibility of accommodating this demand. (3) On the basis of these communications, both countries will agree to what extent, in which occupations or occupational groups, and at what point the recruitment and placement of workers of Italian citizenship in the Federal Republic shall be undertaken. [. . .] Section II: Recruitment and Placement Article 6: The Italian applicants must provide the following identifying documents to the German Commission:

. . . .

a certiﬁcate providing the results of an examination of their occupational and health qualiﬁcations; a personal identiﬁcation card with photo; a certiﬁcate issued by the respective mayor, stating that the holder has no criminal record; an official certiﬁcate of their marital status. [. . .]

Section IV: Support, Wage Transfer, and Workers’ Families [. . .] Article 15: In accordance with the relevant German foreign exchange regulations, Italian workers can transfer their entire earned income back to Italy. Article 16: (1) Italian workers who wish to arrange for their family members to join them can apply for a promissory note for a residence permit for these family members from the Foreigner Police by providing official documentation that there is sufficient living space for the family members. The authorities will prudently consider the applications and render a decision as soon as possible. [. . .] Section VII: Final Provisions [. . .] Article 22: The terms of this Accord do not countervene more favorable international regulations governing free movement of workers between European countries, but are nonetheless binding for the Federal Republic of Germany and the Italian Republic. Article 23: This Accord will come into effect on the day of its signing. It is binding for one year and will be automatically extended each year if it is not discontinued by either government at least three months before its expiration date. Signed in Rome on December 20, 1955, in two copies, German and Italian, whereby the provisions are binding in both languages. [Signatories were Anton Storch, Federal Minister for Labor for Germany; Gaetano Martino, Minister for Foreign Affairs for Italy; and Clemens von Brentano, Ambassador for the Federal Republic of Germany in Rome.]

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3 THE VERONA BOTTLENECK First published as “Engpass Verona” in Der Spiegel (April 27, 1960). Translated by David Gramling.

In recent days, that perennially restless search through Europe’s economic hinterlands, aiming to drum up fresh reserves for West Germany’s ruralﬂight-stricken labor market, came to a successful conclusion at the Bonn Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Bureau’s State Secretary, Dr. Albert Hilger van Scherpenberg, signed a document in Bonn that will open up employment opportunities for Spanish workers in the Federal Republic; the director of his department, Ministerial Director Dr. Friedrich Janz, signed a second agreement that provides for the recruitment of Greece’s unemployed for West Germany. Bonn has been engaged in a labor-power search since 1955, when West Germany’s labor market began to strain against its mere 500,000 unemployed (2.7 percent of those able to work). Since then, the number of unemployed has sunk to 255,000, or 1.3 percent. West Germany thus boasts the world’s lowest unemployment rate. Even the United States, the classic land of affluence, cannot produce a rate under 3 percent, even in boom times. Theo Blank’s labor-market specialist, Dr. Rudolf Petz, explained, “The German labor-power deﬁcit will become chronic in the next half decade.” It was also Petz who paved the way for the ﬁrst agreement with Italy in December 1955, which sought to ﬁll vacant positions with imports. In 1956, 15,608 Italians came over the Alps; in 1958, it was 24,047, and last year [1959] 45,000 Italians signed a German work contract. The majority of these import workers stay for a season, mostly in well-paid building trades. In accordance with Petz’s ordinance, the Federal Institute for Labor Placement and Unemployment Insurance (in Nuremberg) established two German recruitment centers—in Verona and Naples. Neither recruitment office can complain that business is slow. This year already, 15,184 Italians have committed to the Federal Republic. The German labor offices have also reported an additional cohort of 29,200 from Naples and Verona. At the recruitment centers, the unemployed are examined by a doctor for their health status, and then presented to a commission, which instructs the potential recruit to demonstrate a few moves on the lathe or scaffolding—if they have indicated that they hold a trade qualiﬁcation—in order to deter frauds and cons from making their way into West Germany. Upon approval by the commission, the seasonal emigrants receive a signed contract from their future employer and are brought to a mass residence hall to be freighted north the next day in a special transport train. Before the new employee even sees his new West German employer, he must hand over 60 marks to the Federal Institute for transport costs at the

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border. This process does not always beneﬁt the employers; driven by homesickness, every ﬁfth Italian aborts seasonal labor in the initial period. Today, seven of eight hired laborers honor their work contracts in West Germany until they expire. Though this labor traffic was promising at the outset, the capacities of the Italian recruitment office were quickly exhausted. Verona sends 300 to 350 Italians daily; Naples sends 150. It will take the 29,200 requested laborers a good 10 weeks to reach their assigned site. It was not for this reason alone that Petz and his colleagues began to look around at other European labor markets. Against Bonn’s will, the Italian labor bureaus are attempting to send their labor power as more than mere place ﬁllers for the highly industrialized Federal Republic; they are also seeking to strengthen the legal standing of these seasonal emigrants as well. For example, the director of the department of “social issues” at the Brussels-based EEC Commission, the Italian Giuseppe Petrilli, prepared a draft for a European regulation that would ensure unrestricted freedom of mobility for laborers during the 12-year EEC transition period. The draft would stipulate that foreign laborers from any of the six member countries within the EEC would have to be granted a labor permit within three weeks’ time, if the position vacated cannot be ﬁlled by a domestic applicant within this period.

4 C O N F E D E R AT I O N O F G E R M A N E M P L O Y E R S ’ A S S O C I AT I O N S

THE TURKS ARE COMING First published as “Die Türken kommen” (1961). Reprinted in Christoph Kleßmann and Georg Wagner, eds., Das gespaltene Land: Leben in Deutschland, 1945–1990: Texte und Dokumente zur Sozialgeschichte (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1993), 191–93. Translated by Jeremiah Riemer.

Alongside the recruitment of workers from Italy, Spain, and Greece, the hiring of Turkish workers will soon begin, according to the Federal Employment Agency’s recent announcement. On the basis of a provisional arrangement with Turkish government authorities, in cooperation with the Federal Employment Agency and the Turkish Labor Administration, workers will be recruited in Turkey and transported to the Federal Republic. Recent news reports may have already suggested that German authorities had this intention; nevertheless, the announcement of the realization of these plans is somewhat surprising. For one thing, the reservoir of manpower from previous countries of recruitment has hardly been exhausted; moreover, countries belonging to the EEC should have a certain priority over countries not yet included in the recruitment of workers. In addition, Turkey numbers among those countries in need of development aid, and in this respect, it is

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not entirely unfair to ask if it is sensible to deprive a country like Turkey, which is dependent on its manpower for the continued expansion of its economy, of those very workers. Certainly, one has to make sure that these workers are not needed back home at the same time. For the practical implementation of a collaboration between the Federal Employment Agency and the Turkish Labor Administration, a provisional agreement was signed. It provides for the following: effective as of July 15, 1961, a German liaison ofﬁce in Istanbul will handle the placement of Turkish workers suitable for the Federal Republic. For the time being, placement will be restricted to the regional labor bureau districts of Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine–Westphalia, and Hamburg, which already employ a considerable number of Turkish workers, and where there is already experience with hiring Turkish workers. Because the German Federal Railway is interested in hiring a large contingent of track and loading workers, this restriction does not apply to contracts with the German Federal Railway. For the time being, however, companies can make hiring requests for Turks at the employment offices only if they are orders for male workers not speciﬁed by name. For unskilled and semiskilled male workers, who are available in as large a number as anyone might want, only orders for larger groups (at least 25 workers) will be accepted. Beyond that, presumably, it should be possible to place qualiﬁed workers in the textile industry; metalworking industry; food, drink, and tobacco industries; shipbuilding; building trades; mining; as well as quarrying and brick making. Here, though, it should be noted that though qualiﬁed Turkish workers have a certain amount of professional knowledge and experience, their practical training is not as systematic as that which is customary in the Federal Republic. For every Turkish worker requested—subject to ﬁnal approval by the governing board of the Federal Employment Agency—companies must pay a lump sum for expenses in the amount of 120 German marks—corresponding to the amount for recruitment in Greece—and a travel supplement of 30 German marks, coming to a total of 150 German marks. The German liaison office in Istanbul will routinely inform the employment offices about placement prospects as soon as it receives a comprehensive overview of the manpower supply. It is recommended that interested employers turn to the employment office in their area for further information. 5 G I A C O M O M AT U R I

THE INTEGRATION OF THE SOUTHERN LABOR FORCE AND ITS SPECIFIC ADAPTATION PROBLEMS First published as “Die Eingliederung der südländischen Arbeitskräfte und ihre besonderen Anpassungsschwierigkeiten” in Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in Deutschland (Düsseldorf: Econ, 1961), 121–27.

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Translated by David Gramling. Maturi, a psychologist from Freiburg, presented this paper at a 1960 convention of German employers on the topic “Integrating the Foreign Worker.”

Many of the difficulties in the integration of foreign labor power in the German economy originate in the differentness of these southern people. These are psychological difficulties, which cannot always be resolved by adapting these people to the German mentality and German forms. These difficulties can only be mastered by getting to know the eccentricities of these foreigners. They arise primarily when one tries to handle these people like Germans. It is only when one knows foreignness that a rightminded negotiation with them is possible, in which case the difficulties cease to exist, or are not that bad after all. They are only new manifestations that one must take into account; they can even be useful for the business milieu. [. . .] The roots of these differences lie in the climate, in the landscape, in the historical development, in the culture and education, and in the societal structure of these peoples. The depth and momentousness of these factors show that it is impossible and irrational to demand a quick and total adaptation.

The Inﬂuence of the Climate on Life Rhythms The southern climate demands and enables a different life rhythm than here in the north. Life is livelier; it is less strict and regulated. Without affecting actual productive potential, the climate has an effect on people and demands a different daily schedule, conditioning the distinct habits of these people, in private as well as in business life. Labor takes place in a different way than in the northern countries; it does not have the haste and the tempo that is common here. These people are no less willing to work or capable of work. This fact needs no further proof, because everyone praises the industriousness and the joy in working evident among the Italians. The legend of lazy Italians is, after all, a thing of the past. The overtly negative aspects can also be attributed to the climatic inﬂuences; it is also true, nonetheless, that southerners have another understanding of work. The Southerner’s Idea of Labor Southerners are more conscious than others that they do not live to work but work to live. They are, after all, the heirs to the ancient Roman and Greek societies that regarded handiwork as slave labor and saw life’s ideal as an otium—meaning liberation from material handiwork—in order to devote oneself to the greater values of life. They carry themselves with a distinct sense for the truly human aspects of life, because they do not really need to give themselves over to a hasty industriousness in order to drive away boredom. They value many things much more than ﬁnancial affluence and the

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comfort of technology. Moreover, their deeply religious, sometimes fatalistic sense for life leads them to undervalue many external things. The beauty of the landscape, the mild climate, the clear blue sky and sea on the heavenly coasts are not inconsequential for them, in that they encourage a more contemplative and nature-bound way of living. The pressure of work and income has, however, become great among these people of late. This fact is evident in their desire for overtime and their thrifty intentions to send as much money back home as possible. But one may not forget the conventional attitude of these people toward material labor if one wants to understand this or that particular manifestation. Their lack of hardiness and reliability, which is cause for complaint here and there, can certainly be understood from this point of view. [. . .]

The Psychological Differences between Germans and Southerners The southerner wants to be dealt with in a very personal manner; he does not want to be a number. He needs warmth, sympathy, open and affectionate friendship, as well as recognition for work performed. Equality of rights and compensation is not sufficient for him; he is receptive and looks for a smile from his boss or employer. The German, in contrast, is cold and objective; he is usually honest, just, and shies away from playing favorites, but he smiles too infrequently. For the southerner, he is not human enough. The tone one ﬁnds in the businesses here, particularly in construction work, is too tough and raw for southerners and sometimes appears almost brutal to them. These people are not exactly sensitive but they do tend to react more quickly. Even their voices sound different, particularly when they are ﬁghting. They are impulsive and sometimes violent, but this behavior is only their passions coming to the surface. [. . .] Most German employers are happy with the performance of these newly recruited foreigners, but the latter are too often conceived of only as labor power, as an economic factor, not as people. This perception does not mean that too little is being done for them; many ﬁrms even provide housing and supplies for them. But the human contact is missing. Coworkers also do not do much to foster intimacy with these people, to understand them. Foreign labor power is certainly not merely “foreign workers” anymore, but these people are still not perceived as full humans; they are isolated. Families living in the area also tend to avoid contact with these people as much as possible. There are no free rooms to rent for them; they are not wanted. One should greet them, invite them in, receive them warmly, in order to introduce them into the new society. The economic problems of immigration should not overshadow the purely human problems. Inclusion in the economy demands inclusion in society. [. . .]

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6 CONNY FROBOESS

TWO LITTLE ITALIANS First released as “Zwei kleine Italiener” on Conny’s Party (Electrola: EMI, 1962). Translated by Tes Howell. Born in Berlin-Wedding in 1943, Froboess became a teenage idol by 1958, with halcyon tunes like “Pack Your Bathing Suit” and “Oh, It’s a Snowball Fight!” (1951). “Two Little Italians,” a German chart topper, was the high point of her singing career. It was also Germany’s entry for the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest.

A journey to the South is for others chic and good, but the two little Italians would rather be at home. Two little Italians, dreaming of Napoli, of Tina and Marina, who’ve long been waiting for them. ............................ Two little Italians never forget their home, the palms and the girls on the beaches of Napoli. .................... Two little Italians, a familiar sight at the station; they leave every night on the train to Napoli. .................. 7 TURKISH LABOR PLACEMENT OFFICE

HOW THE TURKISH WORKER SHOULD BEHAVE AND DEFEND HIS CHARACTER IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY First published as “Türk Isçisi Yabancı Ülkede Nasıl Davranmalıı, Nasııl Benligini Korumalı” by the Turkish Institute for Labor and Labor Placement (1963). Reprinted in Fremde Heimat: Eine Geschichte der Einwanderung aus der Türkei, Aytaç Eryılmaz and Matilde Jamin, eds. (Essen: Klartext, 1998), 64. Translated by David Gramling. Each worker recruited from the Turkish Republic between 1961 and 1963 received the following Turkish-language pamphlet introducing the German culture and economy.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a nationalistic state. The Germans living there are nationalist and anticommunist, just like us. But even there, some harmful people will slip in among our workers and spread all sorts of propaganda to isolate them from their nationality and religion, luring them

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into the merciless, scarlet trap of communism, seeking to infect them with poisonous ideas. They will attempt to alienate our workers from the work they are doing with promises of money and women, and try to deceive them by saying that they will ﬁnd them better jobs. But more importantly, if encouraged, they will defame our homeland, our government, our state, our regime, and our glorious army and will attempt to lure you away from your straight path. To this end, they will take advantage of your drunken, tired, and weary moments to insinuate themselves among you. When you sense that someone like this is present, remove him from your social circle immediately. There are some among our colleagues whose will is weak. Do not leave them to their devices. Notify our consular officials. Should you have friends who may be ensnared by the lies of communist radio programming, remind them of the realities of the situation. So you are able to receive news from your homeland in a timely way and hear the türkü folk songs that you miss, our Ministry for Press, Publishing and Radio is currently making Turkish programming available via radio and shortwave frequencies. Do not cause trouble or ﬁght with our allies and friends among the Germans, with your own countrymen in Germany, or with other foreigners who have likewise come to make their livelihood. Each time such occurrences appear in the newspapers, the reputation and fame of Turkishness are denigrated. Because German women love the heroism of the Turk, they will behave cheerfully and politely toward you. Do not misunderstand this friendliness. You must regard the honor of these people with whom you are now living just as you regard your own honor. One thing that will elicit the most negative of reactions and is not kindly looked upon in Western countries is to aggravate a woman in any way or to attempt to establish intimacy with her in a way she does not want. Family bonds in Germany are held sacred, just as they are in Turkey. Looking improperly at a married woman will not be forgiven. If you are married yourself, do not do anything that would cause you to forget your loyal spouse patiently awaiting you at home. Every Turkish worker living in a foreign country must also not forget that our heroic ancestors, who went as far as Vienna and the shores of the Danube, never infringed upon the honor of others. When they took a bunch of grapes from a deserted vineyard, they left behind appropriate payment at the base of the vine, and if they took a ﬁg from a tree, they tied a small purse of money to the branch. To this day, no Turk is considered as thieving, honorless, unjust, or mischievous. You will also not bring such labels upon yourself. Germans are known throughout the world as a hardworking nation. They do not play around once work has begun and do not disobey the words of their superiors. German employers request workers from us because they

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have heard and know from experience that Turks are hardworking and discipline loving. Do not soil the Turks’ reputation. Work like bees, be cautious, be quick to learn what you do not know. Do not deviate from the order of the workplace. Begin work on time; end on time. Do not seek medical leave unless it is especially necessary. Do not resist your supervisors or employers. Choose a trusted colleague from among you to be a spokesperson so that your rights will be represented and so that your wishes and complaints will be appropriately heard by the employer. Seek mediation from the agents at what is called the workers’ council at German workplaces and become a member of the unions. If you have tried all of these venues and you continue to believe that you are in the right with regard to a complaint or request that has not been resolved or responded to, appeal to the nearest German Labor Placement Office or notify our labor attaché in Bonn in person or by letter. More labor attaché positions will be established soon. For now, you can explain your situation to the consulate in your region. Our consulates will try to do everything in their power to be of assistance to you. But they also will have some expectations of you.

8 BIG WELCOME FOR ARMANDO SA RODRIGUES First published as “Grosser Bahnhof für Armando sa Rodrigues” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (September 11, 1964). Translated by David Gramling. In September 2004, a conference took place at the Cologne-Deutz train station in commemoration of Rodrigues and the 500,000 workers from Portugal and Spain who had come there by train.

The Federal Republic Receives Its Millionth Guest Worker cologne. The millionth guest worker to arrive in the Federal Republic was ushered in with a “big welcome” on Thursday upon his arrival in CologneDeutz—not without betraying a little embarrassment and perplexity toward the honors bestowed upon him. After a 48-hour train ride, the 38-year-old carpenter, Armando sa Rodrigues, from the Portuguese village Vale de Madeiros, was suddenly surrounded by a ﬂock of reporters and television cameras, boisterous marching music, and the reception committee of the Federal Republic’s Association of Employers, which hailed him as its “millionth.” Rodrigues arrived in the second of two special trains delivering 173 guest workers from Portugal and 933 from Spain. Rigidly and with an almost affectless facial expression, he stood under a banner with the words “The German Association of Employers Greets the 1,000,000th Guest Worker” amid the ﬂash of cameras and spotlights. Even the news that the two-seated moped standing next to him was his welcoming gift could not conjure a smile from his face. After some hesitation, the gaunt man in blue worker’s pants gave

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some information about himself. He did not know how long he intended to stay in the Federal Republic. Nonetheless, he plans to have his wife, his 15year-old son, and his 11-year-old daughter come join him. During the short celebration—the greeting podium was ﬂanked with the ﬂags of Portugal, Spain, and the Federal Republic—a representative of the Employers’ Association welcomed the millionth foreign employee and his newly arrived colleagues. “Without the additional work of foreigners, our economic development in recent years would be unthinkable,” he stressed. Their efforts were, he continued, all the more formidable, considering the difficulties of adapting and reorienting to a foreign, highly industrialized world, despite differences in mentality, the change in climatic conditions, and the linguistic difficulties. It was, he said, the task of the German businesses and their workers to help them overcome these integration difficulties. This “millionaire” is not uncontroversial; there are conﬂicting statistics about the number of guest workers in the Federal Republic. As recently as Wednesday, the president of the Federal Institute for Labor Placement and Unemployment Insurance, Anton Sabel, expressed doubts as to whether a million foreign guest workers were indeed working in the Federal Republic. According to his statistics, only 970,000 foreigners were accounted for on September 30. Most of the foreigners working in the Federal Republic, about 31 percent, come from Italy. Spain and Portugal come in second, with 15 percent each. Recruitment from Portugal has only recently begun. Thus far, 3,500 Portuguese are working in the Federal Republic. About 20 percent of all foreign guest workers in the federal territory are women.

9 FEDERAL LABOR PLACEMENT OFFICE

SUPPORT FOR THE FOREIGN EMPLOYEES First published as “Betreuung der ausländischen Arbeitnehmer” in Amtliche Nachrichten der Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung (1965). Translated by David Gramling.

All sides seem to be in agreement that the economic growth of the Federal Republic of Germany will continue in the foreseeable future. However, according to the statistics of various federal bureaus, the number of Germans capable of working, a group whose growth rate has begun to slow in recent years, will decrease by several hundred thousand by the year 1970 due to natural population developments and the lengthening of school-attendance requirements. In order to acquire the necessary supplemental labor power and to replace the foreign employees who are returning to their homelands, recruitment countries will remain the main source of this labor power. In the Federal Republic of Germany, a large number of foreign employ-

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ees will work here for an extended duration. It is thus necessary to provide assistance to these foreign employees on as broad a basis as possible, in order to facilitate and accelerate the adaptation process. [. . .] Given the lack of qualiﬁed personnel, businesses are increasingly directing their efforts to training those foreign colleagues who are capable of an apprenticeship or continuing education. Foreign employees are already foremen and hold other advanced positions at many work sites. Professionaldevelopment opportunities sponsored by the unions are also open to foreign employees. However, they do not tend to take advantage of this opportunity. It should be observed that most foreign employees are not strongly interested in professional training outside the factory milieu. They shy away from the ﬁnancial costs and effort that are necessary for an apprenticeship. The acquisition of the German language is the intractable root cause for this reluctance. [. . .] Efforts toward a greater mutual understanding between foreign employees and the German population have been supported through press, radio, and television programming. The media have been given the task of bringing mutual clarity to both sides through objective reporting. Newspapers and magazines from the homelands are available to foreign employees. There are also special newspapers and magazines in their mother languages. The distribution of these kinds of newspapers is partially supported by the federal government, as is the case with the Italian workers’ newspaper Corriere d’Italia, the Greek I Eliniki, and the Turkish Anadolu. Unfortunately, efforts toward a greater mutual understanding have been destroyed by sensational reports in some papers and magazines that represent foreign labor in the public sphere. The faults of a handful of foreign employees are grandly touted, reports of ostensible discrepancies in the provision of social services are published without being closely investigated, and the emphasis is placed on those aspects that ensure a negative overall impression. [. . .] Given the current economic developments, the German population will need to come to terms with the idea of living together with a greater number of foreign workers. Efforts toward a greater mutual understanding should be maintained and fostered for this reason. In particular, developing tactics for clearing up misunderstandings and dismantling prejudices is an integral aspect. Assistance programs should be streamlined and their base broadened. In order to accomplish this task, it is necessary that all private and bureaucratic institutions of the federal government, the federal states, and municipalities work together. Our support work must proceed on the knowledge that foreign employees are cooperating to uphold the economic growth of the federal government and its tax base and that these workers should be supported in the development of their personal sphere by all means necessary.

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10 COME, COME, COME!—GO, GO, GO! First published as “Komm, Komm, Komm—Geh, Geh, Geh” in Der Spiegel (October 19, 1970). Translated by David Gramling. The national weekly news magazine Der Spiegel published this report as part of a series on underprivileged minorities in West Germany.

On the village green in the community of Gülnow in the Duchy of Lauenburg in Schlesswig-Holstein, Red Cross workers are heating up 10,000 knackwursts. Next to the goulash pot, a lamb side is sizzling on a spit. Some 120 Greeks are supposed to feel at home here. Social worker Gerda Fink from Stormarn is laying out sacks for a potato-sack race, saying in an admonishing tone, “We have to do something for these people.” At the main train station in Stuttgart on track 11, government functionaries in black are waiting for Zvonimir Kanijr, 32, from Voca Donja in Yugoslavian Croatia. President Dr. Karl-Otto Fritze from the Provincial Labor Office of Baden-Württemberg presents the man with a pocket radio upon his arrival and commands, “We must not think of these people as a disturbing element.” At the foreigner counter of the Stuttgart Provincial Bank headquarters, Adriano Piccolini works every day from 8:30 to 6:00. As a bank clerk, he is supposed to teach his countrymen and women how to maintain a savings account. Department Director Rudolf Köhler from the Württemberg Provincial Bank says, “We cannot just allow these people to carry thousands of marks around in their jacket pockets.” At the information kiosks of West German department stores, hostesses hand out nutrition pamphlets in four languages (Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Turkish) with tips on men’s socks and laxatives, bottled capers, and blood sausage (Spanish: salchichón de sangre y gelatina salada). Business Director Albert Oink from the Karstadt department store in Hamburg demands, “We must help these people to shop.” “These people”—fed in Gülnow by the Inner Mission and encouraged to participate in potato-sack races, given gifts by the state in Stuttgart, and shepherded around Hamburg department stores—are guest workers. Zvonimir Kanijr from Yugoslavia was the 500,000th—in Baden-Württemberg alone. There are currently 1.95 million of them in the Federal Republic. There are 1.5 million men and 500,000 women; among them are 424,500 Yugoslavians, 381,800 Italians, 353,900 Turks, 342,200 Greeks, 171,000 Spaniards, and 44,800 Portuguese. According to the German Industry Institute in Cologne, the number will be 2 million by the end of the year: 1 out of 10 workers in West Germany. For a long time, these workers have belonged to the “typical imagery of a modern industrial state,” as Assessor Rolf Weber from the Federal Union of German Employer Associations says. In Cologne-Weidenpesch, the Ford

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Company built barracks for its laboring guests. Volkswagen built a whole village for them across from the factory gate called “Castel Lupo” (Wolfsburg). The Nuremberg Federal Institute for Labor has been administering the affairs of these 8.3 million people since 1959, building “makeshift spaces, cooking stations, photo labs, and hobby centers.” Public institutions have been offering services to guest workers for a long time now: radio stations with programs in the home language, the Bundesbahn railway company with special trains. No fewer than 180 institutions have begun to work with guest workers: 6 federal ministries, as well as the Salvation Army, 11 provincial labor ministries, the Union of Women Friends of Young Girls, the German Alliance of Unions, and the Frankfurt-based Foreigners’ Brotherly Service. FAZ coeditor Karl Korn dubs guest workers “potential conduits of understanding and communication,” who are now a constitutive part of the West German milieu: the gesticulating, parlaying Italians who bring a breath of Calabria into the Hansiatic train station halls, the dandiﬁed Turks who have changed out of their Anatolian footwear into fancy duds with white leather ornaments; all the foreigners, called “salami breeders,” “macaroni munchers,” “Spagnols,” “camel drivers,” “mutton munchers,” and “spaghettis” in the colloquial language of the people. [. . .] Guest workers in Germany are not guests at all. They are not given any gifts; they do not enjoy any special status; they are only invited to join in the production process. They are allowed to work—and protecting this privilege is indeed a German tradition. “Foreign workers” was what they called the more than 1 million foreigners who sold their labor power in the time of the kaisers: on the lands of Pommeranian farm estates and in the mines of Rheinish heavy-industry sectors. The “Yearly Report of the Prussian Industry’s Oversight Officers” from 1908 registered a “larger reserve of domestic labor power than usual, because the jobs are, for familiar reasons, ﬁlled by foreigners—Italians, Poles, and Bohemians.” The familiar reason: the foreigners’ willingness to sacriﬁce themselves to the most difficult work for the lowest wages. Such social disparities are not to be forgotten when considering the development of civilization and progress within Western industrial nations, as the French philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss believed. To the Lévi-Straussian formula of historical exploitation—“ﬁrst slavery, then bondage, proletariat, colonialism”—a group of Cologne-based analysts added two contemporary posts: “forced laborers and today’s guest workers.” Within six years, the Nazis brought back at least 5.3 million civilians and 1.5 million prisoners of war to Germany. Armed with the spoils rapoti and dawai, they forced tens of thousands of Soviet citizens into the German war industry. Deportees from Poland, Belgium, and France worked on German

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ﬁelds. They were, according to the publisher Wolf-J. von Kleist, “people of stigma . . . valued as labor hands, yet meanwhile the object of astonished disbelief when they recognized what a bicycle was or knew how to turn the right knobs on the transistor radio.” The fact that the “camel drivers” and “mutton eaters” of today are often categorized as uncivilized or dumb signiﬁes a continuity in this minority discrimination. But today these pigeon-holed, devalued people come of their own free will and are called “guest workers.” This “switch of concepts,” writes the Cologne-based psychology professor Edeltraud Meistermanns-Seeger, “which led to the discontinuation of ‘foreign,’ to the euphemism ‘guest,’ and ultimately to the neutral label ‘foreign employee,’ is a sign of uncertainty and ambivalence, best understood in the context of the repression of problems associated with the previous period of forced labor.” [. . .] 11 TURKISH LABOR PLACEMENT OFFICE

INVITATION FOR LABOR PLACEMENT First published as “Einladung zur Arbeitsvermittlung” by the Istanbul Branch Office of the Turkish Labor Placement Office, 1973. Reprinted on www.domit.de. Translated by David Gramling. This form letter represents the administrative portal through which workers were screened and scheduled for labor migration to Germany. This invitation would have been one of the last sent, given that Willy Brandt announced the recruitment moratorium on November 22 of the same year.

Istanbul Branch Office July 2, 1973 First and Last Name of the Invited Party: Ismail N : 1. According to our branch office records, it appears that it is your turn to be placed abroad. 2. Please present yourself without fail on the day and at the hour indicated below; doing so will result in the preselection of your application. 3. If you are unable to appear at this appointment, please note the instructions on the reply form attached in this communication (Form no. 49/A). Please check one or more of the reasons that would prohibit you from appearing at the indicated appointment time. Mail this reply form in time for it to reach our branch office by July 5, 1973, at the latest. (Mail delays will not be considered as valid grounds for exception.) 4. Enter your signature on the reply form and include this as a separate attachment. Mail it in an envelope with 200 kurus postage. For men: If you are younger than years of age, you need not appear. If you have more than four children under 18 years of age, you also need not appear.

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For women: If you have more than four children under the age of 18, you need not appear. If you have a child younger than 12 months old or are pregnant, you need not appear. If you are unable to read and write, you need not appear. Branch Office, Department of Applications for Foreign Employment Please appear on: at: at: Recruiting country: Type of work:

July 9, 1973 8:30 a.m. 1st Floor, Room 8 Germany Carpenter

12 FRIEDRICH K. KURYLO

THE TURKS REHEARSED THE UPRISING First published as “Die Türken probten den Aufstand” in Die Zeit (September 7, 1973). Translated by David Gramling. From August 24 to August 30, 1973, Turkish autoworkers at the Ford plant in Cologne staged a strike and sit-in against the wishes of the German Alliance of Unions as well as their own umbrella union, IG-Metall.

Some Background to the Wildcat Strike at Ford “We sat in the foreman’s office and hid under the desks as the Turks made their way through the warehouse.” Even now, fear seems to linger in this worker’s body. He was a witness to the most consequential strike among guest workers in the Federal Republic to date. For seven days, around 2,000 Turks took to the barricades at the Ford factory in Cologne. They stopped their work on the auto manufacturer’s conveyor belts. The Turks’ wildcat strike began after the management ﬁred 300 of their countrymen and women for returning late from vacation. This layoff was, however, just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The angry men who blocked production day after day felt provoked by other unfair labor practices as well. They decried the work conditions, demanded higher compensation, and complained of discrimination by their German colleagues. At Ford, what has been simmering just below the surface at many factories appears to have forced its way into the public eye for the ﬁrst time. The guest workers, this new German proletariat, wanted something better. The fact that it happened here in Cologne is no coincidence. In this metropolis on the Rhine, the problems of guest workers have become evident in an intense way, in residential conditions as well as in the workplace. Foreigners, primarily Turks, tend to live in prewar buildings from the 1870s between Ring Street and the railway tracks near the city center. Most

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Germans moved out of these buildings long ago; the noise of traffic comes in day and night. The sanitary facilities of these tenements are generally inadequate, and sun hardly makes its way into the backyards. The Turks’ workplace appears much more inviting at ﬁrst glance, but even there, one can sense their second-class social status. Nonetheless, the union representatives at Ford allege that “they are working at the same rate as us; they are receiving the same wage for the same work.” But in reality, the 12,000 Turks are a large, disadvantaged minority among the staff of 32,000 workers. The language barrier bars them from accessing better wages. As a rule, Turks do monotonous, dirty, and uncomfortable work—like removing screws in very hard-to-reach spaces—work that does not require a common language and understanding with one’s neighbor. With a little teamwork, the Germans and the few German-speaking Turks can make up to 2 marks more per hour. A number of internal production-rate differences cement this inequity. There are many difficult jobs that are simply not done by Germans anymore, jobs that have been entirely given over to foreigners. The productivity standards for those jobs are, without a doubt, guest-worker standards. Unions and workers’ councils, which are supposed to represent the interests of all employees, are hardly able to provide assistance. In many ways, language difficulties stand in the way of trust and cooperation. The union functionaries cannot speak Turkish. The management’s interpreters are often considered extensions of the power of the management, and justiﬁably so. Last year, it appeared as though no Turk would be able to remedy this lack of representation. Their countryman Mehmed Ozbagcı was elected to the workers’ council staff. But what was the reaction of the workers’ council, which was run by an absolute IG-Metall majority? It refused to accept Ozbagcıı into the tight circle of at-large members. Ernst Lück, the chair of the workers’ council, complained that “this man did not know German and did not even have a workplace constitution on hand.” Since then, Ozbagcıı has had to do the work of a workers’ council member as well as his work on the assembly line. Turkish colleagues support him ﬁnancially so that he can sustain this double duty. Along with Özbagcıı, four other Turks and an Italian, all IG-Metall members, have become workers’ council members. The percentage of guest workers on the workers’ council is now 12.7 percent, whereas their share of the overall company workforce is 53.1 percent. These numbers disprove the claim that guest workers have equal representation in the Cologne Ford factory. The layoff of 300 Turks then turned simmering unrest into open rebellion. Most are allowed no vacation, unlike their German colleagues. They often have to travel days to reach their home villages to settle rent claims and debts, and once there, they frequently encounter tumultuous family issues such as inheritance disputes. But neither the workers’ council nor their German colleagues have much interest in or understanding of such situations.

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One German worker says, “There are lots of them who take so much extra vacation that they run out of money and don’t have anything left to eat.” Meanwhile, Turks feel that they are being unjustly treated. They fear having to overcompensate for the absence of those who have been ﬁred from the assembly line, where they claim the pace is too fast and allows for too few breaks. The strike could be avoided no longer. Then, who else took over the coordination of the strike but leftist extremists. It remains unclear whether they intentionally weaseled their way in, as in the case of the Brechnjew unrest in Bonn. The university student Dieter Heinert maintains that he had learned some Turkish before taking the job at Ford. Moreover, the charismatic Turkish agitator Sulaiman Baba Targün (30) began work at the factory only four days before the strike broke out. The strikers’ demands—a cost-of-living bonus and a 13 percent wage increase, long-time goals of the workers’ council—generated solidarity among many German workers with their Turkish colleagues. But the solidarity was soon overshadowed by misunderstanding and fear—and was ﬁnally crowded out by enmity and hate. This strike was not a German strike. It fostered resentment about the foreigners’ rabble-rousing. “You should just send all of them away,” said many; such were the most harmless commentaries on this Turkish impertinence. In a mass counterdemonstration condemning the event, the German employees defeated the foreigners’ strike. When police commandos arrested the agitators, vigilantes moved in, saying “One should just give them a good beating; then it will be all over with.” The ultimate gain of the strike—a cost-of-living bonus—beneﬁted the Germans as well. As for the Turks, only a repeal of some layoffs was promised. The management and IG-Metall in Cologne declared they have learned a lesson from the strike and are going to take a close look at their guest-worker policies. It is high time for it.

13 RECRUITMENT OF GUEST WORKERS STOPPED First published as “Anwerbung von Gastarbeitern gestoppt” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (November 24–25, 1973). Translated by David Gramling.

No more guest workers will be recruited from countries outside the European Community from now on. At this time, about 2.6 million foreigners are working in the Federal Republic. Of those, 23 percent are Turks, 20 percent are Yugoslavians, 18 percent are Italians, 11 percent are Greeks, 8 percent are Spanish, and 20 percent are from other countries. bonn, november 23. The Federal Institute for Labor in Nuremberg can no longer accept any foreigners into the Federal Republic and West Berlin for

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the time being. A declaration to this effect came from Federal Labor Minister Walter Arendt on Friday, with the consent of the Federal Cabinet at the Institute. The Labor Promotion Act entitles the federal labor minister to take such measures. Arendt made it known in his declaration that the intention was to stem the employment of foreigners as a precautionary measure. For those who are already working in our country, there is, he reports, “no reason for serious concern. However,” added the federal labor minister, “we cannot rule out the possibility that the energy shortage might lead to some employment risks.” European Community countries, particularly Italy, are not affected by this measure. According to paragraph 19 of the Labor Promotion Act, those foreigners who are not German in the sense of article 116 of the Basic Law must acquire a permit from the Federal Institute for Labor in order to enter into employment, “as long as no diplomatic agreements stipulate otherwise.” These permits will be distributed in individual cases according to developments in the labor market. Because the work permit is limited to two years and may also be restricted to certain vocational sectors, businesses, and economic branches, or districts, the Federal Institute for Labor reserves the right to intervene in and manage the employment of foreigners. These options have been invoked sporadically in the past to the beneﬁt of certain economic branches or districts, but it has not generally been perceived as restricting the employment of foreigners. In the past few months, however, there have been more and more attempts to counteract the “concentration” of foreigners in certain cities and the consequently excessive demands on the infrastructure. The Federal Ministry of Labor stresses that, in the future, the control measures included in paragraph 19 of the Labor Promotion Act will be enacted throughout the labor market. Considerable effort has been made to not appear dramatic when referencing foreigners in these control measures, because, according to the undersecretary responsible, “it is the natural implementation of legal measures in light of labor market conditions.” The discontinuation of foreign labor placement affects 60,000 current placements that were distributed after September 1, 1973, under the new 1,000-mark placement surcharge. (The placement surcharge for EC citizens is 60 marks.) [. . .] 14 HELMUT KOHL

COALITION OF THE CENTER: “FOR A POLITICS OF RENEWAL” Published as “Koalition der Mitte: Für eine Politik der Erneuerung” in Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl: Reden 1982–84 (Cologne: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1984), 143–44. Translated by

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David Gramling. Kohl delivered this speech before the Bundestag on October 13, 1982. His ﬁrst campaign for West German chancellor was bolstered by his protectionist position on “foreigner politics.” The following excerpt marks a rhetorical turn in the federal government’s policy on future immigration.

[. . .] The third focal point of our urgent program for the upcoming elections is foreigner politics. The coexistence of a great number of people of a different mentality, culture, and religion alongside Germans demands effort from all sides—state and society, foreigners and Germans. This task requires patience and tolerance, realism and humanity. The federal government’s policies for foreigners will be guided by three basic principles. First: Integrating the foreigners living with us is an important goal of our foreigner politics. Integration means not the loss of one’s own identity but rather the most frictionless coexistence possible between foreigners and Germans. Integration will be possible only if the number of foreigners living with us does not continue to increase. It is crucial to avoid an unbridled and uncontrolled immigration. Second: The federal government will continue the recruitment moratorium and restrict the number of new family members coming to West Germany, and it will do so precisely in the interest of the children, who have a right to their own family. The government will work within the Association Agreement [with the Turkish Republic] to avoid another immigration wave. Third: The foreigners who would like to go back to their homeland must be assisted in doing so. Every person has the right to live in his homeland. Foreigners in Germany should be able to decide freely, but they must decide if they want to return to their country or stay here and integrate. The federal government will establish a working commission focused on the realization of this program, including representatives of the federation, states, and municipalities, who will present their suggestions and recommendations at the beginning of the coming year. We will do everything to prevent abuse of the right to asylum. [. . .] 15 I R I N A L U D AT

A QUESTION OF THE GREATER FEAR First published as “Eine Frage der grösseren Angst” in Die Zeit (October 18, 1985). Translated by Tes Howell. After a no-conﬁdence vote ousted Helmut Schmidt as West German chancellor on October 1, 1982, Helmut Kohl succeeded him, promising to reduce the “ﬂow” of foreigners. The “border-crossing certiﬁcates” mentioned in this text are one-way exit permits tantamount to voluntary selfdeportations.

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The End Result of Encouraging Immigrant Workers to Return to Their Native Country It almost looked like a state visit on September 10, 1964, at the CologneDeutz train station: the train arrived from Portugal; the country’s national hymn was playing; city officials were waiting on the platform. The red carpet treatment for Armando Sa Rodrigues, the 1 millionth “guest worker” in the Federal Republic. He received a moped, ﬂowers, and a certiﬁcate. Twenty years later at the Frankfurt Airport: suitcases, boxes, bags, and a stiﬂing crowd at the Turkish travel-agency counters, lines in front of the Federal Border Guard’s office. Stressed officials stamp border-crossing certiﬁcates and invalidate the residence permits in Turkish passports. For charterﬂight passengers, this stamp means bidding a deﬁnite and irrevocable farewell to Germany. This time, officials stay far away from the event, and the politicians in distant Bonn celebrate the law encouraging immigrant workers to return to their native countries as a demonstration of “our successful policy.” Upon taking office, Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised to halve the number of foreigners living here. A joint federal/state commission, under the direction of Friedrich Zimmermann, was to submit proposals on the topic, but a coalition dispute has prevented the federal interior minister from getting started. Then the administration reached into the drawers of its predecessors and found the draft for a law encouraging immigrant workers to return to their native countries, which—slightly modiﬁed—was adopted on November 29, 1983. “Our assistance accompanies those returning home,” declared Federal Labor Secretary Norbert Blüm at the time. With the window of opportunity restricted to just eight months, the law provided “remigrant incentives” of 10,500 German marks for unemployed or partially employed foreigners. Most importantly, the law offered Turks and Portuguese the opportunity to immediately access the contributions they had made to their pension funds. Shortly before the law’s adoption, headlines declared in the press, “Half want to go home” and “A third want to leave today.” Then in July, after the eight-month mark had passed, officials announced: “Three hundred thousand foreigners left the Federal Republic through the remigrant incentives program.” Today, one year later, it is still unclear how many foreigners have actually taken advantage of the law’s provisions and how many were thus induced to leave. This same conclusion was reached at a recent Friedrich Ebert Foundation conference entitled “The New Immigrant Policy in West Europe.” Unofficially, those in Bonn speak more moderately on the topic.

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Two questions arise: Have the expectations associated with the law been fulﬁlled? And do targeted repatriation measures offer an adequate “solution to the foreigner problem”? First, a deﬁnition: “remigrant incentives” are one among various measures stipulated in the law to encourage immigrant workers to return to their home countries and constitute a one-time payment of 10,500 marks (plus 1,500 marks for every child). Last year’s report that 300,000 foreigners have left this country through “remigrant incentives” was erroneous. Rather, exactly 13,716 foreigners have left, of whom 94.2 percent possessed a special work permit. With this permit, they would have been entitled to extended unemployment beneﬁts if they had chosen to remain in Germany. As a result of their departure, the German Federal Labor Office will save approximately 330 million marks. Bonn also dressed up the balance by including those who left after requesting restitution of their pension funds. Previously, remigrants could always reclaim their pension contributions (instead of drawing a pension in Germany), though only after a two-year waiting period, which was and is still an important buffer. But because Bonn’s success statistics include all repayment claims since the inception of the remigrant law, the recently approved claims of some 30,000 Turks already living in Turkey have also been paid. In contrast to the situation with “remigrant incentives,” far more than Bonn’s early estimate of 55,000 foreigners have ﬁled claims for premature restitution. However, no one knows the exact number, explained Elmar Hönekopp from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research at the Ebert Foundation conference. According to Hönekopp, the institute counted approximately 100,000 applications, some 40,000 fewer than the government alleged a year ago. Because only the employee contributions were reimbursed without interest, the government saved 4 billion marks of otherwise future pension payouts abroad, a sum that is now helping to safeguard German pensions. For Elmar Hönekopp and Ursula Mehrländer, who works in the Research Institute of the Ebert Foundation, these statistical confusions are mere embellishments that raise fundamental concerns about the law’s effectiveness. Encouraging foreign workers to return home may indeed have inﬂuenced their date of return, but it hardly affected the total number of remigrants. Since 1966, an average of 300,000 foreigners have returned to their home countries every year; last year [1983], when the law went into effect, only 55,000 more returned. The reason for the decrease of the foreign population is not this law but rather the drastic drop in the number of foreigners coming to Germany. Due to the various restrictions in the law’s original language, the most crucial of which are its time restrictions and narrowly conceived population groupings, the law was not suited to promote the return of a greater number

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of foreigners. It is logical that a foreign worker who has lived in Germany for 20 years would need some time to consider the government’s proposition. The federal government, however, demanded they decide and leave within four weeks—otherwise there would be “aid” deductions of 1,500 marks for every additional month. The unspoken desire to use this foreigner policy to free up jobs for unemployed Germans was not fulﬁlled. Anyone leaving the country with “remigrant incentives” following bankruptcy or a company closure—and this situation constituted the majority of cases—does not free up a job. And the positions of those who quit and went home on their own were difficult to ﬁll. Whether hired in ﬁsh processing or in the slaughterhouse, the Germans sent by the Employment Office usually threw in the towel shortly after taking the job. To cite another case, German replacement workers were not sufficiently qualiﬁed for the positions at the Howaldtwerke-German Dockyards. The Foreigner Office in Kiel reports that HDW was seeking Turkish welders who, because of their specialization in welding techniques for submarine construction, could not be replaced at such short notice. At the Ruhrkohle AG in Duisburg, the largest employer of Turks, there were shortages as well. When 2,700 Turkish miners left the company, this disadvantaged the German personnel: overtime and lower chances for early retirement. Incidentally, the area between the Rhine and Ruhr basin was the regional center of the remigrant carousel. According to the Institute for Labor’s calculations, most applications for “remigrant incentives” came from the iron, steel, mining, and energy industries. This fact is hardly surprising, because ﬁrms such as Hoesch, Thyssen, Mannesmann, and others used the Bonn model for their operational personnel policies. They supported legal regulations promoting “melting pots” and “assimilation,” which consequently led to staff reduction. IAB calculations prove the connection. In 68.7 percent of all applications, the remigrant award was paid subsequent to company closures; this case held in 98.5 percent of mining applicants and in 96.5 percent of iron and steel applicants. Take Hüttenheim, for example: reporters descended upon the area in droves after 900 Turks were “encouraged to move on” and “sent home with incentives” in one concentrated action by Mannesmann’s executives, the workers’ council, and the Labor Office. It was a serendipitous convergence of the remigrant law and business strategy; the ﬁrm could list the “incentives” and the restitution of pension funds next to the operational severance payments on their corporate reports. The Turkish fathers “became docile by the dozens,” argued workers’ council member Mahler, though he did not mention that the employee advocate and German personnel had intervened.

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When the Mannesmann management excluded only Turks from the early-retirement program, consequently blocking the path to retirement for a number of Turks over 55, the employee advocate put up minimal resistance. Faced with the alternative of leaving the ﬁrm with or without compensation, the Turks ﬁnally signed this “offer to foreign fellow citizens” from Mannesmann and the federal labor minister, consequently ensuring their own untimely departure. Even the Labor Ministry’s secretary of state Vogt had to conclude recently that the return of foreign workers has opened up few jobs for Germans. Most jobs vacated by foreigners—according to Vogt at a press conference—have fallen victim to downsizing. One must ask why Chancellor Helmut Kohl, speaking to the CDU’s employment committees in Saarbrücken, kept attributing the high unemployment rate to the fact that there are “still too many jobs taken by guest workers”—a statement largely unnoticed by the press. An investigation into the political effects of this remigrant law yields four important discoveries: First: The premise of “remigrant incentives” was a structural constraint— namely, the real or imminent loss of one’s job. Second: The law’s temporal restriction was meant to force a decision by foreign employees. Third: The “remigrant incentives” forced the foreign employee and his/her family to leave the Federal Republic permanently, even if resettlement in the home country later proved to be impossible. Fourth: The good publicity the government received for these “incentives” did not acknowledge the premise that restitution claims were based on employees’ own contributions and labor over the years. Instead, the notion prevailed that these payouts were “rewards,” gifts to unemployed foreigners. Consequently, the law also fueled prejudices and violence against foreigners and intensiﬁed the social constraints for foreign families. Felix Rodriguez, a Spanish pastor, paraphrased this dynamic: “When a foreigner’s fear of staying here outweighs his fear of returning home, then he will ‘voluntarily’ go home.” Immigrants’ fear of a future in their home countries is still greater. More than 4 million foreigners continue to live in Germany, and politicians know that targeted remigrant measures, in the best-case scenario, increase the number of those returning home only slightly. As the Ebert Foundation conference tried to demonstrate, programs that encourage foreign employees to return home have primarily symbolic meaning because they lead proponents of tough policies on foreigners to believe in active negotiation. At some point, however, this line of reasoning will exhaust itself and its stopgap character will become evident. Then, three possibilities will remain:

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The ﬁrst would be the intensiﬁcation of the returnee program through large-scale, forced repatriation. Despite current debates about a stricter stance on the foreigner law, this outcome is improbable. International considerations, interstate treaties, and economic factors hardly provide options in this regard. Already, the damage done by the remigrant law is a perennial burden on relations between southern European countries and the Federal Republic. These countries were not consulted prior to the law’s implementation. The second possibility would be to recognize that the indisputable contemporary problems among foreigners will not be resolved by sending some away but must be dealt with here instead. According to Ursula Mehrländer of the Ebert Foundation, recognition of foreigners as “permanent immigrants” or “migrants” must occur. The Hessian government is formulating it more cautiously; Interior Minister Horst Winterstein declared in Parliament, at the request of the CDU/CSU, that “fundamental considerations” precluded the “remigrant incentives” from becoming the cornerstone of their foreigner policy. According to Winterstein, “The children born and brought here will stay here, as they have little or no connection to their parents’ country of origin.” The third possibility is the most probable at present: we continue talking about remigration. We can do so by looking at the “Draft of a Law on Reintegration Aid for Residential Construction for Returning Foreigners,” which the Parliament is still discussing but which is supposed to become law on January 1, 1986. According to the draft, remigrants can create a savings account with a building and loan association in their home country without penalty if they simultaneously commit to going home within four years after the loan disbursement. The haggling over numbers has begun: the law, according to the government, could be used by 185,000 foreign building-and-loan clients (among them 130,000 Turks). The parliamentary speeches are already being written. On the topics of home construction and German-Turkish friendship, Norbert Blüm claimed, “This will last forever and remind all generations that their fathers and grandfathers once worked in Germany. Could this not be a contribution to the friendship between our two countries?” If this policy continues to be promoted, the conﬂicts will continue to intensify. And there is no sign that the trend will be reversing any time soon. 16 FLORIAN SCHNEIDER

THE CARD TRICK First published as “Der Kartentrick” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (February 27, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell.

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In with the Foreigners: Why the Boat Is Suddenly Not So Full Anymore How quickly times change. For over 10 years in this country, everyone from the neo-Nazi to the parents’ group spokeswoman, from Schönhuber to Schily, has been singing the same tune in this country: Germany could not, despite its best intentions, take in any additional immigrants. The boat is full, the pain threshold ﬁnally reached. Those who contradicted this maxim were seen as so-called do-gooders or, worse, as hopelessly delusional. Then the report blew in on Tuesday afternoon that the computer industry’s leading representatives are warning of imminent ruin: if they do not recruit at least 250,000 employees from abroad, their chances in future markets will be dim. Reactions from the unions and the Ministry of Labor ranged from indignation to dismissal, and the chancellor, who clearly seeks yet again to say what everyone wants to hear, pulls the Green Card out of the hat for the “best of the best.” The employers’ goal is to compensate for highly trained workers, who are leaving narrow, globally withdrawn Germany for California, by offering young Eastern European and Middle Eastern specialists comparably favorable conditions and thus the chance of a lifetime. Union functionaries are already scared; they fear that a majority of their members could soon become openly hostile to foreigners. And the federal government is still dodging what has long been overdue: fundamentally questioning the work-permit requirement, in all its forms that contradict national and international law. Herein lies the actual explosive force of the debate on high-tech guest workers: non-German employees, provided that they are not EU citizens or do not have an unrestricted residence permit, need a work authorization or a work permit. The Bureau of Labor grants only temporary permits—if at all—and limits this practice to certain industries, mostly involving what is justiﬁably labeled dirty work. Worse yet, the “work-permit requirement” presumes a job-placement agreement with the Bureau of Labor, which means that the potential employer and his non-German employee commit to supporting the bureau by ﬁnding an employment-seeking German within at least four weeks. Since the oil crisis in the 1970s, there has been a freeze on recruitment of foreign workers. The so-called Exception Guidelines for the Freeze on Recruitment are implemented so restrictively that they allow for few exceptions and in speciﬁc industries only—for example, agriculture or construction—ultimately leading to the familiar side effects of extremely low wages and inhuman working conditions. While the German political party representatives are demonstratively displaying their disgust for right-wing party demagogy and pointing the ﬁnger

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at Austria on election days, politicians and lawmakers from Schily to Stoiber have created a situation in which almost only Germans may work in Germany. Employers in all branches of industry have bemoaned the consequences of this policy behind closed doors for years, especially because the specialized knowledge of many government officials is not nearly as strong as their ideological stubbornness when it appears necessary to protect the fatherland from the tide of foreigners. Personnel managers of large international ﬁrms are often told that German sinology students could in principle be just as successful in conquering the Far Eastern market for mobile-radio networks, for all one really needs is the right linguistic knowledge. Or a video technician who, due to his dark skin and lack of a work permit, must work as a bartender because the authorities, cashing in on popular clichés, clearly do not want to cause trouble. The outcry of the information industry belies a policy that in the past few decades has not only declared the walling off of the German labor market beyond all party lines but has also ﬂagrantly pursued it, despite all enthusiastic insights into the “inevitability of globalization.” Years ago, the French government had to recognize that the biological working hypothesis, according to which the body politic repels everything foreign, led only to its own lasting detriment: young African elites made a grand detour around the colonial motherland. One perhaps more comparable process of recognition appears to be starting in Germany, aside from the notorious attacks. There is an interesting question here: will the result be an ideological dispute among factions, in which hopeful candidates for the German version of Haider may prove their demagogical suitability? Or is this the beginning of a serious discussion about the social and political implications of a new market that ignores nation-state borders? The alignment of employee rights with the market’s unrestricted freedom is at the top of the agenda. After all, the “red-green card” issue could serve as an introduction to Asian conditions in which, for working migrants in highand low-tech sweatshops, the privilege of being shamelessly exploited is coupled with the subsequent pressure to leave the country as quickly as possible after the work is done. The unions have a choice: either they move decisively into the right-wing camp with their ﬁxation on German jobs for Germans, or they join their Italian and French colleagues, for whom even the representation of illegal workers has long been a given, in seeking a critical analysis of non-German workers and the German workforce and developing from that a contemporary conception of internationalism. [. . .]

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17 KARIN STEINBERGER

THE CAMPUS THAT NEVER SLEEPS First published as “Der Campus, der niemals schläft” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (August 1, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. In spring 2000, the North Rhine–Westphalian Bundestag candidate Jürgen Rüttgers campaigned on the slogan “Kinder statt Inder” (“Children, Not Indians”) to counter the German government’s Green Card program. Steinberger’s article reports on the effect of this slogan in Bombay, India.

How enthusiastically young people in Bombay work on the computer—and why the Berlin Green Card government leaves them so indifferent bombay, the end of july [2000]. By the time Ramashish was 18 years old, everything had happened for him already. He had been accepted at the Indian Institute of Technology, and since then, nothing has or will come between him and moving up. Now he is 21, and the world is his oyster. Well, not exactly—yet. Actually, he and several other colleagues possess not much more than an idea. But it might catapult him directly into the Olympus of the computer industry. The room from which the seven young men intend to launch their conquest of the world has scummy walls, wobbly cubicle dividers, and the temperature is more than thirty degrees Celsius. The only things that look in good shape here are the computers. But Ramashish is extremely conﬁdent. In one year at most, he says, his Internet ﬁrm will be a success, even if he cannot exactly divulge what the ﬁrm is going to offer. The idea is priceless, however: the young men have to wait until it is ready before they can tell the press exactly what it is. Would he go to Germany if he were offered a good job? A short silence, then laughter. Ramashish looks as if someone had just made him an indecent proposal. Europe? People might go there for vacation but deﬁnitely not to work. The best of the best of the computer sector are found in America, definitely not in Germany. And now this whole discussion about the Green Cards. He does not understand what it is about exactly, but the feeling of not really being wanted in Germany is omnipresent here. But this hostility is not the only concern: how would he fare with the language, with the food? “We just know too little about Germany, industrially and culturally.” Ramashish leans back, “No, if I had to go anywhere, I’d go to the USA.” And then, in a tone that allows for no further questions, he says, “But man, we’re in the hot spot right here.” 200,000 Applicants Whoever makes it to this hot spot ﬁrst has to go through the “mineﬁeld,” as they call this boulevard blanketed with bird droppings. Thousands of crows inhabit the trees just behind the main door to the Indian Institute of Tech-

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nology in Bombay. Here they make the race to the world of elites into a dirty business. But what is a little bit of bird droppings compared to what applicants must go through to get into this campus? The acceptance exam at the six IITs—in Delhi, Kharagpur, Chennai, Kampur, or Guwahati, along with Bombay—is one of the most difficult in Asia. Even to participate in test preparation, one must already have passed one exam. For up to three years, the applicants ready themselves for the test, and each year only 2,500 out of 200,000 are accepted. “The Chosen,” they call themselves, who have succeeded. The Selected. The IIT perceives itself as a “production center for the brightest minds in the land,” as a producer of “leadership material.” So says IIT Director Ashok Misra, and this is exactly what everyone here has internalized. On the 220hectare campus 30 miles outside of Bombay, an “atmosphere of intellectual agitation” prevails, as the magazine Outlook described it. What counts here is intelligence, talent, and leadership qualities. Learning from the heart is frowned upon. And one’s best friend is one’s worst competitor. [. . .] “Whatever the IIT graduates in Silicon Valley can do, the students here can do as well,” says [Deppak] Phatak. For him, it’s an issue of giving students the conﬁdence to feel that they don’t need to go to America in order to achieve something. Too many, he says, have gone, stayed, and never come back. That is the good thing about the “Children, Not Indians” [“Kinder statt Inder”] slogans in Germany: “with Germany, we don’t have to worry that our elite is going to disappear there.” [. . .] Two ﬂoors below Director Phatak’s office, there is a crowd in front of the job-placement office. The ﬁrms Veritas, Tata Consulting Service, and Cisco Systems have their application tests there. In the office itself, ﬁrms have hung up posters with prophecies from the beautiful new dot-com world, messages like “Step into the cyber era,” “The world is smaller, the market is bigger,” “You too can be a part of an unbelievable success story,” or “We offer a career, not just a job.” Texas Instruments, Amazon.com, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, McKinsey—large employers are ﬁghting over the next generation here. “These ﬁrms buy the brains of the IIT students; they know that these people are the ones who can learn anything,” says Ashok Misra. But he cannot remember a German ﬁrm ever having done on-campus recruiting. It is astounding: didn’t Germany want to drum up some Indians with its August 1 initiative? “It seems that Germany should put more effort into presenting itself in a positive way,” says Misra. IIT students are used to people ﬁghting over them: “Our students know what they are worth. World-class ﬁrms pay to become the ﬁrst to come and recruit them.” Almost all have a job even before they have ﬁnished their studies. Or they have their own ﬁrm. In the IIT, time ﬂows only in one direction: what counts is the future. And in that sense, everything is possible for these students and for this country. [. . .] “Everyone here in IIT knows that he will have a great career, why should

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we not be optimistic?” says Ramashish. “But we want to use our knowledge in our own society. Why go to Germany?” “We are far too motivated to work less,” say Ramashish and his friend in the computer room.

18 BERND HOF

SCENARIOS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LABOR-FORCE POTENTIAL IN GERMANY First published as “Szenarien zur Entwicklung des Arbeitskräftepotenzials in Deutschland” in Politik und Zeitgeschichte (August 2001). Translated by Tes Howell. Since 1973, Hof has been project manager at the Institute for German Economics in Cologne, researching structural change in the German and European labor markets. In 2001, he was appointed professor of empirical economic research at the International School of Management in Dortmund.

I. Preliminary Remarks There is an established tradition in Germany of predicting the future development of employment potential. The ﬁrst wave of potential scenarios came in the second half of the 1970s, when all the notable economic-research institutes were addressing the challenge of several high-birthrate years, which drastically increased the labor force in the years between 1977 and 1987. At the time, they predicted that weak economic growth would lead to intolerably high unemployment rates and that the number of unemployed would climb to 2 million or 3 million in the 1980s. The media broadcast horror stories, and most did not want to believe that something like this could really happen. We have known for some time that high unemployment did occur in the course of the 1980s and that in the former West German states, unemployment numbers actually exceeded 3 million, even though this did not take place until 1997. [. . .] V. Migration: From the Guest Worker to the New Citizen Foreign migration has shaped the population as well as the job market since the early 1960s. One thing is clear: without immigration, the population ﬁgures in the Federal Republic would already have been declining by 1972. Had there been no immigration in the past 30 years, only 54.7 million people would now be living in the former West German states—fewer than in 1960. Germany would not only be economically poorer but culturally [poorer] as well. The updated result of a previously published retroactive projection shows that, regardless of how the immigration history in the Federal Republic of Germany is conﬁgured, the gap (which until 1999 had grown to 12.2 million people) between both population curves with and without migration reveals

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the deep divide between the population’s actual experiences and political declarations to the effect that Germany is not an official immigration country. The Federal Republic is undoubtedly experienced in immigration. But it must abandon the old guest-worker concept based on the principle of rotation and clearly and decisively adopt the concept of the “new citizen” with concrete opportunities for permanent residency. This change in orientation is urgently needed, for the migration numbers of the past will eventually overstrain every institutionalized integration plan promoting linguistic, academic, educational, and technical development. If Germany wants to elevate integration to an actual agenda, and at this point there really is no alternative, the turnstile at the borders must be replaced by transparently monitored entrance doors. Here one can learn from classic immigration countries. Comparing the migration totals in Germany to those of the United States or Canada clearly demonstrates this necessity. In the 1970s and 1980s, for every 80 people leaving Germany, there were only 100 immigrants arriving. In this sense, Germany was a pit stop on the way to other countries. The circumstances marginally improved in the 1990s. The situation in the United States was different: for every 100 immigrants entering the country annually, only between 22 and 26 left. These ratios apply to Canada as well. The application of ratios to the migration totals in Germany is possible with the statistical measure of so-called migration efficiency, which correlates the migration balance with the migration volumes. For Germany in the 1990s, this approach would have meant that in order to reach an actual migration balance totaling 1.9 million people, only 2.4 million immigrants would have been necessary, not 7.3 million. This former ﬁgure is based on the situation of immigration countries that provide concrete opportunities for permanent residency. Such would also be a model for Germany. For when one inserts an annual long-term migration balance of 300,000 people into the computation scenarios for Germany, a net increase of 385,000 migrants results based on the North American migration efficiency, as opposed to 1.2 million according to previous trends in Germany. Every integration plan would necessarily fail in the latter case, due to high costs as well as social-acceptance problems. The Canadian experience after the introduction of an immigration law in the late 1970s proves that migration movements are alterable in this sense. The ratio of emigrants to immigrants has also noticeably improved, from 56 out of 100 to 22 out of 100.

Potential Effects of Immigration and a High Birthrate If future computations are meant to be more than just numbers, then an increase in the resident population is necessary; the following four insights support this claim:

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. . . .

In a society with a steadily declining and subsequently aging population, the structure of relations changes. This pattern affects the solidarity between young and old as well as social-support systems. The assimilating society accentuates the rules of social coexistence and expects them to be externally transparent. This action provides clarity for immigrants. The assimilating society is aware that immigration can trigger anxieties within its native population. Continuous immigration places greater demands on the capacity of the individual to allow for difference. This situation requires tolerance.

Consequent to these insights, the prediction focuses on institutionalized integration, primarily in the educational system. Migrants will eventually become new citizens. Looking toward the job market, the computation is based on the elements of active guidance in consideration of the labor market. Immigration of exclusively unqualiﬁed workers remains a risky strategy for Germany. Underlying this claim is the presupposition that global controls—in tandem with an immigration policy commensurate with middle-term job-market demands and a longterm perspective—will lead to a successful immigration program. Starting from the higher migration efficiencies, an annual increase of 192,000 people until 2010 yields the previously mentioned totals, an increase of 256,000 until 2020, and after that, 385,000 people per year, based on the expected labor shortage. [. . .] In combination with an increasing employment capacity, the following results can be deduced from the aforementioned phases:

In phase 1, the labor pool will rise to 41.6 million people until 2010 as a result of migration and increasing employment capacity. This number is 1 million more than in the year 2000. Without migration, the level of this employment variant would have been 40.4 million in 2010. This estimate makes clear that the labor pool is less likely to relieve the job market in the coming decade. Under these conditions, a job-market improvement would have to come from the demand side via a continuously dynamic employment trend. After 2010, the decline of the labor pool can no longer be intercepted by means of migration; therefore, the job-market result will beneﬁt in phase 2. In these 20 years, migration will slow the process of national negative growth by 4.8 million people. This development will provide a baseline of 35.8 million workers in 2030—only 5.3 million fewer than in 2010. In phase 3, the labor pool will shrink to 32.5 million people despite migration. If a boost in the birthrate were to prevail, stabilization at 35.4 million workers would be possible in phase 3.

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This perspective would mean a decisive advantage for Germany. Compared with the status quo, the path to the knowledge society would be eased by a young labor force, as the comparison of current age structures with those of the year 2050 demonstrate. Migration and an increase in the birthrate considerably strengthen the secondary growth and midlevel positions for the available personnel resources. Increasing labor participation, in contrast, intensiﬁes the aging trend.

Conclusion The double dimension of this demographic change—a noticeable decline and progressive aging of the labor force—jeopardizes conditions in Germany. Migration directly counteracts both of these unpreventable tendencies. The potential effects of a rise in the birthrate will bear out only in time. [. . .] The notion that migrants should continue to come to Germany may appear misguided in light of increasing social burdens. In the long term, Germany must address this problem conceptually. Otherwise, new disappointment could soon set in—similar to the one that followed Adenauer’s attempt to console the forward-thinking social-policy makers in the late 1950s: “People always have children.”

19 MARC BROST

CARTE BLANCHE IN GREEN First published as “Freikarte in Grün” in Die Zeit (March 30, 2002). Translated by David Gramling.

The Green Card is a success. It attracts labor power that cannot be found among the domestic unemployed. It is 467 kilometers from Bratislava to Munich—or 51,000 euros. This amount is how much Ondrej Kelle earns as a programmer in the Bavarian capital; the 31-year-old Slovakian came to Germany for the job in August 2000. Ondrej came with a Green Card, just as 2,138 other foreign immigrants in Munich have done. He was the ﬁrst. For about two years previously, his employer had been looking for an IT specialist who was as proﬁcient with Microsoft Windows programming as with the Internet and who could develop interfaces between the two worlds for the ﬁrm-speciﬁc editing system. “About 50 or 100 people worldwide can do what he does,” says Armin Hopp, a director of digital publishing and Ondrej’s boss. They found him over the Internet, where a colleague from Munich had become acquainted with the Slovakian. Just at that moment, the federal government closed the deal on the new Green Card, the special work and residence permit for computer specialists from outside the EU. Then

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everything went quite fast. “Within 24 hours, I had my visa,” says Ondrej Kelle. “I was able to begin working the next day.” His employer produces software for people who want to learn foreign languages at home, and since Kelle has been there, the programmers have been improving their language skills as well. English is spoken at work.

German Job Seekers in the Lurch More than 11,000 foreign immigrants have moved to Germany with a Green Card since August 2000—more than expected. Most come from Eastern Europe. Lately, however, few Green Cards are being distributed. The demand for foreign specialists among employers has decidedly “cooled off,” says Jürgen Rohrmeier, a member of the administration at the personnel consulting ﬁrm Kienbaum Executive Consultants. The crisis of the New Economy has fully gripped the labor market: there are only a few new jobs; in fact, positions are now being cut. High-tech ﬁrms that were looking hopefully into the future only a year ago have long since pulled in the reins. Even immigrants with Green Cards have not been shielded from the crisis. In Munich, for example, every tenth foreign computer specialist has changed jobs. Now newspapers are reporting that more and more Green Card holders are unemployed. This kind of reporting galvanizes those who are critical of immigration for foreign IT experts. Why, they ask, do we continue to recruit immigrants if they are just going to be unemployed? And why don’t we just take domestic workers who are looking for jobs anyway? Erich Blume hears such questions often. When he gives answers, he quickly talks himself into a rage. “There is no such thing as high unemployment among Green Card holders,” says the chief of the Labor Bureau in disgust. “Whoever makes these claims is intentionally making false claims.” Throughout the country, about 1 percent of the immigrant IT specialists are out of work. “After two to four weeks, most have found a new position,” says Blume. If anyone is being hired during the crises, it is the highly trained specialists who are getting a free job—Green Card computer specialists, for example. They are always ready to start anew in another part of the republic; they are working far away from home no matter what. Computer specialists are modern nomads: they offer their knowledge where they are needed, and they move on when there is a better job somewhere else—or a better-paid one. “I came because of the job, not because of Germany,” says Ondrej Kelle. That statement sounds egotistical, but others also proﬁt from this fact nonetheless. Across the country, every Green Card holder has created 2.5 new jobs at his workplace, says Labor Bureau Chief Blume, because employers can then expand. The question remains, why could this strategy not work with domestic

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labor? Some 20,000 German computer experts are still looking for a job, says the Federal Union of Employer’s Associations. Yet these experts are not the ones who are currently needed. Behind the concept “IT specialist,” as it is understood in the Labor Bureau and as it is used in official statistics, any number of factors linked to the market in the broadest sense are obscured. There are experts for complex calculation devices and cellular-telephone programmers, specialists for machines, and specialists for the software. Only the last are needed, however. And there is also the age of the unemployed to be considered. Seventy percent of computer experts in the proper sense who were seeking a job in Munich in March 2000 were older than 55. The numbers are similar throughout the country. The problem for the older people is not their age but the qualiﬁcations that relate to it. The unemployed over 55 are often programmers of the older type: “highly qualiﬁed people who do not, however, have the qualiﬁcations that employers currently are seeking,” says Blume. The software market is, after all, growing at a raging pace.

Many More Hurdles for Foreigners [. . .] Ondrej Kelle has been a professional programmer for 10 years now and threw away his university study to do so. The Slovakian knows that there is not much time for him to earn a lot of money. Soon his abilities will be obsolete as well. “Of course, here and there, a Green Card holder returns frustrated to his homeland,” says consultant Rohrmeier. The language barriers might have been too great; the conceptions among employers and computer experts were too different. Of every 10 immigrant specialists, 6 work in businesses with fewer than 100 workers. “The Green Card is good but not good enough,” says Jürgen Rohrmeier. Because spouses of immigrants must wait a year before they are allowed to work, integration is difficult for them. Because the various bureaucracies often do not work well together, it takes “days and weeks before the necessary documents are correct,” says Rohrmeier, which was not the case with Kelle and the Munich Labor Bureau. And therein lies the arbitrary issue in the eyes of many employers: because Kelle has no university diploma, he must earn at least 51,000 euros, according to the Green Card statute. If he had a diploma, the employer could pay him less. The federal government wants to avoid such “dumping salaries” and the recruitment of underqualiﬁed immigrants. But if Kelle had had more university knowledge and less practical programming experience, digital publishing would never have been attractive to the Slovakian. “The regulations make the workers whom we urgently need more expensive,” says Director Hopp. “That is a joke.”

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20 F O T I N I M A V R O M AT I

ODYSSEY INTO THE PROMISED LAND First published as “Odyssee ins gelobte Land” in Freitag (March 4, 2005). Translated by David Gramling.

In a factory in Tangier, women are shelling East Friesian prawns that will then be packed into a cattle trailer and driven back to Europe—for extremely low wages. Many of the young men hanging around the cafés and plazas of the old city are planning their departure to Europe. The black Africans among them already have a long journey behind them. In buses, hitchhiking, and on foot, they crossed the Sahara, ﬁghting their way through to Tangier, the marketplace of refugees. Here, bands of smugglers, called “brokers,” await them, offering passage from Gibraltar to Spain over the strait. This heavily trafficked sea route is about 14 kilometers at its most narrow spot; it divides the ﬁrst from the third world. The risky crossing in a dinghy can cost up to $1,500 (U.S.). Those who can afford it also pay 250 dollars for a life vest. Those who choose to undertake the illegal journey to Europe must have succeeded in an already grim and prospectless struggle—with the goal of securing a piece of the middle-class cake. Europe is tempting. Those who want into the promised land must try to enter without a visa or a work permit. These unwelcome foreigners must ﬁrst set foot in a Schengen country like Italy. Then the rich Central European countries are within attainable reach. The Schengen agreement guarantees that the citizens of its member states may cross its internal borders without passport checks. And Schengen Europe reaches from Helsinki down to the Algarve. Still, this Europe of free mobility has armed itself with highly fortiﬁed borders and rigid laws against unauthorized entry. Patrol boats and infrared monitors are prepared to spot illicit border crossers, and biometrical data is collected from all new citizens outside the EU, in accordance with the new Italian immigration law. No revenue is spared for developing an ever more perfect border control or a new technical monitoring device. In the meantime, the negative headlines about rusted-out boats with more than 800 refugees on board that land somewhere on the Mediterranean have receded from view. This trend has to do partially with the winter weather. Illegal migration has come back into the debate because of the new dispute about visas. As has always been the case, most immigrants come by land routes. A great portion of “illegals” even come over the borders with legal papers and stay long beyond their prescribed residence allowance. The visa debate overshadows the more important question: whether we need immigration. Demographers, businesses, and the Red-Green federal government are answering this question with a tentative yes, in view of the declining birthrate in Germany. The CDU, however, sees the integration of

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the foreigners living here as the priority and laments the looming specter of parallel societies and shadow economies in which criminals and terrorists can thrive. The German Immigration Act does not address those who are already living here illegally. Experts calculate that there are approximately a million people living in Germany without residence permits. They are not welcome but are necessary. They work without social security and health insurance for rock-bottom wages on construction sites, in the restaurant industry, or in the domestic sphere. In the current debates about travel visas, the prejudicial notion is being advanced that illegal immigrants would take away jobs from federal citizens. A study by the Research Center of Berlin [Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin], however, considers this generalizing assumption of a “danger to domestic wages and employment arising through illegal migration.” The European need for (often seasonal) labor power in the minimum-wage sphere is extensive, and EU states count on illegals to deliver on the economic market. Whoever buys Spanish tomatoes at a decent price is proﬁting from the shadow economy. Yet illegal laborers are beyond public control. No state can tolerate this situation in the long run. In countries like Spain, Greece, and Italy, there are consequently ever-new offers for legalization. A pan-European immigration law with a humane set of regulations is nowhere in sight. When the weather warms up again soon, many people will once again undertake the lifethreatening Mediterranean crossing.

2 OUR SOCIALIST FRIENDS FOREIGNERS IN EAST GERMANY

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

S O L I DA R I T Y A N D P R O G R E SS , 1980. East German general secretary Erich Honecker and

Mozambican president Samora Machel sign a labor recruitment treaty beneath the watchful eyes of Lenin, who wrote in 1913: “Dire poverty alone compels people to abandon their native land, and the capitalists exploit immigrant workers in the most shameless manner. But only reactionaries can close their eyes to the progressive signiﬁcance of this modern migration of nations.”

HE DIVISION OF GERMANY into two states in 1949 was a major catalyst for the guest-worker programs of the 1950s, both in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. In West Germany during the “Economic Miracle” years, the labor shortage was most acute in the regions bordering on the East, where militarization and political uncertainty had scattered thousands of families into the interior of the Allied zones. Meanwhile, East Germany was losing millions of its citizens to the West, and it continued to suffer crippling labor droughts even 10 years after the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961. This second chapter tracks the recruitment and representation of foreigners in the German Democratic Republic, from the Korean War to the postreuniﬁcation period of the 1990s. The documents included here illustrate the mutual inﬂuence that the two estranged German states exerted on each other’s immigration policies and intercultural imagination over four decades. The GDR’s ﬁrst contract workers arrived from Poland in 1963. Each month, East Germany had been losing between 10,000 and 20,000 of its most able-bodied residents to the West’s open-door policy, until the “antifascist border wall” was constructed on August 13, 1961. Sluggish birthrates and the long-term effects of mass exodus over the zone borders left East Germany with a dearth of unskilled workers. In 1967, Hungary agreed to send 13,000 workers, and additional contingents followed from Algeria (1974), Cuba (1975 and 1978), and Mozambique (1980). Once these laborers had settled in collective housing in the GDR, their primary contact with the domestic population occurred through conversations with their overseers, also known as “cultural liaisons,” and with the few Germans who would speak with them in the workplace. The immigration policies of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), East Germany’s sole political party from 1946 to 1989, is important to European migration history for two reasons. First, the SED’s platform on internationalist solidarity sought to distinguish the East’s “socialist friends” from capitalist West Germany’s guest workers. Since the GDR’s ﬁrst ceremonial embrace of North Korean orphan children in 1954, the party had framed its immigration policy in terms of a visionary struggle against the “American aggressor” and its West German accomplices. Even GDR citizens critical of their government’s policies perceived the Turkish or Greek laborer in West Germany

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as a spectral icon of capitalist exploitation. The SED’s widely heralded magnanimity toward war refugees served as a potent—though unveriﬁable— symbol of East Germany’s commitment to human rights and the Geneva Convention. Quite a few Western journalists in the 1970s who were critical of West Germany’s treatment of its foreign recruits decried the ostensible disparity between nationalist expropriation in the West and internationalist cooperation in the East. See, for example, the ﬁrst West German piece in this chapter, “In the GDR, They’re Called Friends,” from 1973. The ﬁrst prominent image of the guest worker in the West was that of a midtwenties, single, able-bodied man or woman. Only in the 1970s would the West German public face the uncertain fate of the “guest-worker child” in the host country. In contrast, the ﬁrst public images of non-Soviet foreigners in the East were of war-ravaged children and adolescents. The press hailed the residence halls that housed refugees, children, and contract workers—at a functional distance from any GDR citizens—as state-of-the-art “colonies” with all the amenities necessary for a thriving collective. Even the most skeptical East German reader was likely to picture the foreign guests as a privileged delegation rather than as an isolated and malleable labor force. East Germany’s ﬁrst publicized reports on its foreigner residents exalted the newly arrived guests for their patriotic bond to their homeland, their courageous gesture of faith in the new socialist German state, and their conﬁdence in the GDR’s unique capacity to provide less-developed socialist societies with expert medical care, technical training, and ﬁnancial subsidy. By documenting the encounters between East Germans and their North Korean, North Vietnamese, Mozambican, and Cuban visitors, the GDR press could showcase its role as an industrial leader and global “outpost of peace” for the future of socialism. Most of these early reports were written and distributed by the General German News Service (ADN), a state bureau founded in 1946, which distributed around 90,000 stories annually to local and regional newspapers throughout the German Democratic Republic. In the early 1970s, the GDR press began to report on the thousands of Vietnamese “apprentices” who were granted three-year rotations in East German technical-training institutes. The laborers, though seldom visible in public life, were depicted in print as ambassadors. Some reports even indicated that newly arrived workers could sing the GDR anthem in German, as a gesture of spontaneous praise for their hosts. Native GDR residents were encouraged to take an active role in the international solidarity movement. Free German Federation of Trade Unions members paid a compulsory donation each month to the GDR Solidarity Fund, which then ﬁnanced development projects around the socialist world. This prescribed national devotion to solidarity enabled the SED to issue regular disavowals of racism and xenophobia in its social policies, and East German dictionaries deﬁned ethnic discrimination as an epiphenomenon of the capitalist distribution of

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labor. Yet hostility toward Poles and Hungarians grew throughout the 1970s, after some Warsaw Pact countries began to relax their rules for tourist transit. Suddenly, East Germans in cities and border regions found themselves in the constant company of Polish consumers, who bought high-proﬁle East German products and took these purchases back to Poland. In 1980s West Germany, many public intellectuals like Hans Schueler faulted the East German government for increasing hostility toward asylum seekers and other migrants in the West. Schueler, in his 1986 piece “Panic Is the Wrong Answer,” charged the GDR airline Interﬂug with running a trafﬁcking operation that ﬂew political refugees from Iran, Nigeria, Libya, and other states to East Berlin for a fee and then released them into the West by way of Berlin’s Schönefeld sluice. The daily spectacle of these GDR-recruited refugees’ arrival in West Berlin cast widespread doubt on the West German constitution’s magnanimous asylum provisions. East Germany’s traffic in foreigners thus helped assure the passage of the restrictive 1993 amendment to West Germany’s article 16, which had previously guaranteed asylum to all politically persecuted persons since 1949. Since the collapse of the GDR state in 1990, the SED’s 40 years of immigration policy have continued to cast a long shadow on the postuniﬁcation period. Sixty thousand Vietnamese, 52,000 Polish, 15,000 Mozambican, and 8,000 Cuban “socialist friends” were living in the GDR at Reuniﬁcation. After 1990, they faced deportation, premature discontinuation of their residence permits, bureaucratic chaos, and more openly sanctioned and violent xenophobia than they had seen in the GDR. By 1989, approximately 100,000 nonSoviet contract workers were living in the GDR: Angolans, Mozambicans, Cubans, North Vietnamese, and Chinese. Many were on their second or third “tours” of employment, had established themselves in the GDR, and had no plans to return voluntarily to their countries of origin. By 1992, however, four-ﬁfths of these workers had left Germany because of severe unemployment, discrimination in the workplace, and xenophobic violence. The East’s remaining Vietnamese were often eager to take lowpaying or illegal jobs as bricklayers, seamstresses, factory workers, and cigarette vendors. Nonetheless, with national unemployment at a 60-year high, foreigners were promptly viliﬁed for taking jobs away from both eastern locals and western settlers. By 1993, many native eastern Germans realized that reuniﬁcation would not bring them the burgeoning economic landscape they expected, and they began to view foreigners as provocateurs from renegade socialist states. The last three articles in this chapter—Robert von Lucius’s 1994 “Nostalgia Despite Unfulﬁlled Promises,” Mark Siemons’s 1995 “Smuggling Discerned—Fingers Burned,” and Dennis Kuck’s 2001 “Those Foreign Socialist Brothers”—describe the hurdles and dangers that foreign workers faced in the East after 1989.

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1 WARM WELCOME FOR 200 KOREAN CHILDREN First published as “Herzliches Willkommen für 200 koreanische Kinder” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (March 2, 1955). Translated by David Gramling.

This Sunday, in the small community of Moritzburg, 200 Korean children were welcomed into their new home at the Käthe Kollwitz Residence Hall, just outside the city of Dresden on the Elbe River, after making a three-week journey through the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The guests made their way into the residence through a long column of local youth holding torches. They were surrounded on all sides by the sounds and sights of a heartfelt welcome. By the bright light of a peace ﬁre and hundreds of torches, the population of Moritzburg made a commitment to support the Korean people now more than ever in their heroic ﬁght for freedom and independence, and to not relent in the struggle against American imperialism. A delegation of boys and girls from the Greek colony in DresdenRadebeul, youth who have been living and learning in the German Democratic Republic for two years now, offered the Korean pioneers a sincere welcome. The Korean children conquered the hearts of the Moritzburg inhabitants when, at the end of the ceremony, they sang the ﬁrst stanza of the national hymn of the German Democratic Republic in German. Then, with happy eyes, the children, now thousands of kilometers from their homeland, which has been laid to waste by American interference, moved into the Käthe Kollwitz Residence. Its complex of twelve buildings right next to the well-known Moritzburg surge tank forms a living colony in its own right. The four residence buildings for the Korean children bear the names of Ernst Thälmann, Georgi Dimitroff, Rosa Luxemburg, and Karl Liebknecht. The complex also boasts a school building with eight classrooms, including music rooms, pedagogical materials, and teachers’ rooms, as well as a library and a gymnasium. An inﬁrmary, conference rooms, and showers have been installed in the administration building. Kurt Geister will look after the nutritional well-being of the guests, whose ages range from 12 to 16 years. Geister has been a sailor for ﬁfteen years and has visited Korea. Successful taste tests among Korean students who are studying at the University of Leipzig have proven that he understands his craft and knows the “secrets” to preparing Korea’s traditional rice dishes. [. . .]

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2 VIETNAMESE CHILDREN ACCEPTED INTO THE GDR First published as “Vietnamesische Kinder in der DDR eingetroffen” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (September 22, 1955). Translated by David Gramling.

frankfurt (oder). On Thursday, the minister of people’s education for the GDR, Fritz Lange, greeted 149 Vietnamese girls and boys aged 9 to 14, who will attend school in Moritzburg near Dresden and learn a trade. Cries and cheers of friendship accompanied the arrival of the special German Imperial Railway train that had picked up the Vietnamese children in Brest. Since August 25, the children have been on a long journey through Vietnam, the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and People’s Poland. At the festively decorated train platform, the state ﬂags of Vietnam and the GDR encountered one another, as did banners in German and Vietnamese and pictures of Ho Chi Minh, Woroschilov, and Wilhelm Piecks. With loud jubilation, Frankfurt’s Thälmann Pioneers [youth group] received the little black-haired girls and boys in their blue dresses and suits. Waving gaily, the visitors disembarked the train and ran toward their German friends. The pioneers offered them dolls and bouquets of ﬂowers as a sign of solidarity between peoples. Clutching the small gifts, the Vietnamese boys and girls sang a song from their homeland in honor of their German friends. Then the Minister for People’s Education of the GDR, Fritz Lange, spoke and greeted his little guests in the warmest manner possible. “The long journey has shown you how large the world’s Outpost of Peace is. As you enter the German Democratic Republic, you will ﬁnd many friends of your people. We know that many of you have lost fathers and mothers. We promise to care for you like mothers and fathers.” He expressed certainty that the Vietnamese children will learn just as successfully as the young Greeks and Koreans, who have been in the GDR for a long time already. The leader of the Vietnamese Youth Pioneers offered friendly greetings on behalf of his fatherland to the president of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck. “During the construction of our homeland, we have received much support from the German people. Our children will learn here and then after a few years return to Vietnam. This will be a great help to us.”

3 VIETNAM’S CHILDREN GAVE THANKS FOR THE PRESENTS FROM THEIR GERMAN FRIENDS First published as “Vietnams Kinder dankten für Geschenke ihrer deutschen Freunde” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst ( January 24, 1958). Translated by David Gramling.

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A delegation from children’s Radio GDR has returned from Hanoi. berlin. The staff of Radio GDR brought back warm greetings from tens of thousands of children from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the boys and girls of the German Democratic Republic. The Children’s Radio staff returned from Vietnam in a special German Lufthansa airplane to Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport. [. . .] In the presence of the Vietnamese consuls and businesspeople in the GDR, Nguyen Song Tung told the radio staff about the warm and friendly reception they received in Vietnam. Some 1,500 children had gathered to greet them at Hanoi’s airﬁeld. The radio staffers met with Vietnamese children in all parts of the country and learned that the boys and girls of this faraway country are highly interested in and curious about the lives of the GDR’s youth. The high point of their visit was a reception with President Ho Chi Minh.

4 SEVENTEEN WOUNDED CUBANS RECEIVED FOR REHABILITATION IN THE GDR First published as “17 kubanische Verwundete zur Genesung in der DDR eingetroffen” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (March 15, 1963). Translated by David Gramling.

berlin. Seventeen young Cubans who took part in the battle at Playa Giron were received at the GDR’s tarmacs on Thursday for a period of rehabilitation and rest. After a short stay in the airport hotel in Berlin-Schnabel, eleven made the journey to the Kirchmoeser Hospital on Friday, while the other six will be treated at the Berlin Charité hospital. The group is here at the invitation of the Committee for Solidarity with the Cuban People of the GDR’s National Front Council. This group is already the third group to enter the GDR at the invitation of the Committee for Rehabilitation. The eleven patients in Kirchmoeser have lost arms and legs in battle and will learn, under expert tutelage, how they can assist in the reconstruction of their socialist homeland, equipped with prosthetics and the best technologies available. The six Cubans at the Charité Hospital will be cured of the wounds they received during heavy assaults. All members of the group are full of conﬁdence, despite the serious wounds they sustained as young people, and want to spend their rehabilitation time learning as much as possible. With the excited corroboration of his comrades, Captain Victor M. Sotomayor said, “We are so happy and grateful to be in the GDR. We will regain our health here in this socialist brother country. In the GDR, socialist development is already so advanced. We are only at the beginning, and there is so much for us to learn.” Captain Juan Rodriguez Infante added, “The most important thing, the thing that we are

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all ﬁghting for, is peace. Peace for the GDR, peace for Cuba, peace for the whole world.” One of the ﬁrst questions the Cuban friends asked after their arrival was: what are the best opportunities for learning German? All seventeen are abroad for the ﬁrst time in their lives; they were most impressed by the snow covering the Berlin airﬁeld upon their arrival. 5 LY T H U O N G K I E T

REPORT ON THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT IN THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN SUPPORT OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE First published as “Bericht über die Solidaritätsbewegung in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik zur Unterstüzung des kämpfenden vietnamesischen Volkes” by the Vietnam Committee for the Solidarity of Afro-Asian Peoples (April 1966). Translated by David Gramling.

Every adult citizen of the German Democratic Republic is personally committed to active solidarity with Vietnam. The members of the socialist Pioneer Association “Ernst Thälmann”—comprised of children from 6 to 14 years old—and other boys and girls in elementary and secondary schools have done innumerable good deeds in the solidarity movement with Vietnam. Ten thousand protest resolutions against the dirty American war and against the West German government’s participation in the United States’ crimes in Vietnam, as well as solidarity declarations in support of the righteous struggle of the Vietnamese people, carry the signatures of some 8 million citizens. Workers’ collectives, youth brigades, research associations, students and professors, residence communes, and members of all classes have sent protest letters to U.S. President Johnson. Every day, print media, radio, and television bring forth new expressions and opinions from the population as well as examples of active solidarity. In thousands of assemblies, demonstrations, matinees, and speak-outs large and small, the entire population of the GDR has expressed its steadfast and true solidarity with Vietnam’s struggles. [. . .] Factory employees, workers in agricultural production cooperatives, and artisans in various labor sectors have committed to high production levels and excellent quality in order to create more economic and political opportunities for the German Democratic Republic by way of an exemplary fulﬁllment of the people’s economic plan, with the goal of strengthening their solidarity with Vietnam and galvanizing its own position in the antiimperialist struggle. [. . .] The backbone of the solidarity movement in the GDR is the working class. This fact becomes clear when one considers that every month, 80 percent of all union members pay a special solidarity fee along with their membership

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contributions in an expression of loyalty to proletarian internationalism and to the principles of anti-imperialistic peoples’ solidarity. Since the founding of the Vietnam Committee and the beginning of its active propaganda efforts for solidarity with Vietnam, these contributions have increased steadily. In recent months, many millions of marks from the unions have gone into increasing material assistance for the struggling country. 6 PETER BETHGE

WHAT STATUS DO FOREIGN WORKERS HAVE HERE? First published as “Welchen Stand haben ausländische Arbeiter bei uns?” in Junge Welt (September 28, 1972). Reprinted in Anderssein gab es nicht: Ausländer und Minderheiten in der DDR, Marianne KrügerPortratz, ed. (Münster: Waxmann, 1991), 206. Translated by Tes Howell.

Question: “In order to successfully realize our people’s economic goals, we are currently relying on young workers from the People’s Republic of Poland. Is their role comparable to the guest workers in Western European countries?” asks Dieter Uhlig from Eisenhüttenstadt. Answer: There are certain concepts, dear Dieter, that are inextricably linked to capitalism. Among them are exploitation, proﬁt, and, yes, the guest worker. This deceptive concept denotes those countless Moroccans, Italians, Greeks, and Turks who resort to working and living in the Western European industrial strongholds because there is no work for them in their homelands. They play an outsider’s role in capitalist society. They are forced to sell their labor power wherever the monopolies hope to gain the highest proﬁt margins. The guest workers in Western European countries have little governmental or trade-union protection. They are forced to sell their labor power on the cheap, and their earnings lie far below those of other workers. They are thus all the more dependent. If they resist the directives of their capitalist employers, they are often ﬁred without notice and deported to their homelands. Their positions can be ﬁlled immediately by other “guest workers.” In addition to the exploitation of their labor power, foreigners in many places face deeply entrenched mistrust, nationalism, and chauvinism. Italians, for example, must endure daily insults such as “dago” or “macaroni muncher.” They are not served in many restaurants and often must use separate bathrooms. Even in churches, the biblical phrase “all are equal under God” has no meaning. Separate refrains are reserved for foreigners. The monopoly press discriminates against them. They are the slaves of the twentieth century. Meanwhile, when I think about the role of our Polish and Hungarian friends, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a Polish brigade leader

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in a Frankfurt (Oder) semiconductor factory. She characterized the work of her collective as “socialist teamwork for a common goal.” Indeed, our friends help us carry out our economic tasks, while simultaneously increasing the overall strength of socialism. Many of them enjoy careers as highly qualiﬁed skilled laborers in our factories. In every respect, they are true partners from a socialist neighboring country—for example, Poland, where the population has grown more quickly than industry in the past few decades. Our Polish and Hungarian friends are respected citizens within our socialist society. More than a few of them proudly display the activist badge. Brigades of our Polish friends are distinguished with the honorary title “Collective for Socialist Labor.” At the same time, many have used their temporary work here as technical preparation for an eventual return to their homeland, where they will work in factories that specialists from Poland and the GDR have established for common production and common use. [. . .] 7 APPRENTICE TRAINING WORKSHOPS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM: MORE VIETNAMESE INTERNS COME TO THE GDR First published as “Lehrlingsausbildungsstätte für die DRV—weitere vietnamesische Praktikanten in der DDR” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (February 28, 1973). Translated by David Gramling.

An apprentice workshop for skilled metalworkers, ﬁnanced through the GDR population’s solidarity donations, will begin instruction near the Vietnamese capital this year. This project was a stipulation of the 1973 GDRVietnam agreement, and was supported by 4 million marks from the Vietnam Committee. It is the ﬁrst apprenticeship workshop of its kind to train skilled workers for the construction of their socialist brother country. Soon 540 students will be enrolled in three-year cycles to learn the ropes as locksmiths, lathe operators, molding cutters, blacksmiths, toolmakers, mechanics, and foundry workers. If there is enough room on the premises for more students, the number of apprenticeships will be increased. Currently, Vietnamese laborers are preparing for this new task. Many of them have been trained in the GDR as engineering pedagogues. Eight GDR specialists, master teachers, engineering pedagogues, and qualiﬁed engineers will assist and advise their Vietnamese colleagues on-site regarding the administration, planning, and implementation of the training course. Training assistance for the brother people will also continue in the factories of the republic. In the past year, 2,700 Vietnamese interns in more than 60 GDR factories became technicians, specialized engineers, and skilled workers in a variety of ﬁelds. [. . .]

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8 MARLIES MENGE

IN THE GDR, THEY’RE CALLED FRIENDS First published as “In der DDR heissen sie Freunde” in Die Zeit (August 18, 1973). Translated by David Gramling.

The guest-worker problem is not only an issue for the Federal Republic but for other countries as well They are named Marika, Ilona, and Mariena, and they are from Györ, Szombathely, and Budapest. They are 3 of the 140 Hungarian women and 40 Hungarian men who, for the past year or so, have been assembling transistors in the GDR city of Neuhaus at the collectively owned metal factory. Guest workers in the “Economic Miracle country” of the GDR. One must, however, not label them that way. According to East German newspapers, they are “foreign friends.” Last year, in the GDR magazine Wirtschaft, Jozsef Rozsa, a high-ranking administrator of the Labor Ministry of the People’s Republic of Hungary, asked, “What is the fundamental difference between the guest-worker system in capitalist countries and organized labor-power cooperation in socialist countries?” He got a quick and ready answer: “The difference is essentially that in capitalism the underdevelopment of various countries necessitates labor migration. In socialist countries, there is no such pressure. These countries—Hungary, for example—can guarantee employment for all citizens of working age. Socialist governments seek out opportunities for international cooperation so that certain workers may acquire further training in their ﬁeld and supplementary experience in dealing with modern technology. Furthermore, coming to a new country lets workers learn a new language and learn about life in another socialist partner country.” The actual number of foreign workers in the GDR is unknown. Hungary and the GDR signed an agreement in 1967 in which the Hungarian government declared its willingness to send 13,000 workers to the GDR—the ﬁrst large contingent of foreign assistance. In an interview with the New York Times at the end of last year, Erich Honecker said that 13,000 Hungarians and 12,000 Poles are working in the GDR. Some experts believe that there are far more. Smaller groups have come from Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. These people are not merely supposed to acquire greater knowledge of their profession, the German language, the country, and its people; they are expected to put their labor power at the disposal of the GDR. The population of the GDR is, after all, aging faster than its birthrate is growing. Furthermore, the country is not growing as quickly as an aspiring industrial nation ought to. Another problem is that the GDR’s workers are very competent and are constantly improving their qualiﬁcations; thus, few are willing to perform unskilled labor. It is thus no coincidence that many of the working guests are

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employed in service industries as cooks and waiters, maids and sales clerks. Most, however, work in factories and obtain continuous training there. Of course, these guest workers are not coming to their socialist brother country only for professional development and the beautiful German language. When GDR television recently asked young Hungarian workers what their motivation was for working in the GDR, many mentioned the opportunity to learn German; yet the German money they are earning seemed to be the greater priority. Seventy-ﬁve percent of them earn a gross monthly salary of 500 marks, and 23.7 percent of the Hungarians are earning more than 700 marks. One young Hungarian proudly announced, “With my ﬁrst words of German and my second pay raise, I bought a motorcycle.” Foreigners working in the GDR are between 18 and 25 years old, and their contracts last two to three years. They enjoy parity with their German counterparts in salary and social beneﬁts. To the extent that they can take part in professional development, they can learn a new career in the GDR. Skilled specialists can supplement their knowledge. They may work in the Socialist Brigades (Work Competition Groups) and earn the title of a Young Activist. [. . .]

Poles on the Prowl for Girls When Poland’s Party Chief Gierek visited Honecker in June, he also met with Polish workers from East Berlin factories. His expectations were conﬁrmed: “We feel at home here. The work makes us happy, and we get along well with our colleagues from the GDR.” The declaration that he and Honecker wrote together stated, “We attach particular meaning to the contracts between the youth of both countries, who embody the future of socialism in the German Democratic Republic and the People’s Republic of Poland. They will devote great attention to the education of youth in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and the brotherly relations of the socialist community.” In private, GDR citizens often complain about their Polish friends. The mean-spirited call them “Polacks:” “they’re always showing up in big groups, taking away our girls, and then beating us up!” After dance parties, street ﬁghts often break out between Germans and Poles. “And then our police prefer to help the Poles, not us,” reports one young East German man bitterly. If GDR journalists ever admit to tensions between Poles and Germans, they blame them on the Germans; they, and only they, have made a vow to socialist brotherhood. For example, a reporter from the student magazine Forum drove to the VEB Factory Black Pump, where some 500 Poles work. He reported on collective sports events, archery tournaments, youth dance parties, and activity days, but these common engagements have their limits. “Although the friends spend most of their free time together, none of the Poles were allowed to ride the motorcycles that belong to the Society for Sport and

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Technology. They might drink their beer together, but at home there is still a German and a Polish entrance.” Since January 1 of last year, the animosity between Germans and Poles has intensiﬁed. On that day, visa-free transit between the GDR and its neighboring socialist states was introduced. Polish workers in the GDR suddenly had to answer for something that was entirely out of their hands: In 1972 alone, 12 million of their countrymen visited the GDR and bought out the department stores. East Berliners read in the Berliner Zeitung that the departmentstore manager of the Polish border city Zary complained “Every month, GDR tourists alone buy 50 carpets, not to mention the many parkas and leather jackets.” This complaint must have sounded to them like derisive mockery, just as when another Pole in the Berliner Zeitung complained that a GDR tourist snatched up the last batch of asparagus and the last jar of chanterelles from under his nose. Polish women have been coming by the busload to the Centrum Department Store at East Berlin’s Alexanderplatz to buy anything they can get their hands on, and it was reported that the Polish women who did not get what they were looking for yelled “Nazi pigs” at the clerks. Despite this hostility, there are nonetheless examples of amicable relations between Germans and Poles. GDR girls appear to hold Polish men in rather high esteem, much to the consternation of their male countrymen. Three Polish commuters, Marian, Attek, and Johann, who travel daily to work in the GDR town of Weisswasser, learned ﬁve German words right off the bat: ﬁrst, “work,” “assembly,” “food”; then “classy” and “immaculate,” which referred to their new GDR friends Inge, Andrea, and Jacqueline. [. . .] In Frankfurt (Oder) last year, 23 GDR citizens got engaged to 23 Polish women. The (Ost-)Berliner Zeitung admits, “Of course not every ﬂirt leads to marriage. Old prejudices born out of centuries of cultivated enmity between Germans and Poles cannot be so quickly pushed aside.” Time and again, one is reminded of the past. When a young Pole makes his GDR girlfriend into a mother without marrying her, the GDR population calls it “the revenge for Warsaw.” “Why must we always atone for the crimes of our fathers and grandfathers?” asks one young man from East Berlin, whose family was ruined in this way. “It is ﬁne that people always remind us we and the Poles are socialist brothers. That’s just ﬁne, but if everyone is going to continue talking about brotherhood, then we would ask them to kindly deal with us like brothers someday as well.”

9 SERVICE PROTOCOL ON THE RESIDENCE OF NONCITIZENS IN THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC First published in German as “Protokoll No. 041/77” by the Minister of the Interior and Chief of the German People’s Police on December 20, 1976. Translated by David Gramling.

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Permanent residence may be withheld from persons who: 1. Let it be known that they oppose the socialist societal order of the GDR or can be expected not to integrate into the socialistic life of the GDR; 2. Are considered as having a criminal record according to the laws of the GDR or who have been prosecuted abroad for a crime that would be considered an indictable offense in the GDR, or those for whom the character of their felony demonstrates they cannot be integrated into the societal life of the GDR; 3. Do not carry identifying documents on their person, or are in possession of invalid or falsiﬁed documents and the identity of the person cannot be determined in short order; 4. Are mentally disturbed, incurably ill, or are so ill that the convalescence process requires a longer period of time than can reasonably be accepted, or are drug addicted; 5. Knowingly make false statements in order to obtain residence in the GDR; 6. Live in ambiguous familial relations; 7. Are, on account of their age or other reasons, incapable of working or are in need of supervision and have no close relatives in the GDR, or whose family members in the GDR have denied them assistance and supervision; 8. Are clearly to be seen as asocial elements, and integration into societal relations is not to be expected; 9. Have left behind large ﬁnancial responsibilities and personal debts and are hoping to evade these by taking up residence in the GDR, or are suspected of seeking residence for personal gain; 10. Are not in possession of work papers or have had no orderly employment in the past due to their own actions, and will most likely not change their attitude toward work once in the GDR; 11. For whom a permanent residence does not appear to be in the interest of state and society; 12. When considerations of foreign affairs appear to compel such action. 10 UNION MEMBERS FROM THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM RECOVER IN THE GDR First published as “SRV-Gewerkschafter erholen sich in der DDR” by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (August 11, 1977). Translated by David Gramling.

A Proof of Solidarity: Donations from the Free German Association of Unions berlin. On Thursday, 30 more unionists from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam were received in the GDR. At the invitation of the Free German Associ-

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ation of Unions, they will rest and recover for several weeks at the rehabilitation center at Graal-Moritz. Thereafter, they will become acquainted with the union operations of the host country during a period of study at Magdeburg. This group of Vietnamese guests, which includes guest workers from factories and agricultural institutions in the north and south of Vietnam, are a subset of the 190 unionists who have been able to spend a rehabilitation period and vacation in the republic during 1977. The ﬁrst such group of 20 unionists was greeted in the GDR in 1968. By the end of 1976, the number had grown to 500. Many of the guests still suffer from war wounds so severe that a hospital stay is often necessary. Others who have been wounded in war receive arm or leg prostheses, therapeutic massages and baths, and are seen by ophthalmologists or other medical specialists. Doctors, nurses, and countless other staff in the rehabilitation centers are constantly making an effort to improve the health of the Vietnamese unionists, so they can dedicate their energies to peaceful development in their country. Nguyen Minh, the leader of a group that recently returned to its home country, represented the sentiments of the many recovering 18- to 20-yearolds in the following words: “Everywhere we stayed—whether in factories, schools, or during rehabilitation—we felt the steadfast and honest friendship of the people of the GDR with the working class and the entire people of Vietnam. We would like to express our thanks for the heartfelt solidarity that the citizens of the socialist state offered us, not only in the struggle against U.S. aggression but also in the socialist construction of our fatherland.” 11 KURT SEIBT

SOLIDARITY: AN IMPORTANT FORCE IN THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE First published as “Solidarität—wichtige Kraft im Befreiungskampf” in the East German Neue Deutsche Presse (August 19, 1979). Translated by David Gramling. Seibt (b. 1908, Berlin) served as the president of the Solidarity Committee of the German Democratic Republic during the late 1970s. For his international solidarity efforts, he received the Star of Friendship between Peoples (Stern der Völkerfreundschaft) from the East German government in 1978.

In a few weeks, our people will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the republic. Thirty years of the GDR also means 30 years of active anti-imperialist solidarity—solidarity with all peoples ﬁghting for freedom and justice, human rights, and human dignity. The journalists of our republic have made a meaningful contribution to the solidarity concerns and negotiations in the GDR, including journalists who are active in the mass media. Their activities in the print media, radio, and television bring the freedom struggles of various peoples into living

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rooms everywhere and arouse pride in the triumphs of our class brothers, as well as pain and anger about tyranny, repression, and imperialistic barbarism. Out of their engagement grows empathy, willingness, and deeds of assistance and solidarity. At its March convention, the Presidium of the Solidarity Committee of the GDR expressed its special thanks to our country’s journalists for their indefatigable efforts on issues of solidarity. We are grateful for more than just the half million marks that the Alliance of GDR Journalists has contributed to the Solidarity Fund. Our thanks go out most of all to the thousands of journalists in newspapers, radio, and television who facilitate the power of party expression that ﬂows into the hearts and minds of readers, listeners, and spectators. Some examples are the programs Voices of the GDR and Freedom to Peace, or the decade-long work of the NBI [New Berlin Illustrated newspaper] under the motto “Peace to the Children,” or the annual solidarity action on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz for the People’s Republic of Vietnam, an event in which all of the capital’s editorial staffs took part. In the 30 years of our republic’s existence, the working class and the people of our country have beneﬁted from active international solidarity. When the imperialistic states, mobilized by reactionary circles and the Bonn State’s reinvigorated imperialism, sought to isolate us and undermine the socialist state’s equal-opportunity participation in international life, they failed to defeat this active international solidarity and the conscious position of the citizens of the GDR. Our people exercised and continue to exercise solidarity, as long as there are politically, socially, colonially, or racially oppressed people, as long as there is hunger and need in our world. Such is the declared policy of our party and our state, anchored in the party program and in the constitution. It is a profound necessity among the entire population of the GDR, beginning with the Young Pioneers with their regular secondhand goods drives and solidarity bazaars, all the way to the retirees, who do not hesitate to contribute their energies to broader solidarity work. About 20 million marks were donated to the Solidarity Fund last year. Without exception, all levels within our society took part in this donation campaign. [. . .] Thanks to the internationalist position of the employable worker, the Solidarity Committee of the GDR was able to deliver urgently needed humanitarian aid to the severely afflicted Vietnamese brother people. The campaign “Hands Off Vietnam,” which was born literally hours after the criminal invasion of the high-powered Chinese chauvinists, mobilized various efforts and special solidarity alliances with Vietnamese class comrades. The Free German Association of Unions gave an additional 50 million marks, and all broad-base mass organizations offered additional solidarity donations in the millions. Tens of thousands of citizens donated blood, and tens of thousands of youth declared their willingness to stand by their Vietnamese brothers as

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volunteers in the struggle against aggression. Our government also made an additional 172 million–mark donation so that the ﬁrst deliveries of medications, plasma, blankets, and foodstuffs could reach those most severely affected. It is obvious that our attention must be focused on those among our brother peoples who are under the most duress: Vietnam, Laos, and the people of Kampuchea, who have just recently been liberated at long last. But we are in no way neglecting our inherent responsibility for the struggling people of the African continent. Our solidarity support is also geared toward the people of Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, as well as the People’s Republic of Yemen, whose independence from imperialist intrigues is constantly threatened. Neither do we want to forget the struggling peoples of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, to whom we have committed considerable support in the form of medical supplies, vitamins and other nourishment, primarily for the many refugee camps. [. . .] Our solidarity assistance also reaches the Palestinian Liberation Organization and other patriotic forces in the Near East, with whom we join in condemning the Camp David Separation Agreement. [. . .]

12 SIEGFRIED MANN

HOW DO FOREIGN WORKERS LIVE IN THE GDR? First published as “Wie leben ausländische Arbeiter in der DDR?” in the East German newspaper Die Wahrheit (April 22, 1985). Reprinted in Anderssein gab es nicht: Ausländer und Minderheiten in der DDR, Marianne Krüger-Portratz, ed. (Münster: Waxmann, 1991), 207. Translated by Tes Howell.

Welcome Guests—Not Low-Paid Guest Workers She is pretty, friendly, and smart, the delicate Diep from Vietnam, who has worked for three years with 100 Vietnamese compatriots in the Berlin lightbulb factory, the main branch of the state-owned conglomerate NARVA [a subsidiary of the lightbulb company Osram]. A further 180 Vietnamese youth study and work in other branches of the conglomerate, in TambachDietharz, Brand-Erbisdorf, and Oberweissbach. Diep works in Berlin as a translator; she studied Germanistik, or German philology, in Hanoi and learned English during a previous stay at a GDR university. She is proud of her good grade on the ﬁnal examination. Accompanying her in this conversation were 28-year-old Duong, 27-year-old Nhuan, and 24-year-old Tram. They are all guests in the GDR, but are they “guest workers” like in the West? Why are they here? What are their work and living conditions? These questions are important, and the answers revealed serious differences. First, some introductory information: The young Vietnamese will be at

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the conglomerate NARVA for four years under the December 4, 1977, government accord between the GDR and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. They must ﬁrst complete a German language course, then a semiskilledlabor apprenticeship. The third step is a skilled-labor apprenticeship, which occurs on a voluntary basis and was undertaken by more than 50 percent of the Vietnamese girls, women, and men here in the lightbulb factory. The speciﬁc job titles are electric installer and metallurgist for rolling-mill technologies (skilled labor) and installer for illuminants and cable (semiskilled labor). Duong, who qualiﬁed to be a metallurgist for rolling-mill technologies, explains the purpose of his stay in the GDR: “We are here to acquire as much modern, scientiﬁc knowledge as possible so that we can apply it later in the development of our homeland.” He describes the management’s heartfelt reception at the airport three years ago and how all his compatriots received help in overcoming the ﬁrst pangs of homesickness. The petite Tram, who will become an electric installer, continues, “In the beginning, we had difficulties with the food, the climate, and the German language. But everyone made such an effort to help us. They provided meals with rice in the cafeteria because we could not get used to potatoes, and we cook in the residence hall where we live comfortably in double-occupancy rooms. The rent is 30 marks a month, including heat, hot water, and electricity.” Nhuan, on his way to becoming a skilled laborer in rolling-mill technology like his friend Duong, reports that all his compatriots work together in brigades with German colleagues. “We participate in meetings and are informed on all questions important to us. Representatives from our group are also included in the monthly meeting with the conglomerate’s general manager.” The Vietnamese colleagues have a labor-union official who is an equal member of the factory’s union board. Nhuan reasons, “We are informed on all measures. Whoever is not in the know has only himself to blame. There are no differences between our German colleagues and us. This also applies to health care. Sometimes we even have priority at the clinic.” And what is the pay like? Their pay is comparable to the salary rate and performance quotas of their German colleagues. This parity also applies to the year-end bonus. The shop committee recognizes the industriousness and considerable dexterity of the Vietnamese workers. For this reason, the Vietnamese sometimes earn more than their German colleagues, based on performance. Tram, Diep, Duong, and Nhuan: “We are always trying to save money and help our families as much as possible. This is part of our mentality.” So much for the work. What does their free time look like? Our interviewees report that they also receive support in this area and have many diverse opportunities at hand. For example, they can go on outings together

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with their German work colleagues. Diep says, “We will soon know the entire GDR!” They have a soccer team and have even won ﬁrst place in a competition with other factory teams. They have a choral group, which is very popular. They enjoy talking with the young Vietnamese in the schools, where they discuss the struggles and lives of their people. When asked how they see their future, Nhuan speaks for all: “We are building socialism in our homeland. And for this we need a workforce. Industrial ﬁrms are being established throughout our country, but Vietnam is still known to be antiquated and agricultural. When we return to our homeland, we will be placed where the industry needs us. And we believe that this assignment will correspond to our wishes.” It is clear, even from this one discussion, that there can be no comparison between guest workers’ living conditions in West Berlin and those of foreign workers in the GDR. The primary goal here is a concrete form of solidarity and a well-paid workforce that will increase proﬁts. It is not mere lip service when Duong says: “We are working here in a brother country. We feel at home, working and learning here for our homeland.” What moves these young people today? What do they feel? The happiness drains from Diep’s pretty face as she explains: “We have all experienced war. Especially in the north, where we lived. The battles were horrendous. Almost all the cities and bridges were destroyed. We saw with our own eyes as the American bombs fell. Being children, we only wanted to live with our parents. But this desire was not fulﬁlled. From age four to six, I had to live away from my parents out in the country. Sometimes they could only visit me once a month. I want to say that whoever has experienced war yearns for freedom. War is the worst for the children.” 13 HANS SCHUELER

PANIC IS THE WRONG ANSWER First published as “Panik ist die falsche Antwort” in Die Zeit ( July 25, 1986). Translated by David Gramling.

The asylum ﬂood does not mean that a basic right must be sacriﬁced germany, summer 1986. A divided country gets ugly. And it’s difficult to say if the Communist dictatorship in the East or the free democracy in the West contributes more to the darkening of Germany’s image. At East Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport, the GDR airline Interﬂug lands with masses of human cargo from the Third World’s lands of misery—now mostly young Iranians seeking to escape recruitment for the ayatollah’s war against Iraq, Ghanaians and Nigerians hoping for a better future in the golden West, and Indians.

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The GDR surely has nothing more in mind for its numerous passengers than to deport them to West Berlin. They’ll be carted off to the Friedrichstrasse train station in buses and loaded onto the streetcars, which will bring them nonstop and beyond their control over the sector border into the west of the city. Over here, however, the foreigner bureaus in Berlin and Helmstedt do not know what to do with the hundreds of new arrivals. In West Berlin, radicalright skinheads have been ﬁghting with the police, who were ordered to provide protection for the foreigners. Sending them back to the GDR is not a possibility. Everywhere, respectable citizens are astir; fear of foreign inﬁltration is growing, and our political spectrum’s middle-right is once again making a formidable racket about the Asylum Article of the Basic Law.

Enterprise of the Persecuted The Workers and Farmers State is systematically managing an enterprise for refugees ﬂeeing poverty and persecution at the expense of the Federal Republic. In 1980—the year with the strongest stream of refugees in recent memory—10,000 out of 108,000 asylum seekers came over the West Berlin border. Five years later, more than half of the 74,000 applicants entered in this way. In the ﬁrst half of 1986, 42,268 refugees have traveled into our country. Of those, 53.9 percent used the Schönefeld sluice. In Ghana and Nigeria, Interﬂug is recruiting with brochures for “fast and smooth transit” to West Berlin. A cynicism more wicked is hardly imaginable. A regime that locks up its own population until retirement age and does not think twice about it is now pretending to provide the persecuted of other dictatorships (not to mention renommée communists) asylum in their own country but then pumps suffering people by the thousands into the “capitalist” neighboring country, while simultaneously barricading its exits with walls, mines, and barbed wire. The federal government must bring about a change in the current practice. Because Bonn does not exercise sovereignty in West Berlin, this issue must be put to the Americans, British, and French. The federal government can underscore their decisiveness by denying the GDR any economic relief and preferential treatment that is not based on contractual stipulation. How are the powers that be reacting in our country? They respond with bureaucratic panic and thinly dissembled propaganda against a new “asylum ﬂash ﬂood,” which—as was said six years ago—could burst all the dams. We should, however, be wary—not just of the exploitation of the Basic Law but also of assaults upon it. First, the facts: about 600,000 refugees are currently living with us, according to the federal minister of the interior. However, this number is questionable. Nevertheless, 200,000 have come from the East Bloc, and they cannot be deported. About 100,000 are asylum seekers whose admission

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proceedings have not yet concluded. Approximately 60,000 are people whose asylum applications were declined but who are still permitted to live in the country, partially for humanitarian reasons. This number constitutes 70 percent of those declined. Asylum has been granted to only 63,000. Are we unable to cope with this amount? Given these circumstances, the reaction of the coalition politicians is more than astounding. They do not concern themselves with arresting the human smugglers from the GDR or with enforcing legal regulations. They settle for restriction itself: headlines are calling for the abolition of the basic right to asylum. Even just a few weeks ago in top-level talks chaired by the chancellor, the Bonn Coalition parties agreed to not undertake “any change in the basic right to asylum but rather to strengthen the practical measures for the abridgement of the asylum procedure.” New disincentives will be provided: a prohibition on gainful employment for all asylum seekers during the entire duration of the recognition procedure, streamlining the legal pathways for rejecting applications that were developed to ensure equal dispensation of justice, and immediate rejection of asylum seekers who have previously resided in an EC state (or Switzerland, Austria, or Norway) for more than three months. One would think that seeking recourse to disincentives already provided in the existing law would suffice. The Law of Asylum Procedure grants the Federal Bureau for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees and its deputies the opportunity to hear the cases of asylum seekers immediately upon their arrival, if they so desire. A person who says he suffered from hunger at home or that civil war overtook his land or that he did not want to be forced into military service against Iraq might be immediately rejected and deported. In such a case, there remains a legal defense only against the immediate execution of the deportation notiﬁcation. In contrast to other asylum procedures, the courts may rule on these cases within a few days. For a long time, applicants have availed themselves of this approach taken in fewer than 10 percent of the cases in West Berlin. Asylum seekers with clearly groundless applications could certainly not be sent back into East Berlin, but they could be ﬂown back to Istanbul, Tehran, or Delhi—whether by way of Tegel or an airport in the Federal Republic—if necessary at the expense of the GDR, which brought them to us. Instead, the chancellor’s ministers and the minister presidents from federal states governed by the CDU and CSU are almost unanimous in demanding the repeal of article 16 of the German federal constitution, which states, “The politically persecuted enjoy the right to asylum.”

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Dangerous Legal Plans At the beginning of the week, these appeals from the right were still unclear. They seemed to be suggesting that a clarifying sentence be added to article 16, which would read “The full particulars regulate the law.” Then Franz Josef Strauss ﬁnally stated openly what would be in this law:

. . . .

In the future, the guarantee of a lawful claim to asylum for all people who are politically persecuted in their homeland will apply only to those persecuted people from the East Bloc countries and Afghanistan—since they are occupied by the Soviet Union. The federal government will be empowered to establish quotas for refugees according to their country of origin. The guarantee of due process will fall away, as it will not apply to measures concerning foreigners seeking asylum. Controls will be bolstered at the Berlin sector borders (Strauss does not see Berlin’s status as sovereign enough to forgo this measure).

The momentousness of these plans must be understood. According to Strauss’s theses, only people from leftist dictatorships would have the right to asylum. White opponents of apartheid or even blacks from South Africa, who will certainly come to Europe in the next few years ﬂeeing the Buren regime, would ﬁnd no mercy under the new regulations. There are already “quota refugees” here in the Federal Republic. They are the boat people, some 30,000 Vietnamese rescued from the Chinese Sea, whose accommodation the minister presidents of the federal states already battled over back at the beginning of the 1980s. They are often economic refugees; they have no real asylum status and need it as little as the Poles, Czechs, and other refugees from the East Bloc. Yet Federal Minister of the Interior Friedrich Zimmermann industriously counts them into his statistics, as well as the surviving 40,000 forced laborers recruited by the Nazis during the Second World War. The refugee contingents of the future shall be held separate from the truly politically persecuted, who come to us from the “wrong” region and with the “wrong” skin color. For them, the consequences will be like those of the German Jews who, until the beginning of the Second World War, knocked on Switzerland’s door and were turned away with a cool gesture and a declaration that, unfortunately, the contingent for immigrants of Jewish belief or Jewish race had already been exhausted. The claim that the Federal Republic is overﬂowing with asylum seekers runs contrary to the facts. Among the 4.7 million foreigners who live in our midst, political refugees are still a small minority. They will also stay a minority if agencies and courts make consistent use of the Law of Asylum Pro-

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cedure. Efforts toward improvement must be focused there, rather than on the guarantee within the Basic Law, which promises a home in the Federal Republic to truly politically persecuted people.

14 AGREEMENT ON THE PROCEDURES CONCERNING PREGNANCY AMONG VIETNAMESE WOMEN LABORERS IN THE GDR Reprinted as “Vereinbarung” in Anderssein gab es nicht: Ausländer und Minderheiten in der DDR, Marianne Krüger-Portratz, ed. (Münster: Waxmann, 1991), 204–205. Translated by Tes Howell. This memorandum of understanding was drafted to reaffirm and clarify aspects of a bilateral 1980 state treaty, particularly issues surrounding pregnancy among Vietnamese contract workers in the GDR. It was signed on January 26, 1987, by the two states’ ministers of labor.

The common goal of the Labor Cooperation documented in these pages is as follows: Vietnamese workers are employed and trained in GDR ﬁrms for a speciﬁc time frame. The concomitant obligations place heavy demands on both sides as well as on the Vietnamese workers themselves. Pregnancy and motherhood change the personal situation of the affected female workers so profoundly that they are subsequently no longer able to realize the demands of temporary employment and training. The representatives of the operational ﬁrms as well as the work group leaders are responsible for discussing the use of prophylactics with Vietnamese workers and informing them that pregnancy and motherhood are incompatible with the terms of their contract. Vietnamese women—like women in the GDR—have the right (in accordance with the agreement between the ministers of health in both countries) to terminate their pregnancies cost-free. Vietnamese women who do not avail themselves of contraception or abortion must report at a predetermined time for their premature return to Vietnam, upon being cleared by a doctor to travel. In the case of a refusal to leave the country, the embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the GDR will take immediate, necessary steps toward the execution of the deportation order and will be responsible for all costs incurred in the process. In special circumstances, when the personal, social situation of the Vietnamese woman in question justiﬁes a delivery in the GDR, the permanent secretary for labor and wages of the GDR, in consultation with the embassy of the SRV in the GDR, can approve the prolonged residence of mother and child until both are able to travel. The Vietnamese government will inform new delegations of the provisions of this agreement and will notify the women in these delegations of the prerequisites to their employment.

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15 JUST GO TO ISRAEL First printed as “Geht doch nach Israel” in Der Spiegel (October 1, 1990). Translated by David Gramling.

Forty-ﬁve years after the end of the Holocaust, thousands of Soviet Jews are pushing their way into exile in Germany—but the federal government and states do not want to take them in. The Central Council of Jews considers this ban on entry “uncompassionate,” yet individual spokespersons from Jewish congregations express “understanding” for Bonn’s position. The setting is macabre. In the former Nazi Propaganda Ministry, of all places, some 60 Russian Jews have gathered, excited and afraid, in front of a small office: the East Berlin Advice Office for Jewish Immigrants from the Soviet Union. It’s time for office hours. Karina, 36, is among them—a German teacher from Moscow. She is in luck. After waiting an hour, she ﬁnally catches the director of the help desk as he is slipping out the back door. Now she can tell him her story. At the beginning of July, she read in the Moscow newspapers that the GDR government would offer refuge to all Soviet Jews “on humanitarian grounds.” Two weeks later, with her computer-engineer husband and two sons, she arrived in Berlin. Now, she says in an excited voice, “I am so grateful to the Germans.” The past few years in Moscow have been “horrible.” Their 14-year-old son, Nikolai, would return from school in tears daily because his schoolmates would constantly write “Jew” in chalk on his back. All at once, the family gave up its livelihood and property. The GDR, Karina reports, had accepted them openly, but now “we need help again,” she says to the director of the Berlin help desk. Their parents also want to come, but they do not know how, when, and if they still can. “October 3rd,” she explains with a worried expression, “is the German reuniﬁcation.” Matthias Jahr, 39, the director of the help desk, can hardly help her. The provisions for Soviet Jews will be guaranteed only as long as the GDR exists. Jahr does not even know if his help desk will still exist on the day after the German Reuniﬁcation. The Bonn federal government is responsible for this uncertainty. At the beginning of September, it advised all West and East German consular officials in the Soviet Union that the “acceptance applications” for Jewish citizens “will no longer be processed.” The reason for the ban on entry is that the Foreign Ministry recently experienced an “explosive increase in emigration inquiries” among Soviet Jews. The German General Consulate in Kiev alone had been processing “almost 10,000 applications.” Only after “the establishment of an acceptance

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quota” by the federation and the states will the entry applications be approved, declares Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. This reaction is almost as inconceivable as its cause; 45 years after the end of the Holocaust, a large number of Jews want to settle in Germany—and Bonn is putting up barriers. The GDR commissioner of foreigner affairs, Almuth Berger, has protested in vain against the “scandalous ban on entry.” Heinz Galinski, the chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, calls the decision “uncompassionate.” Bonn’s behavior has very little to do with a lack of compassion, maintains the Christian Democrat Schäuble. “The pent-up desires among Jewish people,” who have long sought to emigrate from the Soviet Union, are now ﬁnding “new options.” It is not just the liberal emigration praxis of the Gorbachev era that is driving Jews out of the country but a pernicious anti-Semitism as well. Insults and violence in broad daylight—not to mention unabashed anti-Jewish elements in the media—are among the darker aspects of perestroika. The fascist Pamjat movement is at the political forefront of this antiSemitic campaign. It calls forth a hatred of Jews that is deeply rooted in Russian history. Nonetheless, the ruling Soviet bureaucracy is tolerating the activities of the Pamjat agitators; once again, Judaism has become the scapegoat. This new anti-Semitism, says the Moscow author Jurij Ginsburg, blames Jews for “Bolshevism and its consequences, for mass hunger and for the contamination of nature.” The fall of the “state of many peoples” has also contributed to an increase in anti-Semitism. “In order to protect the Soviet empire,” explains the author Andrej Sinjawski, a “powerful militant Russian nationalism is developing and is turning against Jews.” Of the 2 million Jews living in the Soviet Union at the beginning of this year, more than 100,000 had emigrated to Israel by August. The small state has been overburdened by this mass inﬂux. Impoverished Israelis are already calling on Gorbachev: “Don’t let the Jews move.” Israel is apparently “taking more people in than is actually possible,” says Mikhail Boguslawski, 35, who left Czernowitz for East Berlin two months ago. This situation is one of the reasons he emigrated to Germany—a country that, for him, is just like any other. “Our generation,” Boguslawski says in justiﬁcation of his decision, “has conﬁdence in Germany again.” [. . .] 16 ROBERT VON LUCIUS

NOSTALGIA DESPITE UNFULFILLED PROMISES First published as “Nostalgie trotz unerfüllter Versprechen” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (August 30, 1994). Translated by Tes Howell.

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Bonn is No Longer Interested in German-Speaking Mozambicans maputo, mozambique. He has the GDR to thank for what he is today. Germany is his second home, reports Samuel da Graça Chioco. But, as with many tens of thousands of other German-speaking Mozambicans, Bonn no longer wants to hear anything of him and ignores the potential that nostalgia and language skills would give him. Though difficult and expensive German language courses are offered in other countries, there are no opportunities for contact and cohesion among the Mozambicans returning from the GDR; they represent a high percentage of the elite. They do not even have access to German-language ﬁlms, although they have repeatedly reported that they would be interested in obtaining some. Why not? “We don’t have a projector,” explains the German embassy, and there is also no room for showing the ﬁlms. There would also be economic beneﬁts to such outreach. Samuel, for example, who trained in Chemnitz as a textile engineer, now works for a printing ﬁrm. Because of his language skills and connections, he imports printers exclusively from Heidelberg for a new print shop in Beira, to the beneﬁt of German exporters. Anyone who meets the young entrepreneurs of today, those who are driving the reconstruction of an economy that was destroyed by a long civil war, frequently encounters German speakers. Those who were allowed to leave Mozambique were lucky, says Samuel. They received training and a stable life in the eastern part of Germany; moreover, they escaped being drafted into the army. Nearly every ﬁfth or sixth person in this small elite community has the GDR to thank for his training. The Germans had “a good culture: work,” Sam smirks. Mozambicans who had worked in the GDR were “different.” The son of an attorney, Samuel came to Magdeburg for the ﬁrst time at age 17, but he spoke only Portuguese and a little English. He learned German quickly because, at that time, Germans, Mozambicans, and Namibians shared rooms at the School of Friendship. In the six years of his training he never traveled home and learned little about the West. When he made a West German friend in Berlin and applied for a visitor’s pass to the FRG, he encountered difficulties. The GDR ultimately sent him home. Samuel likes Germany and was sad not to have been there for the reuniﬁcation, an event that brought him great joy nonetheless. In Maputo, he has little access to a German-speaking community, although he would gladly participate if he did. There were two distinct groups among the approximately 50,000 young Mozambicans who worked in the GDR between 1979 and 1991: one group earned money; the other completed job training. Anyone who came before 1988 belonged to the lucky cohort that obtained solid vocational training. Then, amid vague promises, these trained workers were sent to places that were short-staffed—in the auto industry in Eisenach and Nordhausen, for in-

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stance. Their experiences after returning were a lesson in the importance of training. Those in the group of regresados, the returnees, who came home with consumer goods that were often stolen on the way or were useless in Mozambique, were seen as show-offs and quickly became outcasts; the others came without money but found jobs and social prestige. Roberto Julião was among this latter group. He became a radiator technician in the GDR. Why, he does not know, for radiators are not particularly necessary in warm Mozambique, but he did not have a say in his training. Now he is working at the concierge desk for a large hotel in Maputo because of his language skills and experience abroad. Roberto’s brother is married in Magdeburg. Roberto, who had enough money for a return ticket, wanted to visit him there, but the embassy refused to grant him a tourist visa, without grounds. Acasio Castro, whose brother is married to a German, reports similar experiences. He was also refused a tourist visa to visit his brother and his sister-in-law, again without grounds, although he leads a prosperous and stable life in Mozambique. He was sad about that, he says. Samuel thinks about his son in Chemnitz often, despite not having seen him since his return in 1989. They both speak of pleasant, good memories. At any rate, Bonn responds with unvarnished and sedate disinterest in keeping with its tradition. The past ﬁve years have seen an uninterrupted sequence of broken promises by the former GDR, the Federal Republic, Eastern German businesses, and the Mozambican government. Shortly before uniﬁcation, the two German states did not know what they should do with the foreign guest workers in the GDR. Mozambicans, who still numbered around 15,000 at the time of the GDR’s collapse, represented the largest group of foreigners after the Vietnamese. By then, at least those who had done their training there, instead of just working and earning money, had integrated themselves sufficiently: they spoke German well, unlike the guest workers. The authorities sought a quick return of all foreign workers. They offered three options: an immediate return home, a continuance of employment until the termination of the standing labor agreements (most ending in 1994, at the latest), or an individual work permit, valid as long as the workers could prove they had a job and a residence. After months of silence, the state mentioned that no one would be expelled against his will. In the meantime, this silence had created great uncertainty among foreign workers. “Gentle” pressure, cost-of-living and rent increases after the currency reform, employers’ bankruptcies, xenophobic violence, and a lack of information led approximately 3,000 Mozambicans to choose premature return. The strategies to entice workers to choose this option were tempting: 3,000 marks, a full two months’ salary, help with transporting possessions, and a free ﬂight. But the businesses broke their promises, paid either none or only some of the money, and contrary to the agreement, paid only transport to Maputo, not to the workers’ homes. Many of the containers were

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looted upon arriving in Maputo; former employers did not insure the wares or underinsured them. When the Mozambicans arrived at their home villages with refrigerators and stereos after weeks in encampments, they could not use the appliances because there was no electricity. In Maputo, they were eligible for claims on the government for a part of their salary. Only 40 percent of these wages had been paid to them in the GDR, and Maputo was supposed to pay the rest in local currency. The GDR government reduced this remaining sum according to the foreign debts of the Mozambican government. This disbursement took place only irregularly, based on a surreal exchange rate, or not at all. And the money entitled to them was again taxed according to the customs claims on their goods from Germany. Several German aid organizations, including the German Society for Technical Collaboration and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, at least recognized these difficulties and made an effort at assistance. They suggested programs for establishing new businesses and assisting returnees. Government representatives in Bonn said at the time that Mozambique must become a priority for German foreign aid and that the GDR programs should be continued. This plan also failed miserably. There was too little money and interest in Bonn. 17 MARK SIEMONS

SMUGGLING DISCERNED—FINGERS BURNED First published as “Schmuggel erkannt—Finger verbrannt” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (February 25, 1995). Translated by Tes Howell. Subsequent to this article, negotiations between Bonn and Hanoi recommenced, eventually leading to an agreement on August 25, 1995, on the repatriation of Vietnamese contract laborers from the former GDR. The parties agreed that 40,000 Vietnamese nationals, particularly those with criminal records, would be repatriated to Vietnam in yearly quotas, in exchange for an extensive German aid package to Hanoi.

Between the Maﬁa, the Police, and Deportation: What Will Become of the Vietnamese Contract Laborers from the GDR? The illegal cigarette trade in Berlin lost its innocence long ago, if indeed it ever had any. When Vietnamese gangs from North Vietnam and the Czech Republic forced their way into the market and backed up their demand for protection money with strategic murders, naiveté became a thing of the past. Others from Central Vietnam avenged these deaths by murdering maﬁa leaders and taking over their organizations. Today, city officials suspect that protection money covers every area in Berlin where untaxed cigarettes are sold and where Vietnamese participants are connected to a larger organization. Escape is hardly an option. The police are somewhat perplexed. By raiding stores or the apartments of suspects known to be selling cigarettes illegally, they can usually catch the

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little ﬁsh but not their bosses, who pull the strings. Few Vietnamese are willing to give statements, for the police cannot protect their informants from henchmen seeking revenge. Murders among the Vietnamese maﬁa have been on the rise since 1992. The scenario is now all too familiar: a few Vietnamese are sitting in their living room playing cards or watching videos; the door opens, and masked men open ﬁre on one of them, then leave again without a trace. Some victims have even faced execution by samurai sword.

Negotiations in Bonn and Hanoi Illegal cigarette sales are like a permanent, open wound in the constitutional state’s sense of security. The Vietnamese stand on every corner, square, and subway platform in East Berlin. Sometimes young men drive up in sporty, expensive sedans and buy several cartons from them after a brief negotiation. Sometimes the police come, but by then the Vietnamese, warned by lookouts, have already disappeared. The aspect that irritates officials most is that there is nothing they can do about it, even though they have already conﬁscated 85 million untaxed cigarettes and initiated more than 8,000 criminal proceedings. Trade continues to ﬂourish. Posters with a large cigarette broken in two hang all over the city. They are advertisements sponsored by the federal minister of ﬁnance promoting legal behavior, a powerless entreaty in the futile battle against organized crime: “Smuggling Discerned—Fingers Burned” reads the caption, or “Better taxed than locked up.” Obeying the law seems like just one option among many for making one’s way through the city. Hanoi broke off high-level talks with Bonn this week over the repatriation of the Vietnamese. The German government is offering Vietnam massive economic assistance so that it might take in as many Vietnamese as possible: up to 40,000. The Federal Chancellery is calling this step an “integral starting point.” Until now, Vietnam had refused entry to deported Vietnamese who had not signed a voluntary statement. Last year, the Federal Republic responded by suspending all foreign aid, blocking a collaborative program of the European Community, and freezing the Hermes low-interest loan guarantees. The Vietnamese in Germany set in motion a highly complex interplay among various ministries: in order to solve the problem of the interior minister while simultaneously mitigating its effects on the ﬁnance minister (the illegal sale of cigarettes causes losses of a billion German marks in taxes every year), the Foreign Ministry calls on the services of the Ministry of Economics as well as the Ministry of Development. Also participating in the negotiations is Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer from the Chancellery. The cabinet approved the negotiation strategy in January. When the Vietnam demonstrations took place in Berlin in the late 1960s, no one could have dreamed of how close the Vietnamese would actually come to the Germans. At the time, people wanted to ﬁght not only against

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“U.S. imperialism” but also “for a red Vietnam—for the victory of revolution” as part of a worldwide youth movement. Now that today, at the end of their revolution, Vietnamese are in Berlin by the thousands, no one wants to take to the streets for them. The problem is not that members of a certain population group have become delinquent, as could happen with Italians, Poles, or Germans. Rather, the problems of the Vietnamese are intimately related to the reuniﬁcation of the German state. After the victory of communist North Vietnam in the 1970s, the Federal Republic agreed to take in a contingent of 12,000 “boat people” [original in English] ﬂeeing from the South; they received permanent, unconditional right of residence. The GDR contracted with North Vietnam for workers and apprentices, as well as with the other socialist brother nations of Mozambique, Angola, and Cuba. Whereas a portion of the country’s elite could be found among the South Vietnamese, many of the contract laborers sent from North Vietnam were underqualiﬁed. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, 60,000 Vietnamese lived in the GDR. After reuniﬁcation, contract laborers received a severance settlement and were offered a return plane ticket. Most accepted the offer. The remaining 15,000 Vietnamese received a restricted residence permit for the duration of their original contract, even if in reality they had been laid off long ago. In 1993, a conference among the interior ministers converted the status into a two-year temporary permit, on the condition that workers provide proof of current employment. They did not receive credit for their labor time in the GDR and must wait until 2001 for a permanent residence permit. Some of them who had worked in the GDR since 1985 will have lived 16 years in Germany before being able to receive a residence permit, although the Foreigner Act states that they can obtain the right of residence after just ﬁve years. The situation of the approximately 45,000 Vietnamese asylum seekers who came to a reuniﬁed Germany is even more complicated. The designation asylum seeker kicks off a routine and rather predetermined course of events. Fewer than 1 percent of asylum applications are recognized; people whose applications are rejected receive a deportation notice but cannot be deported because Vietnam has not accepted them yet. They are in a state of ﬂux: they cannot live anywhere except in Germany but are not allowed to work here legally. The value of a residence permit is growing quickly; a permit on the black market is supposedly worth 30,000 marks. Asylum seekers came to Germany in different phases and for different reasons. First, family members and contract laborers from other East Bloc countries entered after the Wall fell. Later, boastful fellow countrymen and -women charmed increasingly more Vietnamese with their siren calls, describing a fantasy land of unlimited possibilities. Many contract laborers in the GDR worked in the textile industry—for example, in the Berlin’s Men’s

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Clothing Progress, which is called Beacon Classic today. They lived in separate contract-laborer residences, crowded into rooms separated by gender. An advisor paid by the state watched over the women in the case of pregnancy. Whoever wanted to keep her child had to return to Vietnam; if staying here was more important, the woman was forced to have an abortion. The GDR made no provision for a private life. With considerable talent for improvisation, residents would rearrange the cabinets in the bedrooms so as to effect a modicum of intimacy for couples; but when the inspector came around, they quickly returned the cabinets to their original positions. Contract laborers were the ﬁrst to lose their jobs after the Wall fell, even in the ﬁrms that survived the transition to a market economy. The Vietnamese tried to maintain their hold on the traveling vendors, but the Turks and Poles were well established in that profession. Then they established the black market for cigarettes. The necessary infrastructure had already developed in the GDR. The Vietnamese had earned extra money by making those famous GDR stonewashed jeans. GDR citizens who wore hard-to-ﬁnd sizes especially appreciated this service: the Vietnamese would tailor pants and jackets for them. At the time, this part-time work established a functioning system of labor division, from the acquisition of material to the fastening of rivets. The Vietnamese also had come into contact with the Poles in the GDR. Because packages shipped from the GDR to the homeland were always thoroughly inspected, the Vietnamese found an alternate route: they sent their often-bulky postal parcels ﬁlled with bicycles and mopeds through the Danzig port. And now Polish gangs smuggle the cigarettes over the border or bribe customs agents to get the necessary stamps. The proﬁt margin is considerable: a pack bought for 60 pfennig is sold for 2.40 marks. Meanwhile, the trade has grown into a billion-mark industry. The police in Berlin have formed a Tobacco Task Force. In other federal states, it is called Special Commission Samurai or SoKo Blue Smoke.

Trials against Police Officers Life for the Vietnamese is not particularly enjoyable. The contract laborers’ residences, in which most still live together in close quarters, are located in the most forlorn areas of Berlin-Lichtenberg and Marzahn. The Vietnamese were already culturally isolated in the GDR, attracting less attention than even the Mozambicans. They also encountered less resentment. Still, after the Wall fell, they became the object of skinhead aggression. Taking cigarette cartons from the “Fitschis” became a favored sport, but the well-organized Vietnamese knew how to protect themselves as a group. Interest in attacking them soon dwindled. However, they still avoid going out after dark if possible. In the evenings, they sit together at home. They spend little money on themselves in order to send as much as possible back home. On the week-

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ends, they drive to relatives, eat Vietnamese food, and watch the Vietnamese videos that are available in Germany. Tamara Hentschel was an advisor to the Vietnamese in the GDR. When her charges had problems with the bureaucracy after the Wall fell, she helped establish the German-Vietnamese Friendship Association, “Rice Drum.” She helps them communicate with the authorities and come to terms with living in Germany. Many still do not speak German proﬁciently. The long-term goal is to facilitate residence in Germany for contract laborers and secure a realistic chance at job training for all others. It would be ideal if the Vietnamese could ﬁnd jobs with German ﬁrms that invest in Vietnam, but the laws must be changed before that can happen. Tamara Hentschel has a position of trust that became important when complaints about police abuse increased. The Rice Drum collected records about what allegedly happened in the police posts in Bernau and several Berlin districts. Police reportedly kicked and beat Vietnamese suspects and forced them to undress and “make a Chinese face.” More than 50 officials have faced indictment. However, it is still unclear how many will go to trial. Today, the U.N. Committee on Human Rights is organizing lectures at police stations about Vietnamese history and culture. Berlin is still divided for the Vietnamese. They sell their cigarettes and, more recently, pirated videos almost exclusively in the East—familiar terrain for them. In the West, there is a Vietnam House, but it is dominated by South Vietnamese boat people, who believe their northern compatriots living in the East are Communists and spies for the government. For many East Berliners, however, the black market is a demonstration of solidarity: they still call the cheap goods “Soli cigarettes.” They recognize in the Vietnamese, despite whatever foreignness, their poorer companions in misfortune after the collapse of communism—and secretly they are happy that the Vietnamese, too, have found a crack in the supposedly perfect new system. 18 DENNIS KUCK

THOSE FOREIGN SOCIALIST BROTHERS First published as “Die fremden sozialistischen Brüder” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (October 11, 2001). Translated by Tes Howell.

The “Friendship of Peoples” Has Become an Issue for Secret Service Organizations: On the Fate of the Guest Worker in the GDR When Nguyen, barely 20 years old, came to the GDR in 1980, he was lucky. According to aptitude tests, he belonged to the 5 percent of Vietnamese who would receive proper training. For three years, he was trained as a bracing technician, after which he worked for two more years. Actually, Nguyen

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should have already returned to his homeland, but the GDR and Vietnam had agreed to allow “highly qualiﬁed workers” to remain on the job for seven years. Nguyen stayed in the factory for two years and was even admitted to university to study engineering because of his accomplishments. The ambitious Vietnamese man also gained ground on a personal level. He had a German girlfriend and two children with her. But his problems began there. The authorities demanded that Nguyen leave the country, and the Stasi [State Security Police] put more and more pressure on him to do so. Finally, he went underground for months—until the Wall fell—living in various worker apartments for Vietnamese, whose inhabitants often all looked the same to the monitors and Stasi agents. Nguyen does not know how long he might have continued on in this way. For him, reuniﬁcation was a godsend, for now he could resurface. He even found work as an engineer in Brandenburg. Nguyen’s history is atypical for the majority of contract workers in the GDR; however, it clearly demonstrates the fundamental problem of foreigners’ employment in the GDR. The SED needed the foreign workforce, but it soon encountered the consequences of this exchange, especially those arising from interaction between foreigners and the native population, and responded with deep-seated distrust. Integration was not a desired outcome. Foreign workers and students had been coming to the GDR since the 1960s, where there was always a labor shortage despite the building of the Berlin Wall. The state signed a short term Qualiﬁcation Agreement with its Polish neighbor in 1963 and a commuter agreement in 1966, on the basis of which 3,000 to 4,000 Polish men and women worked in the border region every year. Agreements followed with Hungary (1967), Algeria (1974), Cuba (1975 and 1978), and Mozambique (1979). Official propaganda represented the presence of “foreign workers” in “the Worker and Farmer State” as “workforce cooperation” within the framework of “socialist economic integration.” As long as the GDR was economically superior to the other socialist states, workers would come from those states to “build socialism in their homeland” after their residence in the GDR. The GDR promoted this cooperation as a kind of “solidarity through training,” meant to aid other countries’ liberation movements as well as younger nation-states. With these buzz words, the GDR deliberately set itself apart from the Federal Republic, denouncing the latter’s guest-worker policies as the continuation of the National Socialist policy on foreign workers. Meanwhile, the notion of solidarity became increasingly suspect among SED leaders in the 1970s. Because there were not enough workers from the European brother states in the Eastern Trade Association, the socialist developing countries presented an attractive alternative. Political policies now competed with economic considerations. The advent of the agreement with Mozambique is particularly interesting.

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Socialist Discipline In November 1977, the government office responsible for employment and wages in the GDR rejected the placement of untrained Mozambican workers as politically intolerable. In early 1979, this policy expired, and 2,000 Mozambicans could soon accept “paid employment in socialist factories.” Mozambique’s ﬁscal debt to the GDR must have played a role in this policy change. According to the agreement, the debt was supposed to be amortized through the partial remuneration of the contract workers. Twenty years ago, the SED ﬁnally began to use foreign workers out of economic interests. On April 11, 1980, the GDR signed a new agreement with Vietnam, which had been sending apprentices to the GDR since the (1967) Vietnam Solidarity Action “for the temporary employment and training of Vietnamese workers in factories” in the GDR. In terms of training, the agreement refers tersely to the “acquisition and enhancement of practical job experience in the process of productive operation” and advanced training in adult education. The agreement offered employment for technical workers from 18 to 35 years old, for university cadres up to 40 years old, as well as for Vietnamese who had previously completed their training in the GDR. If the agreement placed a great deal of focus on training and professionalization, it had little relevance in the individual company. The contract workers sought material advantages from their stay in the GDR in order to support their families at home. The Vietnamese saw the advanced training, which often took place in addition to their regular work schedules, as an unnecessary additional burden. The agreement between the GDR and Vietnam provided a model for further contract agreements. On July 1, 1980, the corresponding framework directive “on the temporary employment of foreign workers in GDR factories” took effect. The directive clariﬁed where the GDR would recruit workers from, explicitly excluding “workers from European socialist countries.” Agreements on a smaller scale followed with Mongolia (1982), Angola (1985), and China (1986). Only in 1987 did the last phase of the GDR’s foreign-worker plan begin with the massive introduction of Vietnamese contract workers. In an addendum to the bilateral agreement, the GDR clearly stipulated that labor was of higher priority than professional training. With Vietnamese help, the SED hoped, for example, to remedy shortages in the clothing industry. Within two years, 50,000 Vietnamese came to the GDR; the number of contract workers reached a high point in 1989 with approximately 91,000. The largest groups among them were the 60,000 Vietnamese, 15,000 Mozambicans, 13,000 Hungarians, and 8,000 Cubans. Statistics according to gender and age exist only for the foreign-resident population in the GDR: in 1989, 76 percent of the contract workers were between 18 and 39 years of age, 54 percent were men and 22 percent were women.

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Few GDR citizens knew anything about the foreign workers. Contrary to the government’s propaganda, foreigners’ employment and residence were politically sensitive topics, which few newspaper articles addressed during the entire 1980s. In everyday life, the contract workers felt the effects of this political insensitivity on two levels: they lived isolated from the GDR population, and they were subject to strict behavioral norms that led to conﬂicts. From the perspective of the SED and their homelands, they were national delegates who were there to fulﬁll their training and employment contract with “socialist discipline.” Their individual interests and needs were subordinate. [. . .]

Sometimes One Just Had to Fight Back [. . .] To a great extent, the relationship between native workers and contract workers was shaped by the factory’s internal hierarchy. It was not difficult to discover that foreigners were at a disadvantage in conﬂicts. [. . .] There were often disputes about everyday affairs, such as wages. The contract workers could lose wages if they did not attend training events. Because the German foremen determined the contract workers’ wage brackets, their fulﬁllment of production quotas, and whether or not they were performing satisfactorily at work, racist motives were always afoot. Discrimination took on complex quotidian forms: German colleagues took longer on their breaks or left work earlier—liberties their foreign colleagues were not allowed to take. Sometimes they had to work demeaning jobs in the factories. Mozambicans were sent to particularly grimy large machines with the comment that “they were black anyway.” Offensive names such as “coal” for persons of color and “Fijis” for Vietnamese became part of the everyday cultural landscape. When contract workers refused to carry out directives that they felt were unfair or exploitative, many a German boss reacted with threats to call the police or to begin processing their return to the homeland. A Mozambican named David from Hoyerswerda reports that his employer occasionally hit them in such situations: “then there was a discussion about it, or the guy just hit back. The factory management discussed it and determined that the Mozambican should be sent home.” When in one case the Mozambican group leader insisted on noting the racist assault in the employee’s record, management decided to move the worker to another area. In this way, officials avoided trouble with their superiors, trouble that such a breach of taboo would certainly have provoked in the officially antifascist and antiracist GDR. This ideological framework inﬂuenced not only contract workers’ work in the factories but also their private lives. Most were housed collectively in factory-owned residence halls. The halls were often remote or located on the factory lot and were always monitored. A young contract worker complains, “We felt a little like prisoners, since it was difficult for others to visit us. From Monday to Friday we could only stay out until 10:00 p.m., couldn’t have female

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visitors in our rooms, and if a fellow worker or a German colleague came to visit us, he had to produce personal identiﬁcation and answer questions for the guard. I didn’t think that was right; it made people uncomfortable, the few who trusted us.” Because the contract workers came to the GDR primarily without family and were separated by gender in their living quarters, there was a de facto demand on the part of the government that they relinquish any thought of a family life during their years in the GDR. In practice, the factories could enforce this segregation only on a limited basis. Some guards were understanding, and many were overwhelmed when their residents rebelled against the visitor regulations. Thus, the “foreign workers’ ” private contacts remained a sticking point for authorities. The intensity of oversight also depended on the home countries’ stance. Representatives of the Vietnamese embassy were particularly harsh. With the help of the German residence-hall directors, they organized nightly raids to root out “illegal overnight stays” in the halls. The embassy was also suspicious of Vietnamese-born interpreters in the factory, as well as former students who had come to the GDR in the 1960s and were now GDR citizens. Vietnam apparently wanted to remove every temptation for the newly sent “workers.” In 1987, when the largest Vietnamese contingents came to the GDR, the Vietnamese Interior Ministry began working with the Stasi [State Security Police] on the general “political-operative security” of its contract workers.

Some Worked, the Others Cashed In It was particularly precarious for contract workers when, despite the restrictions, they cultivated private relationships—especially when they did so with GDR citizens or when female workers became pregnant. Seeing the reality of the situation, some factory officials did distribute birth-control pills, but the women sometimes had problems with them, and pregnancies still occurred. Only Polish women could deliver their babies in the GDR. Until 1988, most contract workers were forced to abort or were sent home. Mozambicans were sent home automatically in all cases of pregnancy. When a German woman became impregnated by a contract worker, she frequently concealed his identity in order to prevent disciplinary action by the homeland. In the late 1980s, an increasing number of Vietnamese sought to avoid being sent home. Several were spending a second employment period in the GDR and were estranged from their homeland. Some went underground like Nguyen; others paid an exoneration fee based on their level of training. The Stasi feared for the GDR’s reputation because of this “buying one’s freedom” policy. According to their information, the unskilled had to pay the Vietnamese state 5,000 marks; technical workers, 10,000; and college graduates, 24,000 to the Vietnamese state. From the Vietnamese perspective, the workers’ residence in the GDR was a privilege that came with monetary

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value. Foreign workers contributed to the economy in the most varied ways: during the contingents’ official selection according to achievement and social criteria, such as relationship to war victims, there was widespread corruption. Whole families went into debt while bribing officials in the Vietnamese Labor Ministry to send one of their own into the GDR. The Vietnamese state officially collected 12 percent of the contract worker’s wages as a contribution “to the reconstruction and defense of the fatherland,” and child support and social security contributions ﬂowed into the country from the GDR. However, the children did not receive a part of the Vietnamese state’s take. Nor did the former contract workers, who suffered from the consequences of their health-damaging work in GDR factories, receive the social security money they paid into the system. Though the original source of conﬂict and difficulty in the contract workers’ lives was the arbitrariness of the authorities, increasingly uneasy relations with the GDR population added to the tension between the workers and their surroundings. After 1981, David also began feeling the daily effects of some GDR citizens’ latent racism. His complaints to the police fell on deaf ears. But there were also conﬂicts about supply shortages that were unique to socialism. Whoever had come to terms with the GDR’s employment opportunities and culture of scarcity—no great expectations but a modest prosperity—were vexed by the ambition of some contract workers. These workers tried to yield maximum results from their stay, and their efforts often collided with the interests of German colleagues or German customers in the “purchasing chain.” By the early 1980s, youths had already attacked a Vietnamese residence hall in Thuringia. [. . .] According to a Free German Federation of Trade Unions report, this assault was supposed to keep the contract workers from overfulﬁlling production norms, which eventually would have placed the factory’s German workers under additional pressure to perform. Despite widespread consciousness of “Germans’ high-caliber workmanship,” workers constantly asked themselves how much effort they wanted to make in the factory considering the limited consumer product lines that were available for their purchase. The contract workers, whose standard of comparison was their impoverished homeland, worked for hard cash. In one report, the Stasi found fault with the Vietnamese workers’ “ostensible material interests and ideological disinterest,” but the organized “purchasing” of scarce products raised particular distrust among the population and attracted the secret police’s attention. Many contract workers chose one among them to go into stores when desired products arrived. Outside of work, the Vietnamese sewed and sold jeans and traded electrical appliances. Many of the desired products were also meant to be sent home: the sale of two motorcycles could be enough to buy a house in Viet-

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nam. Broad sections of the population viewed these aggressive consumer practices as illegal “speculation.” [. . .] The GDR government made use of such prejudices as well. In 1981, it launched a campaign against the “all-consuming” Poles, which ultimately served to discredit Solidarnosc and Polish reforms. In 1989, this development reached its high point: the SED limited the quantities of consumer products that foreigners were allowed to purchase. This included restrictions on contract workers’ product shipments back home. The GDR media reported widely about the “buying up of consumer products” and the government’s countermeasures, which were largely supported by a majority of the population. The GDR’s ﬁnal crisis brought more than reuniﬁcation and the end of the SED regime. Many citizens also saw the situation as a crisis and used the new freedom of speech to air their sentiments; these expressions often were directed at foreigners. [. . .] Most contract workers returned to their homelands after their contracts expired. In 1995, the number of former contract workers in united Germany was reduced to 10,000. In 1991, just a few weeks after the riots in Hoyerswerda, David boarded a plane back to his homeland. A positive assessment of the situation was difficult for him. Whether or not contract workers remain in Germany today depends on whether they retained their jobs, found new ones, or achieved independence. In 1997, these criteria became the foundation for permanent legal residence in Germany. Originally, most had come to ﬁnd work; only a few could do so once the GDR disappeared.

3 IS THE BOAT FULL? XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, AND VIOLENCE

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

The aftermath of a fatal arson attack by four local youth that killed ﬁve members of the Turkish Genç family. The charred ruins of their house, set off against a bucolic landscape, came to epitomize the brutality of racist attacks in the newly uniﬁed Germany. The banner hanging outside the second ﬂoor reads, “We demand a general strike now! Germans and foreigners together against racism.”

SOLINGEN, 1993.

directly following reuniﬁcation gripped Germany in a cycle of high-proﬁle racist attacks—followed by investigations, candlelight vigils, human chains, trials, mourning, coalition building, and fear—the German debate on anti-immigrant violence had begun at least 20 years before. This chapter presents a historical account of the interplay between immigration policy and racist violence. We begin with a cover story from the mainstream magazine Der Spiegel, published four months before West Germany’s November 1973 moratorium on foreign-labor recruitment. The article sets an alarmist tone that would characterize public sentiment on immigration throughout the decade—giving voice to the fear that “a new Harlem” was growing beyond control in Germany’s metropolitan areas. Catalyzed by a mounting concern about domestic and pro-Palestinian terrorism, the xenophobic discourse of the mid-1970s called forth a threatening metaphorical vocabulary of ﬂoods and waves, shrinking islands and beleaguered boats. This rhetoric in refugee policy hearkened back to 1942, when Swiss Federal Council member Eduard von Steiger explained Switzerland’s selective refugee policy as follows: “He who must captain a small, heavily occupied lifeboat, while thousands of victims of a shipwreck are screaming to be saved, will inevitably appear insensitive when he cannot accept all of them. And yet he is still humane when he warns against false hopes and tries at least to save those he has already accepted in.” The new period of recession and ﬁnancial sobriety after 1973 recast the children and relatives of guest workers as a collective oceanic force overwhelming the German populace, its neighborhoods, and its magnanimous social-welfare apparatus. A new narrative emerged in the immigration discourse of the early 1990s, according to which Turkish and Italian businesses and religious institutions were uprooting traditional German merchants and neighborhood norms. This anxiety ﬁnds its extreme expression in the parodic fairy tale “The Last Germans” and the 1982 “Heidelberg Manifesto,” included in this chapter. The manifesto arose from a movement among Germany’s university elites to contest the “tide” of immigration, for the good of natives and foreigners alike. Its academic signatories were quick to deny any sympathy with National Socialist racial ideology and openly lamented the conﬂation of anti-immigrant sentiment with proto-fascist ideas. In demanding a new public debate on migration, the Heidelberg platform exempliﬁed

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a gradualist and cautionary stance that appealed to many liberal intellectuals and politicians, who sought to counter xenophobia by reducing immigration. The manifesto also evinces a preoccupation with West Germany’s low birthrate, juxtaposing the ubiquitous icon of the “guest-worker child” with that of the stagnating German nuclear family. The professors’ urgent appeal for the regeneration of the German family would reemerge later in the “Children, Not Indians” (Kinder statt Inder) anti-immigration demonstrations of May 2000. In August 1983, a 23-year-old asylum seeker, Kemal Altun, committed suicide by jumping from a window of West Berlin’s Administrative Court building. Altun’s choice of death over deportation refocused the national debate about asylum. Still, in an editorial entitled “Victims of Freeloaders” (1985), the former mayor of Berlin, Heinrich Lummer, employed the “ﬂood” metaphor to galvanize his call to restrict asylum. According to Lummer, West Germany had a worldwide reputation as the most accommodating of asylum destinations, attracting a large number of “inauthentic”—that is, economic—refugees. A year after Lummer’s 1985 editorial, Theo Sommer, editor in chief of the left-center weekly Die Zeit, attempted to address the conﬂation of asylum and immigration in public debate. For Sommer, the mid-1980s’ alarmism about an impending asylum disaster was a result of German politicians’ unwillingness to take responsibility for the labor-recruitment strategies of their predecessors. Sommer emphasized that among the 270,000 rejected yet “tolerated” asylum seekers living in Germany in 1986, two-thirds were from Soviet Bloc countries, not from the usually suspected labor-recruitment countries. The 1993 Spiegel feature “A Riot in the Eyesore” considers the political aftermath of the Solingen murders in the context of the three high-proﬁle attacks in Hoyerswerda, Mölln, and Rostock that preceded it. Another feature piece, “A Protector Who Yearns for Protection” (1993), tracks the career of the ﬁrst black police officer in the former GDR, Sam Meffire, and his experience growing up as an Afro-German and Dresden resident, before and after reuniﬁcation. In the wake of the high-proﬁle hate crimes of the early 1990s, many public intellectuals began to question the fundamental terms of the asylum and immigration debates. Essayist Lothar Baier scrutinizes mainstream concepts like xenophobia, racism, and antiracism in his 1993 essay “The Grace of the Right Birth” by contrasting American and German conceptions of race and critiquing the principles of the German antiracist movement. May Ayim’s 1993 essay on race and German reuniﬁcation elaborates on Baier’s critique of leftist antiracism from a feminist point of view. For Ayim, the left’s preoccupation with the psychological proﬁle of right-wing youth overlooks the global causes of refugee movements: war, poverty, and environmental destruction. Two further texts, by Alexander Böker and Uta Andresen, analyze right-

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wing youth identity and affiliation from two nearly opposing angles. Focusing on music, fashion, and subcultural forms, Böker considers the social beneﬁts of group-level identity in apolitical skinhead youth communities. Andresen’s article attributes right-wing ideology among youth to the authoritarian educational system and conformist socialization in East Germany. Our documentation would be incomplete without the platforms of Germany’s right-wing political parties. This chapter includes the Republican Party of Germany’s 2002 anti-immigration platform and a speech by Bundestag member Martin Hohmann, formerly of the Christian Democratic Union. Racism and violence in the early 1990s profoundly inﬂuenced German music and literature. In 1992, the transethnic hip-hop group Advanced Chemistry produced “Foreign in My Own Country,” a song about Europeanization, racism, and political proﬁteering in the face of xenophobic attacks. When the Mozambican Alberto Adriano was murdered in June 2000, another hip-hop group, Brother’s Keepers, produced a tribute to him, in which the singers lamented “throwing away their airtime” on less urgent topics in the 1980s. Daniel Bax’s 2000 article examines the self-fashioned notoriety of the right-wing hard-core band Die Böhsen Onkelz (The Evil Uncles), who describe themselves as the “burr in the ass of the nation.” After publicly disavowing their more anti-Turkish lyrics from the 1980s, the Onkelz have recently experienced a revival among their skinhead youth base. The chapter concludes with an appeal for vigilance from Berlin’s Islamische Zeitung, more than a decade after the Mölln and Solingen attacks.

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1 THE TURKS ARE COMING! SAVE YOURSELF IF YOU CAN! First published as “Die Türken kommen: Rette sich wer kann” in Der Spiegel ( July 30, 1973). Translated by David Gramling.

Almost a million Turks are now living in the Federal Republic. Some 1.2 million more are waiting their turn back home. The pressure from the Bosporus is exacerbating a crisis that has been smoldering in metropolitan areas already overrun with foreigners. Cities like Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt can barely withstand the invasion any longer. Ghettos are developing, and sociologists are prophesying the downfall of the cities, increased criminality, and social misery like that found in Harlem. The pub at Kottbusser Gate was once the stuff of authentic Kreuzberg: a corner storefront, Berliner Kindl beer, beef sandwiches, a banking club in the back room. These days, there is a lamb spit rotating on a vertical axis at the counter, the coffee is sweet and translucent, and Oriental sing-song is coming from the music box. Hisar is the name of this corner joint now; it means “fortress”—and the name does not seem inappropriate. Under the bullet holes in the ceiling, another new proprietor is keeping watch. Way in the back, Zeki, Ahmet, and a few others are crouching around, playing a game called Jokey. The dealer, Hasan, is cashing in tenners at the table. The Berlin dialect of German that the Turkish residents speak is only a ruse for business purposes. And around the corner, on the next street, and on the next street after that, an inexhaustible clientele from the “land of the morning” is alive and well. At the entrance to 50 Lausitzer Street hang the mailboxes of 30 renters, all of whose names end with “-oglu,” “-ek,” or “-can.” On Oranien Street, where Paul Lincke once lived at 64 and where one can almost hear the melody from “Berlin Air,” men in pedal pants are strolling like ﬂaneurs. The vegetable stands are colorful and opulent. In front of the butcher shops hang gutted mutton chops, and everywhere Turkish ﬂags with stars and halfmoons indicate that Kreuzberg is indeed “Little Smyrna”—pronounced in good Berlinish, of course. [. . .] Some 1.2 million have signed up on the waiting list in Turkey. This reserve “could make its way to Germany if new regulations are implemented for 1976,” reports Josh Stingl, president of the Institute for Labor, who sees insurmountable problems ahead. Still, today’s problems are difficult enough. The fact that the officials now call them “foreign employees” does not mean that the Legacy of the Guest Worker has disappeared. An official ﬁction persists in which foreigners are only welcome in the Federal Republic as exotic and cheap helpers for the affluent classes who will soon go back to where they came from. [. . .]

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How naturally the phrase Turkish ghetto rolls off the tongues of city-council members and politicians alike. Back when he was mayor of Munich, HansJochen Vogel, now federal housing minister, observed that “a small Harlem has developed here.” Indeed, this nightmare is still upon us: a city of marginal groups, condemned to the chronic malaise of apathy amid racial conﬂict, criminality, and dilapidated buildings. The ﬁrst Harlem symptoms are already visible. In the eroding sectors of German cities, “a new subproletariat is growing in which the seed of social diseases is sown,” says Richter Franz. [. . .] “If someone gets stabbed,” says a northern German police commissioner, “a Turk is usually involved.” Even with such ethnically speciﬁc forms of criminality, the statistics are lower than one might expect. In Bremen, for example, the number of dangerous or serious physical assaults perpetrated by members of the foreigner population has doubled, whereas it has quadrupled among the entire population. [. . .] Segregation and the displacement of minorities into underprivileged subcultures are widespread. The authors of the Stuttgart Foreigner Study sought insights from the American experience; in the famous “melting-pot country,” the immigrant ghettos from the era 1910 to 1960 still remain, “even in the generation of the children and grandchildren,” says the American sociologist [Barbara] Kantrowitz. The Stuttgart study claims that this phenomenon is “one more reason to sound the alarm against segregation in residential areas.” Perhaps the warnings are coming too late. Heeding the Kreuzberg slogan “Save yourself if you can,” a few thousand residents are now setting their sights on new districts. The cities themselves, however, cannot escape.

2 HEIDELBERG MANIFESTO First published as “Heidelberger Manifest” in the Frankfurter Rundschau (March 4, 1982). Translated by Tes Howell. The signatories of this document were Prof. Dr. Bambeck (Frankfurt), Prof. Dr. R. Fricke (Karlsruhe), Prof. Dr. W. Haverbeck (Vlotho), Prof. Dr. J. Illies (Schlitz), Prof. Dr. P. Manns (Mainz), Prof. Dr. H. Rasch (Bad Soden), Prof. Dr. W. Rutz (Bochum), Prof. Dr. Th. Schm.-K. (Bochum), Prof. Dr. K. Schürmann (Mainz), Prof. Dr. F. Siebert (Mainz), Prof. Dr. G. Stadtmüller (Munich).

We are observing a development with great concern, a development initiated by a euphorically optimistic economic policy that has resulted in a state of affairs in which approximately 5 million guest workers and their families are now living and working in our country. Obviously, it has not been possible to halt the inﬂux, despite a moratorium on recruitment. In 1989 alone, the number of registered foreigners rose by 309,000; 194,000 of those were Turks.

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The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that little more than half of the necessary amount of children are being born in order to maintain zero growth of the German population in West Germany. A renewal of the procreative function of the German family is urgently needed. Many Germans already feel foreign in their own neighborhoods, workplaces, and homeland in general—just as foreign as the guest workers are in their new surroundings. The government’s decision to promote the inﬂux of foreigners in an era of unbridled economic growth is now widely recognized as questionable. Up to this point, the German population has not been informed of the signiﬁcance and consequences of this process. We believe that the establishment of a politically independent consortium is necessary, one that will work in dialogue with politicians toward a (preferably) universal solution. This problem must be resolved if it is not to become a fateful impasse for guest workers as well as the host country. One complication in the search for a solution to this problem is the fact that one can no longer pose the necessary questions in public debate without incurring accusations of Nazism. For this reason, we must stress that we stand ﬁrmly on the foundation of the Basic Law in all our efforts toward a solution. We emphatically oppose ideological nationalism, racism, right- and left-wing extremism. The integration of large masses of non-German foreigners is not possible without threatening the German people, language, culture, and religion. Every people, including the Germans, has a natural right to preserve its identity and character in its residential areas. Respect for other peoples necessitates their preservation as well, not their assimilation (“Germanization”). We perceive Europe as an industrious community of peoples and nations that gives rise to a coherent higher order through culture and history. As Solzhenitsyn suggests, “Every nation is a one-time facet of a divine plan.” On April 5, 1981, the voters of a multiracial nation, Switzerland, approved a model. Although we know about the abuse of the word Volk, we must remind the reader that the Basic Law emanates from the term Volk, indeed from the German Volk, and that the federal president and the members of the government take this oath: “I swear that I will dedicate my energies to the good of the German Volk, further its interests, and prevent injury to it.” Whoever understands this oath cannot deny that it is the German people whose “preservation” is at stake. And those who decide that there are no peoples worth preserving disregard the rules of scientiﬁc hermeneutics and grossly misinterpret our concerns. We do not hesitate to remind you that the goal of reuniﬁcation—an obligation established in the preamble of the Basic Law—could be most grievously endangered through the current foreigner policy. How is reuniﬁcation to remain a possibility when many regions of Ger-

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many are becoming ethnically foreign? What hope for the future do the hundreds of thousands of guest-worker children have if they are illiterate in both their native language and German? What hope do our own children have when they are being educated predominantly in classes with foreigners? Only active and viable German families can preserve our people for the future. Technological advancement continues to offer various possibilities to make the employment of guest workers superﬂuous. The highest priority of economic management must be to bring machines to people, not people to machines. Solving this problem means improving the living conditions of the guest workers in their own countries through targeted development assistance—not here with us. Reuniting guest workers with their families in the ancestral homeland—on a voluntary basis, of course—will relieve the burden on our overindustrialized country, a country suffering from environmental destruction. Almost none of the responsible persons or the functionaries from prominent social institutions have dared to face facts, let alone to propose a realistic concept for a long-term policy. To this end, we believe the formation of a politically independent consortium is necessary, one that will encourage organizations, associations, and individuals to collaboratively dedicate themselves to the preservation of our people—its language, culture, religion, and way of life. We as university instructors, a profession with lofty tasks and responsibilities that compel us to ensure an appropriate and reasonable education for foreigners in our country (especially those from the so-called third world), must, on the grounds of our professional legitimacy, point out the seriousness of the current situation and the menacing consequences of a trend already under way.

3 HEINRICH LUMMER

VICTIMS OF FREELOADERS First published as “Opfer von Schmarotzern” in Die Zeit (April 26, 1985). Translated by Tes Howell. Lummer (b. 1932, Berlin) was a Christian Democratic Union member of the Bundestag from 1987 to 1998. He published this editorial during his term as mayor of West Berlin.

A Constitutional Right Is Being Abused A twofold problem is confronting our asylum policy. How can abuse of the asylum system be effectively countered, and what steps must federal law enforcement take upon realizing that the Federal Republic of Germany is not in a position to accommodate even a fraction of the potentially qualiﬁed asylum seekers? Everyone familiar with the issues understands that a large percentage of asylum seekers are coming to our country not because of “political persecu-

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tion” (article 16 of the Basic Law) but for economic reasons and because the drawn-out legal process allows them to receive social-welfare assistance for many years, thanks to German taxpayers. Meanwhile, the message has spread through the global grapevine that any foreigner who comes to the Federal Republic seeking asylum can live here indeﬁnitely at our expense. An alarmingly large contingent of asylum seekers is making its presence felt through violent crime and drug offenses, as well as through prostitution and illegal employment. Law enforcement has investigated one in two Lebanese men living in Berlin for such offenses; foreigners are responsible for 90 percent of the city’s large-scale heroin dealing. A policy that turns a blind eye to these occurrences and that rejects— allegedly for humanitarian reasons—the precautionary measures necessary for protecting the state and its citizens does not fulﬁll its obligation toward the native population. More importantly, such a policy discredits the asylum law, disadvantages those who really are in need, and causes consternation among those citizens who agree with the asylum law as such but do not wish to see their state fall victim to freeloaders. Such a policy is incapacitated and estranged from reality. It fails to follow the example of other, no less liberal and constitutional countries, which have, in their sober estimation of the situation, long since instituted provisions to prevent an excessive stream of asylum seekers and asylum abuse. The designation “asylum seeker” must not become derogatory. [. . .] It would be presumptuous to believe that the spatially restricted Federal Republic, which has accepted the largest portion of displaced persons from Germany’s eastern areas, several million refugees from the GDR, and nearly 4 million foreigners, could be Noah’s Ark for the entire, unsettled world. I can suggest one possible solution to this problem: a supplement to article 16 [of the Basic Law] that would include a legal caveat, international harmonization of asylum law, regionalization of asylum (i.e., granting asylum only in the region of origin), elimination of the necessity for asylum through diplomatic pressure and foreign aid to applicants’ countries of origin, and equalization of the ﬁnancial burden between heavily and minimally burdened host countries. [. . .] There should and must be a rigorous and controversial discussion on the subject. But empty pseudoliberal phrases and ideology, in place of substance, are not beneﬁcial to the debate. 4 THEO SOMMER

CLOSED DUE TO OVERFLOW? First published as “Wegen Überfüllung geschlossen?” in Die Zeit (August 29, 1986). Translated by David Gramling. Sommer (b. 1930) was editor in chief of Die Zeit from 1973 to 1992.

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Hysteria and Folkish Small-Mindedness in the Asylum Debate “Will it be mere coincidence or a dearth of means of transportation that will prevent us from soon becoming a country with a majority African-Asian population, rocked by the social, national, and religious conﬂicts brought about by overcongestion?” This sentence comes from a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung lead article. It cannot be mere coincidence that the same sentence was then touted in the National-Zeitung, a newspaper that has been keeping steadfast watch over the increasing threat of an “asylum-seeker state-of-emergency” and demanding “tough crack-down measures . . . to preserve the German character of Germany.” The FAZ lead reporter sees the issue no differently. The unbridled guarantee of asylum, he suggests, could force our state “to surrender the German Nation in the western part of Germany.” Let’s get real. The numbers cannot justify the doomsayers’ dam-breach metaphors: refugee ﬂash ﬂoods, fountains of asylum seekers, streams of foreigners, waves of immigrants. A hundred thousand asylum seekers per year— 20 percent of whom are officially recognized and a further 30 percent of whom stay in the country despite being turned down—does not throw us off kilter, economically or socially speaking. Neither does a population with 7.2 percent foreigners throw us off balance in terms of blood. Some 4.5 million out of 61 million: is that really too much to contend with? The number of naturalizations does not present any cause for anxiety either; all of 38,000 in 1984. Among those, if one does not count the “naturalizations by entitlement” of ancestral Germans, were 15,000 “discretionary naturalizations.” There is just as little justiﬁable cause for excitement about asylum ﬁgures; the Federal Republic has distributed 67,000 allowances since its founding; 270,000 rejected applicants still live among us, and of those, two-thirds are from East Bloc countries. [. . .] On one point we may not deceive ourselves. The topic under discussion these days in this country is not merely how to defend against the abuse of the constitutional right of asylum. Truthfully, the debate is about how we encounter the foreigners in our midst. Behind this debate, though, is the question of our self-understanding as a people. Do we want to stay only among our own kind—together, like they said in the Thousand Year Reich? Or do we open ourselves, within the parameters of reason, to the inﬂux of the foreign, to the burden as well as the enrichment that immigration brings? [. . .] It should give us pause when 150 Tamils put everything on the line to escape to the Federal Republic on a rusted-out boat. What is wrong with us? Do Germans—of whom 800,000 were refugees during the Nazi period—have no heart left for suffering people? And no vision for the future other than folkish small-mindedness?

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5 A DVA N C E D C H E M I S T R Y

FOREIGN IN MY OWN COUNTRY First released as “Fremd im eigenen Land” on the album Fremd im eigenen Land (MZEE) in 1992. Translated by Tes Howell. Advanced Chemistry, founded in 1987, is considered Germany’s ﬁrst political hiphop band. Members are Toni L, Linguist, Gee-One, DJ Mike MD, and Torch. AC is one of the few German-language groups to become a member of the Universal Zulu Nation, an international hip-hop awareness group founded in New York in the 1970s by Afrika Bambaataa. A radio news clip that precedes the recording of “Foreign in My Own Country” frames the song as a response to the arson attack of Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992.

I have a green passport with a golden eagle on it that shows that I pull my hair out all the time. But seriously: I get so much grief, even though I drive slowly and never get drunk. All that talk of a European federation— When I go to the border by train or bus, I ask myself why I’m the only one who has to show identiﬁcation, who has to prove his identity! Is it so unusual that an Afro-German speaks German but doesn’t have pale skin? The problem is the ideas in the system: a real German must also look German— blue eyes, blond hair, then you’re okay. Was there ever a time when it wasn’t like that?! “Are you going back to your homeland someday?” “Where? To Heidelberg? Where I live?” “No, you know what I mean. . . . ” Come on, I’ve heard these questions since I was young. I was born in this country twenty years ago, but I still ask myself sometimes: what am I doing here? Ignorant babble with no end; dumb comments, I already know them all: “Um, are you an American or are you from Africa?” Another comment about my hair—what’s so strange about it? “Oh, you’re German? Come on, don’t try to fool me”: You want proof? Here is my proof: If you please, my name is Frederick Hahn. I was born here, but I probably don’t look like it, I’m not a foreigner nor a resettler, tourist, or immigrant, but a German citizen, from this country. Where’s the problem? Everyone should go wherever they want: to ski in Switzerland, to be a tourist to Prague,

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to study in Vienna, to be an au pair in Paris. Others don’t even want to leave their country, but they have to ﬂee xenophobia, inferiority complexes. I want to shock and provoke, to motivate my brothers and sisters again. I already have a plan, and when I’m ready, it’ll be an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. I hope the radio stations will play this song, for I’m not an exception but one of many. Not recognized, foreign in my own country, Not a foreigner yet still a stranger. I have a green passport with a golden eagle on it, but I grew up here with an Italian heritage. Because of this, I’ve been taunted. Politicians and the media report that, sooner or later, the “capacity for assimilation” will be “reached.” The public is given explanations, its collective head is turned, prompted to believe that its existence will be threatened by foreigners. So the citizen cultivates prejudices and thinks that there is a grave possibility of losing his all-important German standard of living. Unfortunately, no one comes along asking who would do the low-paying, undesirable work. Hardly anyone considers or values the knowledge of why this country is doing so well— how the guest worker has contributed signiﬁcantly to the raging economic development since the 1950s but lives with a weak foothold in society, plays the role of scapegoat in times of crisis, and the actual problem being ignored is simply swept under the rug inconspicuously. Not recognized, a foreigner in my own country. Not a foreigner yet still a stranger. I have a green passport with a golden eagle on it, but no one asks about it when I end up in the wrong neighborhood. “Hey, let’s get him!” Good thing I was always fast in the hundred-meter dash. Violence in the form of a clenched ﬁst, or a glistening knife or a striking weapon. Many will say we are exaggerating, but we’ve lived here for twenty years and are tired of being silent.

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Pogroms happen, the police stand by, a German citizen fears for his life. The reuniﬁcation on television: in the beginning I was excited, but I regretted that quickly, for it’s never been so bad as it is now! Politician types talk a lot but remain cold and calculating— all this plays right into their plans; they look concerned and travel to the scene, hold a child in their lap, and show off for the press, a new seat in the Bundestag with every ﬂash of the camera; there they pass a new law. Of course, asylum seekers must leave, and no one messes with the fascists! This is not my world if only skin color and heritage count; the illusion of foreign inﬁltration accrues political value. Every Hans or Franz passes judgment in ignorance, complains and bellows, considers himself an expert. I have been raised to see things differently: to look behind façades, understand contexts, to face every human being en direct with respect, ethical values that transcend national borders. I have a green passport with a golden eagle on it, but I’m still foreign here.

6 A RIOT IN THE EYESORE First published as “Mal Randale im Schandﬂeck” in Der Spiegel ( June 7, 1993). Translated by David Gramling. This article is a follow-up analysis of the arson attack that took place in Solingen on May 29, 1993.

Everyday Discrimination in the City of Solingen A dark hole cleaves the charred-out ruins of the house at 81 Lower Werner Street. Where the low side door used to be, three pairs of children’s sneakers are still sitting neatly ordered on the doormat, just as they were on the evening of the arson attack. The neighbors have always valued such things; order must reign in this district of tidy, quiet people who know very little of the charged atmosphere of metropolitan neighborhoods like Berlin’s Kreuzberg or Hamburg’s St. Georg. The Turkish Genç family was thought of as assimilated on this narrow street, where the people and the houses are of equally solid build.

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“They were nice, orderly people,” says an assembly-line foreman named Klaus Stamm from the neighborhood. “They were always friendly and said hello,” said one local ﬁtter, Klaus Schulze, “and the women didn’t even wear head scarves.” But the 19 people living at house number 81 didn’t really belong, no matter how well they ascribed to German secondary virtues. Even after 13 years, there was still very little contact with the outside, except with the Keinerts next door. “We had parties together and helped each other with tasks around the house,” recounts Hubertus Keinert. Eighteen-year-old Hatice, who died in the ﬁre, was “like a daughter” to his wife, Käthe. The close friendship emerged out of a common fate. “We have no contact with anyone else here. We are also foreigners, so to speak.” The Keinerts moved here from Saxony about ten years ago. This mix of stubborn indifference and invisible apartheid is characteristic of the climate in Solingen and other places. It has a way of outlasting all the candlelight vigils, the moments of silence, and the declarations of political intention. After the arson in Mölln, Solingen staged its own human chain of solidarity. For a while now, the Solingen Coalition against Racism and Fascism has been attempting to integrate Solingen’s 7,000 Turks and has been struggling against extreme-right activities. After the arson [in Solingen], the Christian Democratic mayor, Bernd Krebs, went on camera before the world yet again and reported that there are absolutely no right-wing radicals in his city. The provincial legislator Erika Rothstein, majority leader of the SPD, had considered herself to be living on an “island of peace” until the attack. Now she must admit “we were dozing like Sleeping Beauty.” The facts belie the mayor’s claims. According to his colleague Ms. Rothstein, there were plenty of reasons for the officials to wake from their slumber. Last year, the coalition counted two dozen xenophobic events, and the police came up with similar numbers. About a year before the murderous arson, on May 16, 1992, two drunken young men from the Solingen skinhead scene stormed an asylum residence and beat three Tamils to the point that they required hospitalization. In court, the attackers claimed that they had decided, quite spontaneously, to “go on a riot in that eyesore” of a building. A court sentenced the 25- and 20-year-old perpetrators to two years of probation. The presiding judge did not deem their action a “classical case of xenophobia,” because the attack was not planned. On the day after [the attack on the Genç family], a steady stream of ministers ﬂocked in with words of sorrow, repulsion, and outrage, making the German audience all the more perplexed and the Turks all the more enraged. The tension was released on the following nights. With every win-

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dowpane broken by raging young Turks and with every burning car, the locals’ sense of guilt for the ﬁve deaths decreased. With bleeding police officers and screaming crowds, the situation had gotten out of hand. As the Turks came in from around the country, the opposing camps let loose on one another; vigilantes demanded blood and arms, and many local Solingen residents were racking their brains, thinking, “Now they want to carry out their war in our town! Wasn’t there something going on in Mölln with drug dealers and pimps as well?” But this time the Turks have no intention of scurrying away. After every death until now, they have called for prudence and caution. “Thus far it has just been the same old lip service,” says Taner Aday, a spokesperson for the Turkish Association. “It appears that every city will have to go through the experiences that Hünxe, Mölln, and Solingen have gone through.” But apparently the Turkish minority will not wait for this to happen.

7 ARTICLE 16 OF THE BASIC LAW OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Translated by David Gramling. Three days before the Solingen arson attack, on May 26, 1993, the Bundestag amended the German constitution, or Basic Law, to restrict the provisions for political asylum in article 16. The amendment became law on July 1, 1993. Both versions are reprinted here.

Before July 1, 1993: 1. German citizenship may not be revoked. The loss of citizenship may only occur by mandate of a law and against the will of an individual if the individual will not consequently become stateless. 2. No German may be deported to foreign soil. Politically persecuted persons enjoy the right to asylum. [. . .] [The following amendments went into effect after July 1, 1993:] Article 16a: 1. Persons persecuted on political grounds shall have the right of asylum. 2. Paragraph 1 of this article may not be invoked by a person who enters the federal territory from a member state of the European Community or from another third state in which the standards of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are assured. States outside the European Communities to which the criteria of the ﬁrst sentence of this paragraph apply shall be accordingly speciﬁed by a law requiring the consent of the Bundesrat. In the cases speciﬁed in the ﬁrst sentence of this paragraph, measures to terminate an applicant’s stay may be set in motion without regard to any legal challenge that may have been raised against said measures.

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3. By a law requiring the consent of the Bundesrat, states may be speciﬁed in which, on the basis of their laws, enforcement practices, and general political conditions, it can be safely concluded that neither political persecution nor inhumane or degrading punishment or treatment exists. It shall be presumed that a foreigner from such a state is not persecuted, unless he presents evidence justifying the conclusion that, contrary to this presumption, he is indeed persecuted on political grounds. 4. In the cases speciﬁed by paragraph 3 of this article and in other cases that are plainly unfounded or considered to be plainly unfounded, measures to terminate an applicant’s stay may be suspended by a court only if serious doubts exist as to their legality; the scope of review may be limited, and tardy objections may be disregarded. Details shall be determined by further legislation. [. . .]

8 G I OVA N N I D I LO R E N Z O

A PROTECTOR WHO YEARNS FOR PROTECTION First published as “Ein Beschützer voller Sehnsucht nach Schutz” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (April 1, 1993). Translated by Tes Howell. In 1996, 3 years after the publication of this article, Sam Meffire (b. 1970) was convicted of armed robbery and blackmail and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A 2000 ﬁlm, Dirt for Dinner (Dreckfresser), directed by Branwen Okpako, narrates Meffire’s story.

The tests a black Saxon must face and how he is determined to become a good police officer in Germany: A crazy mission Sam is a Saxon. He has spent his life in Leipzig and Dresden. He came into the world on July 11, 1970, at 12:45 a.m. a few hours after his father, Samuel Njankouo Meffire of Cameroon, died. Sam grew up with his German mother and German grandparents. He likes Dresden, especially when the squares and streets in the old part of town are empty or when the Elbe reﬂects the colors of the dawning day. When he speaks of his city, the words “at home” ﬂow naturally from his lips. The fact that Sam, a person who neither knew his father nor the land of his ancestors, identiﬁes himself as an “Afro” and not as a German, which he actually is, has more to do with the people in this area than with any experience of a better life in another country. And still, he undertook the crazy mission of becoming the ﬁrst black police officer in the new federal states—the part of Germany where the past three years of headlines have reported that it’s open season on people like Sam. Federal Interior Minister Seiters has announced he will make the police force more accessible to foreigners. Even Bavaria’s Interior Minister Stoiber has embraced this project. Sam read about it: “A Turk or a Greek,” he says, “has a much easier time of it. He looks different.” As long as he is quiet, Sam looks like a combination of Roland Gift, the lead singer of the Fine Young

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Cannibals, and Charly Muhamed Huber, who plays Commissar Kress’s darkskinned assistant on the detective series The Old Man [Der Alte]. But when he speaks, he attracts attention with his slight Saxon accent and a missing front tooth; Sam knocked it out himself while handling Asian nunchakus. He is wearing a T-shirt proclaiming “The Rebel” and shows an upper body sculpted by years of training. It is difficult to say whether Sam will really make it, whether he will lead a life as a civil servant in law enforcement, but he can at least explain his decision to become a cop in Saxony. When the Wall fell, Sam had just completed an apprenticeship as a mason. He had become a father six months earlier; he and his former girlfriend named the child after his grandfather Samuel. The boy is now four years old, and Sam says that little Samuel can already sense whether someone really likes him or simply sees him as a “strange animal.” The new freedom [after the Wall fell] was also the freedom to think differently. Sam was suddenly treated with hostility. Sometimes young men in blue overalls deliberately crashed shopping carts into his legs at the supermarket. Other times passersby would hiss “nigger” behind his back. Sam was afraid, and he had been afraid ever since young Nazis shot at him with tracer bullets and tried to storm his apartment in Dresden. Sometimes he did not leave the house for days. A girlfriend, also black, wanted to get him to safety. In Radebeul, near Dresden, she arranged a room for him in a women’s ﬂatsharing collective immediately following reuniﬁcation. “They did not see me as a man,” Sam says, as though he were quoting a satire on the feminist milieu, “but rather as an Afro.” Sam proposed to the Social Welfare Office in Radebeul that they establish a youth meeting place. The office set up rooms in a small, rundown castle on the outskirts of town. On a daily basis, he met young neo-Nazis here who respected him and probably even liked him, but Sam remarks that this fact did not stop them from attacking Vietnamese or nearly beating Afros to death on other occasions. [. . .] Last October, Sam posed for a prominent Western advertising campaign on behalf of Sächsische Zeitung (newspaper). The photo’s caption read, “A Saxon.” Sam recalls that the agency originally hesitated to use his portrait; the black, shaved head seemed “too tough” to the advertising executives, but the campaign became a huge success for the agency: it was selected as the advertisement of 1992. To the frustration of many of his colleagues at the police department, Sam was suddenly a darling of the press. According to him, “They explained to me that I, as an Afro, am a real sympathetic character for the people.” [. . .] In the early 1960s—Sam does not know when for sure—a young man from Cameroon came to Leipzig to study; Samuel Njankouo Meffire’s head was full of plans; he was ambitious. Soon he married a German woman, and in 1963, Sam’s older brother, Moise, was born. Their German relatives tortured his mother, Christine. Sam still has his uncle’s letter to her, in which he begs her

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to leave her black husband and claims she is in danger of gambling away the Western cultural heritage of two thousand years in her genes; Meffire meanwhile only cares about bragging to his tribe that he has a blonde, white wife. For seven years, Christine could only make secret visits to her mother in Leipzig; her father no longer wanted to see her. When he [her father] came home early one day unannounced, Christine’s mother hid her in a closet. Later, the grandparents tried to reconcile relations by taking in the ﬁve-yearold Sam for a while. For the young boy, this was the best time in his life. [. . .]

Deceptive Kindness We met Adolf Hitler in front of the youth hangout Contact in Radebeul. Side part, moustache, brown belt, black boots—the leader of the local Nazi scene apparently felt safe in this city despite his appearance. Inside the club, almost all the youths are right-wing extremists. Sam is not afraid of them. His selfconﬁdence is evident; he is physically well conditioned and feels a rush of adrenaline in this situation. As he enters the locale, the neo-Nazis remain calm; one of them even greets him amicably. Sam is still known around here from the time when he managed the hangout. Still, he says, one must not be deceived by the peacefulness; if they were drunk or one of them was being really nasty, these same, seemingly harmless youths could be murderers. He believes that nothing curbed the Dresden Nazi scene as well as the powerful special police unit Soko Rex [Special Command Right], established in July 1991, by Interior Minister Eggert. “Upon encountering these officers,” says Sam, “most Nazis realized that there is resistance to them.” Sam is certainly a dedicated officer, and yet he still remains an outsider in his own country. “They’ll never accept you,” said the owner of a business across from Sam’s old apartment in the women’s collective, “the way you look.” He meant German citizens, a designation he himself does not have, not neo-Nazis. Sam did not react to it, although his facial expression froze: “I’m afraid of what will happen if I let all my aggression out.” In order not to lose self-control, he does not drink, not even liqueur-ﬁlled candy. Someone at work suggested that he become an undercover agent someday. Sam politely declined, not so much because he fears for his safety but rather because he has recognized the trap in time. He says he wants to live in Germany, not just survive there. 9 LOTHAR BAIER

THE GRACE OF THE RIGHT BIRTH First published as “Die Gnade der richtigen Geburt” in Lothar Baier, Die verleugnete Utopie (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993). Translated by Tes Howell. Baier (1942–2004) was a prominent essayist, translator, author, and activist closely associated with the 1968 student revolts.

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The New Racism and Raging Antiracism There are countries in which the expression racism is not merely a vague ideological accusation. It possesses a precisely circumscribed meaning, for “race” in such contexts signiﬁes something quite speciﬁc. In the United States, for example, “race” is an administrative category like religious affiliation. Under this rubric, the individual indicates that he is black or American Indian. This indication potentially enables him to participate in quota systems and promotional measures designated for these “races.” To use a person’s affiliation with one of these “races” against them is “racist” behavior— for instance, rejecting one’s claim to promotional subsidy or social support. Racism is understood as something practical; the convictions behind it are not in question, nor is the biological implication that racism, understood as a derivation of earlier race theories, might entail. This concept of racism cannot be transferred to German circumstances, because the social premises it relies upon do not exist here. But considering the crimes of National Socialism, one might doubt the logic of categorizing the crimes in Rostock, Hünxe, Mölln, or Solingen as racist. Attributing the monstrous National Socialist crimes to racism seemed increasingly questionable to me the more I studied National Socialism. In his 1939 Reichstag speeches, Hitler spoke of the annihilation of the “Polish race,” but I do not believe that Hitler’s proclamation of genocide had anything to do with racial-biological concepts. Instead, the Poles simply had settled in the geographic area that Hitler’s geopolitical nightmare had reserved for the Germans and had to disappear as a result—whether as a “race” or simply a “population.” The mass murderers in doctors’ coats at Auschwitz were clearly no strict observers of the racial biology their colleagues taught at the university, for when it came down to it, before putting the Jews to death, they kept their allegedly contaminating blood in order to produce a serum for the pure German armed forces. The lessons to be drawn from the civilizational catastrophe perpetrated by Germany are as complex as the network of factors from which the annihilation process emerged. The concept of racism does not sufficiently describe this complexity. In my opinion, there are many good reasons for placing a question mark behind the contemporary agitation against “racism.” But “antiracism,” motivated by immediate human indignation over heinous acts of violence, is just as intellectually unsatisfying and in the long run politically ineffective. It is certainly a well-intentioned answer to the inﬂammatory violence in Germany. Can someone committing these acts be calmed? In Minima Moralia, written in 1944–45 in American exile, Theodor W. Adorno raised objections to the equality postulate contained in the call for tolerance: “Mélange. The familiar argument of tolerance, all men and all races are equal, is a boomerang. It is vulnerable to simple refutation by the senses. The most

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compelling anthropological proof that the Jews are not a race will, in the event of a pogrom, scarcely alter the fact that the totalitarians know full well whom they do and whom they do not intend to murder.” There seems to be a clue hidden here that is crucial to the current situation. Today’s totalitarians also know precisely whom they do and whom they do not intend to murder. How do they know this, [and] what denotes a victim for them? [. . .] “No, we are not xenophobic. We are not afraid of your skin color or religion, and we respect your foreign culture and are interested in it. But we hate poverty.” With this thesis, Christoph Hein has incurred much negative critique. [. . .] In my opinion, Hein is entirely correct; xenophobia is an idiotic word, a creation of shallow-thinking bureaucrats and journalists. It signiﬁes nothing socially concrete and illustrates even less. Horror in the face of impoverishment is a much more convincing motive for the bureaucratic rejection of refugees and violence against asylum seekers, who have long been depicted in the media as greedy impoverished swindlers. It is thus easier to understand why, in a December 1992 candlelight vigil, people talked of a cost-free “tolerance,” yet no one mentioned the recent movement to strengthen asylum laws, which led to the increased rejection of refugees. Tolerance yes, but please leave the poor outside. [. . .] In Hannah Arendt’s 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism—a book often quoted and readily exploited for ideological purposes yet very poorly read— I once came across a line of thinking that has gradually clariﬁed the phenomenon of civilized aggression to me. Toward the end of “The Perplexities of the Rights of Man,” in the conclusion of the section on imperialism, Arendt contradicts the optimistic expectation, propagated after the end of World War II, that the future progress of civilization would cause atavisms like hatred of foreigners to disappear. She recognizes a connection between the development of civilization and an increase in aggression. “The more highly developed a civilization, the more accomplished the world it has produced, the more at home men feel within the human ‘artiﬁce,’ the more they will resent everything they have not produced, everything that is merely and mysteriously given them.” This “highly developed political life breeds a deep-rooted suspicion of the private sphere, a deep resentment toward the disturbing miracle contained in the fact that each of us is made as he is— single, unique, unchangeable.” What can be the target of this resentment in our civilization? “Nature,” which unsettles us with ailments and death? No: according to Hannah Arendt, resentment has rather made the alien a symbol of everything that damages the pride in our civilization’s omnipotence. It has selected him “because [he] indicate[s] all too clearly those spheres where men cannot act and cannot change at will, i.e., the limitations of the human artiﬁce.” The alien, she continues, “in its all too obvious difference, reminds us of the limitations of human activity—which are identical with the limitations of human equal-

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ity.” We can barely tolerate this fact and ultimately exploit those who remind us of it. [. . .] The foreigner, whether handicapped, a vagabond, or a refugee from Afghanistan, encounters rejection, not because he costs money, but because he calls to mind the hidden proximity and power of the nongoverned and nondomesticated in the midst of our artiﬁce. Why is a poor country like Pakistan in the position to take in 20 times as many refugees as the rich Federal Republic, never needing to mention the famous “tolerance threshold”? I believe it is because their civilization is much less sensitive to the presence of “givenness” so visible and mysterious in the refugee—the sight of whom, even in small doses, threatens to throw off our civilization’s balance. [. . .]

10 M AY AY I M

THE YEAR 1990: HOMELAND AND UNITY FROM AN AFRO-GERMAN PERSPECTIVE First published as “Das Jahr 1990: Heimat und Einheit aus afro-deutscher Perspektive” in the 1993 collection Entfernte Verbindungen. Reprinted in May Ayim, Grenzenlos und unverschämt (Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1997). Translated by Tes Howell. Ayim was born in Hamburg in 1960 and lived in Berlin from 1984 until she committed suicide in 1996. Under the name May Opitz, she was a coeditor of the groundbreaking 1986 essay collection Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women on the Trail of Their History. Her collection of poetry, Blues in Black and White, was published in 1995.

[. . .] I scroll back to my thoughts at the end of 1989 and into 1990, to the confusion and contradictions, the departures and disruptions, the memories of repressed experiences, the new discoveries. At the time, I felt as though I were on a boat in choppy waters. I was so preoccupied with not getting shipwrecked in the whirl of events that I could barely differentiate and process the events happening around me. In hindsight, I see only the shadows of some things; others I can make out much more clearly from a distance. [. . .] Talk in the media was of German-German brothers and sisters, of uniﬁed and reuniﬁed, of solidarity and togetherness. Yes, even concepts such as homeland, people, and fatherland were suddenly—again—on many tongues. Words came back into official circulation that had not been used without hesitation in either German state since the Holocaust, words that were frowned upon generally but enjoyed uninterrupted popularity in rightwing circles. Times change, people too. Perhaps the contemporary questions change only slightly, and humanity’s answers to them almost not at all. [. . .] In the ﬁrst days after November 9, 1989, I noticed that there were hardly any immigrants and Black Germans visible in the cityscape, at least those with dark skin. I asked myself how many Jews were (not) in the streets. A few AfroGermans, whom I had met the year before in East Berlin, crossed my path by chance, and we looked forward to new opportunities to get together. I was

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walking alone, wanted to experience a bit of the general enthusiasm, feel the historical moment, and share my cautious happiness. Cautious because I had heard of the impending legislative restrictions on immigrants and asylum seekers. Like other Black Germans and immigrants, I knew that even a German passport did not constitute an invitation to the East-West festivities. We sensed that an increasing dissociation from the outside would accompany the imminent German-German uniﬁcation—an outside that would include us. Our participation at the party was not requested. The new “we” in “this country of ours”—as Chancellor Kohl loved to say— did not and does not have room for everyone. “Get lost, nigger, don’t you have a home?” For the ﬁrst time since I moved to Berlin, I have had to defend myself on an almost daily basis against blatant insults, hostile looks, and/or openly racist defamations. I began again—as I had in the past—to look for the faces of Black people while shopping and on public transportation. A friend was holding her Afro-German daughter on her lap in the subway when she heard, “We don’t need people like you anymore; we’ve got more than enough now!” A 10-year-old African boy was thrown out of a full subway car onto the platform to make room for a white German. . . . These incidents took place in West Berlin in November 1989, and since then, reports of racially motivated assaults, primarily against Black people, have increased—mostly in the eastern part of Germany. Officials took little notice of these reports of violent riots, which were ﬁrst acknowledged only in immigrant circles and among Black Germans. [. . .] I began to get irritated with the East-West festivities and events that did not include the North-South dialogue. German-German was discussed and celebrated even in the women’s movement as though Germany were exclusively white and the center of the world. Congresses and seminars were organized, complete with travel vouchers for women from the GDR, without simultaneously thinking about asylum-seeking women, who—regardless of whether they were in East or West Germany—had to live on the edge of subsistence. Such treatment was consistent with the inadequate and half-hearted solidarity activities staged on an administrative level by the “know-it-all West Germans” for the “poor East Germans.” Looking back, I remember a movie advertisement promoted by the Berlin Senate: East German workers at a construction site in West Germany. A voice offstage explains that these women are citizens of the GDR who are taking underpaying jobs that are unappealing for West Germans. The commentator implores the audience, urgently yet pleasantly, to graciously accept “the people” who have come to “us” in the last weeks and months. Why are only white German men featured when the topic is respect between men and women from both parts of Germany? I wholeheartedly support a call for solidarity but not one that leaves unmentioned the fact that the least attractive

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and lowest-paying jobs are taken by migrant laborers from European and non-European countries. Where is the call for solidarity with those people who, in the face of the German-German appropriation and competition, are the ﬁrst in jeopardy of losing employment opportunities or housing, positions and apprenticeships? There are no widespread solidarity events for asylum seekers with catchy slogans and reduced admission prices. On the contrary, new legal measures have drastically reduced the right of residence, particularly for people from mostly impoverished non-European countries. Moreover, until the end of 1990, white citizens and politicians—East and West German—watched the increasing racist violence on the streets with the greatest degree of passivity. I found the “receptiveness” and “hospitality” toward white GDR citizens duplicitous considering the constant warnings to our so-called foreign fellow citizens that the “boat” is full. [. . .] In 1990, I found this silence and resistance surrounding racism, even among “progressive” leftists and feminist women, frightening and shocking, and yet I was hardly surprised. To be sure, discussions on the topic of a “multicultural Federal Republic” have occurred more frequently since the mid1980s. Only in exceptional cases, however, have these discussions changed lives and political connections in such a way that an uninterrupted, equitable collaboration with immigrants and Black Germans would become an indisputable given and the analysis of racism a permanent undertaking. The Second Women’s Refuge in Berlin and the Orlanda Women’s Publishing House belong to the few autonomous women’s projects ﬁghting for a quota of posts reserved for immigrants and Black women. [. . .] The voices of immigrants, Black Germans, and Jews ﬁnally gained an audience in the election campaigns in late 1990. At the time, conferences and events concerning racism multiplied but were mostly and almost exclusively organized by white Germans. Such was the case, for example, at the conference “Exclusion and Tolerance” that took place in Eindhoven in November 1990. Of course, Black as well as white scholars from the Netherlands and the Federal Republic gave lectures and seminars on the topic. However, Black women did not take part in the conception and realization of the conference. Fortunately, at several other events, such painful offenses did not occur, and fruitful impulses materialized toward a real collaboration between Black and white women. [. . .] Discussion has intensiﬁed in recent weeks about the situation of marginalized youth, who are currently the main perpetrators of neo-Nazi attacks. Discussions about the causes behind refugee movements have not taken place, nor about measures that could put an end to hunger, war, and environmental destruction in impoverished countries ultimately kept dependent on Europe. A hasty and strident encroachment on the asylum law is dauntingly imminent; and for the foreseeable future, asylum seekers will not be

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lightheartedly referring to the Federal Republic as their “homeland.” Immigrants, Black Germans, and Jewish people, who have lived here for a long time or their whole lives, will be just as reluctant to do so. The blatant violence on the streets is in step with the words of leading politicians and is part of their practical implementation. But I am convinced that we—and by that I mean all the people in this country who will not tolerate racism and anti-Semitism—have the will and the capacity to form alliances. There are examples that we can follow and with which we can connect. One such example is the Black Germans Initiative, which arose out of a small group of Afro-Germans in the mid-1980s and currently has working groups in numerous cities throughout the Federal Republic. Organizations of immigrants, Black Europeans, and Jews network their groups and activities beyond national borders. [. . .] 11 ALICE SCHWARZER

HATE IN SOLINGEN First published as “Hass in Solingen: Zum zwiefachen Herren- und Untermenschentum” in So sehe ich das!: Über die Auswirkung von Macht und Gewalt auf Frauen und andere Menschen (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1997). Translated by Tes Howell. Schwarzer (b. 1942), editor of the women’s magazine EMMA since 1977, is one of Germany’s best-known mainstream feminist journalists.

No, these are not “lunatics”—as Foreign Minister Kinkel consolingly declared. This is also not “antisocial violence,” as citizen Kohl alleges. They are not “loners,” as some of the press are quick to believe. Nor is it “the racist beast,” as Ralph Giordano maintains. And they are not always “Nazis,” as the tageszeitung chants (“Nazis out!”). They are our own children. More precisely, our own sons. They are the ones who are rampaging in Solingen and everywhere else, setting ﬁres and “bashing foreigners.” There is Christian R.: age 16, fatherless, a special-needs student, occasional foster child, his ﬁrst arson attack at the age of 9, known for his xenophobia, Schalke-04 fan. There is Christian B.: age 20, son from a middle-class home, his father a certiﬁed plumber, Christian himself almost a paratrooper, held back because of mental unsuitability. There is Markus G.: 23, unemployed insurance agent, drinker, member of the heavy-metal band Determent and the right-wing radical German National Union. And there is Felix K.: age 16, a doctor’s son (father involved with the Doctors against Nuclear Death and mother an active environmentalist). Felix is a fan of karate, baseball, and the right-wing radical band Störkraft. Sixteen-year-old Felix looks like every mother’s dream: he has a sweet youthful face with a long, blond mop of hair, big, blue eyes. He is neither Kinkel’s “lunatic” nor Kohl’s “antisocial element,” and not even Giordano’s “beast.” Who is he then? “What did the parents do wrong?” asked the Bild

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newspaper (for apparently only the parents are capable of doing something wrong) and promptly responded with a centimeter-high headline: “The mother was often away from home.” And, feeling guilty as well, the single mother of Christian R. confessed: “I chose to concentrate on my career—that was a mistake.” As though this mess was the mothers’ fault and not the fathers’, who are making loads of money from porno and thug productions! The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [Bundesverfassungsschutz] currently counts 6,500 right-wing skinheads in Germany. The number of sympathizers runs in the ﬁve and six digits. These young people come from the most varied social milieus, are either students (sometimes with special needs), unemployed, or career men. Most are between 15 and 25 years old, and all have one thing in common: they are men! At most, every twentieth skinhead is a female (including wives), and the proportion is similar in right-wing political groups. With so many active male organizations— motorcycle clubs, concerts, soccer teams, or groups of “foreigner bashers”— the gentlemen go unaccompanied. These new members of the master race are the ﬁrst completely brutally dehumanized and “pornographied” generation, and not only via the media. These new members of the master race, who usually look so pitiful, practice their triumph on a daily basis: beating people down, beating them up, violating them, committing murder. They play computer games under school desks and in their rooms, they see violence in the living room on videos and television, they rehearse it at concerts and in stadiums. And ﬁnally, they want to get serious about it. Raping women—yeah, sure. Bashing foreigners—now that’s a turn-on. Yes, these young men are not only members of the master race but also generally poor wretches. Still, what use is it to the victims that the perpetrators are helpless, lonely, and insecure? And: women are helpless, lonely, or insecure too—often more so. And the many female incest victims? Why don’t frustrated women react like that? Why do twice as many women vote for the Green Party, whereas twice as many men support right-wing parties? The answer must not only be sought in social conditions, for then we would have just as many rampaging and pillaging girls on the streets as boys. But we see only young men, incidentally, on both sides—the rampaging young members of the master race and the Turks who rage back at them. While their fathers and husbands work, interact with the Germans, or debate in the mosque, the women sit conﬁned by their four walls: an ideal target. That the kind of attacks—sneaky, cowardly tricks with ﬁre—do not actually correspond to this new master race’s “code of honor” do not seem to bother these perpetrators. They do not take their victims seriously enough to feel in any way bound to their “manly honor” after having killed them. The “Rambo cult” has seized even young German men (not all but too many).

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In their fantasy, these men see themselves as radiant, tough, brutal victors and others as subcreatures: women who mean yes when they say no, foreigners who have no reason to be here and who steal their girlfriends. And we expect humanity and even empathy from these young men? Where is this supposed to come from?! They are completely ﬁlled with contempt for humankind. However, the situation is similar for young men on the other side of the tracks. It was no coincidence that fundamentalist Turkish groups were responsible for the brutal rioting. The Turkish Khomeini, Cemalettin Kaplan, who resides unchallenged in Cologne, “sentences” writers to death who do not produce devout literature and incites Islamic holy warriors against (un-) Christian believers of other faiths. Cologne is the stronghold of Islamic fundamentalism in Germany. At the funeral in Cologne for the women murdered in Solingen, the mosque’s imam, in his official address, used the opportunity to call on all Turkish women to don the head scarf and all Turkish men among the mourners to separate themselves from the women! Fundamentalism is the Middle Eastern variant of Western fascism. Both are lodged in the male realm. Against this background, whenever one appeals to the Turkish men’s manliness and capacity for self-defense, one contributes to the escalation of the “men’s war.” Meanwhile, the women continue to die in their apartments on the home front. No, the answer can no longer be “self-defense capabilities” for the Rambos of all nations. The answer must be “truthfulness” ([Federal President Richard von] Weizsäcker): everyone, even the men, who would prefer not to, must trace the causes of this newly ignited virility craze and ﬁght them. As long as we women expect every woman and every man to stand up for all those threatened by sexism, which we have done until now in vain, then it must be a given that every woman will intervene anytime and anywhere against racism: stop the perpetrators and help the victims!

12 ALEXANDER BÖKER

HE IS NOT AS SWEET AS HE SEEMS First published as “Lieb ist er wirklich nicht” in Süddeutsche Zeitung ( July 20, 1998). Translated by Priscilla Layne.

Marc has polished his boots for such a long time that you can see your reﬂection in them. Actually, Marc always cleans his shoes, but today he has taken even more trouble than usual. Marc is taking the train from Berlin to Potsdam; he’s happy because today is an important day. He is meeting with friends who will be coming from all over Germany. Most of them look just like Marc. They shave their heads once a week, wear polished Doc Marten boots, rolled-up jeans, Fred Perry polo shirts, and bomber jackets. Some-

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times they wear suits; it all depends on the occasion. Marc is 26 years old, and he’s a skinhead. A “smartly dressed” skinhead, he says: “Always wellgroomed.” Marc is good-looking. He has a dark complexion and dark eyes, because his mother is Peruvian. When he talks about himself, the words gush right out of him: he thinks dirty shoes are “disgusting”—people with long hair, too. Nonetheless, he is on his way to Potsdam to see a few long-haired musicians, like Prince Buster, a Jamaican reggae and ska legend who has come to Germany for the two-day ska festival at Linden Park. Skinheads love ska, and a few hundred of them have come to Potsdam this weekend to have a good time. This gathering is why there are policemen scattered all around the festival grounds. They casually lean against their police vans and wait. But nothing happens. [. . .] Some people who call themselves skinheads shout out German songs, march through the streets, and kill foreigners, in the East as in the West. They wear the wrong shoes—military boots—and shave their heads completely, not leaving even a millimeter of hair. Real skinheads laugh at those kinds of neo-Nazis. “They have no idea what it’s all about,” says Fabian from Gelsenkirchen. Fascist skinheads don’t dare come to the ska festival anymore, because they know they would get beaten up and thrown out. That’s what happened two years ago, when a group of neo-Nazis showed up giving the Hitler salute. Still, while many of those attending the festival do not consider themselves right wing, they still don’t make a secret of not especially liking foreigners. One of them says that he has “Turkphobia,” but no one is interested in that this weekend. Only ultra-left-wing skinheads talk about politics and society’s view of skinheads. This political talk annoys Fabian, even though he seems to consider himself left wing, just like Marc. Like many leftwing skinheads, he no longer cares that he’s always being misjudged. Most left-wing skinheads have put away their SHARP patches. SHARP stands for Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, but Fabian asks, “Why do we have to justify ourselves, just because a few East German Nazis have ruined our reputation?” He’d rather spend the weekend with right-wing skins. “They at least know how to party.”

13 U TA A N D R E S E N

GENERATION HATE First published as “Generation Hass” in die tageszeitung (March 27–28, 1999). Translated by Tes Howell. On February 13, 1999, the Algerian-born Farid Guendoul died when a group of right-wing youth attacked him and two of his friends in the city of Guben.

The number of right-wing radicals is on the rise, not only in Saxony but also elsewhere in the former GDR. Violence against foreigners is apparently an

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East German problem. Researchers are diligently looking for the causes of this phenomenon. It is said that the socialist upbringing in the GDR, the compulsion toward the collective, is at fault. However, neo-Nazism exists in the West as well—despite efforts at rehabilitation. Youth respond by lashing out against the foreign. Have both systems failed? She would like a fully equipped kitchen; he is suffering from Teewurst syndrome, the desperate wish for a completely normal dinner. Anna and David dream of living an average life. They would like life to be bourgeois, manageable. This is the dream of former Kinderladen children, for whose parents Teewurst and a fully equipped kitchen were undesirable—too bourgeois. With this teetotaler pedagogy, their leftist parents hoped to raise nonconformist and individual offspring. [. . .] Right-wing extremism in eastern Germany is, according to criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, a consequence of the repressive state-run upbringing in the GDR. Pfeiffer is trying to explain, for example, events in the Brandenburg town of Guben, where a gang of adolescents chased an Algerian man through the small town and then left him to bleed to death. According to Pfeiffer, the Socialist Unity Party state reared its citizens to become conformist, dependent subjects who long for strong leadership and vent their aggressions on foreigners. The effects of this upbringing still linger. After all, it is the same caretakers, the same parents and teachers the youths of today turn to. In Thuringia, for example, colleagues mobbed a fellow teacher who had rejected their “just-act-like-nothing-happened” attitude. Youth crime in Germany has particular characteristics. There are more murders and rapes in the West than in the East, but the danger of a foreigner becoming a victim of a right-wing extremist attack is considerably higher in the East. In 1997, there were 4.7 times as many attacks in the new federal states than in western Germany. The number of suspects is ﬁve to six times as high. Investigations have shown almost without exception that young East German perpetrators attack in groups; only about half of young West right-wing extremists show this tendency. The foreigner population in the new federal states is low, only about 1.8 percent, compared to 10.2 percent in the West. The chances of becoming the victim of a xenophobic attack between Rostock and Cottbus are high—27 times higher than in the West. So it is no wonder that many asylum seekers now fear nothing more than being shipped off to asylum residential centers in the East. Given the comparatively greater violence against foreigners, predominantly in the form of group attacks, there is also the question of motivation. Something must be provoking the East German right-wing extremist to engage in such aggressive behavior. And this tendency, says Pfeiffer, could only arise from the collectivist and conformist values transferred from the GDR. Orders from above are not questioned. Why develop a guilty conscience when all are joining in the attack? The group is everything, the individual nothing. [. . .]

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The goal of the educational system in the GDR was to foster the “socialist personality.” In this schema, upbringing was supposed to foster “collective life organization,” beginning as a baby. Day care until three, kindergarten until six. After-school daycare until grade four. Young Pioneers until nine. Thälmann Pioneers (“the Combat Reserve of the Working Class”) until fourteen. Then the Free German Youth, Free German Federation of Trade Unions, and ﬁnally national solidarity. From the cradle to the grave in the clutches of the socialist state. [. . .] The fact that the East Germans are now reacting with such intense indignation to Pfeiffer’s thesis and that bags of letters are appearing at newspapers such as The Magdeburg People’s Voice means that “the people have obviously forgotten what the GDR was like in those 40 years,” says civil-rights activist HansJochen Tschiche. He explains this outrage: “those who lived here for 40 years simply developed their own conformity rituals.” The GDR’s proletarian petty bourgeoisie did not cultivate a culture of discussion, according to Anetta Kahane [an East Berlin social scientist and executive director of the Regional Centers for Intercultural Understanding in Berlin]. That which is outlawed does not exist. There was no talk of unpleasant things and no debate on the past. Citizens who criticized the GDR were portrayed as soiling the nest. Whoever is not for us is against us. Whoever is not us is them. [. . .] Generally speaking, right-wing radicals in the East and West come from families that did not place great importance on their upbringing. Sweets instead of comfort, shouting instead of help with homework, beatings instead of discussion. Still, while the right-wing biography in the East is a social one, shaped by the group and previously by the state, the one in the West is personal. The abused son, feeling inferior, failing in school. Then the neo-Nazi gang swoops in at the right time for quick validation. To feel big and strong for once and demonstrate this strength to the weaker! “Militancy provides a quick narcissistic victory,” says psychoanalyst Streeck-Fischer. [. . .] When assaults by right-wing radicals come to light, politicians, social workers, and citizens begin to squirm. After the attack in Guben, Manfred Stolpe, the minister president of Brandenburg, spoke of it as an “out of the ordinary” event. When the Brandenburg community of Gollwitz refused to accept 60 Jewish immigrants from Russia, Stolpe defended “the ordinary citizens” of the village who had apparently made some “mistakes in planning.” The rightwing scene practically took over control of the Leipzig youth center Kirschberghaus; the tolerant social workers there had allowed the rightwingers more and more freedom. [. . .] When 12.9 percent voted for the German People’s Union in SaxonyAnhalt, the Brandenburg SPD leader, Wolfgang Birthler, expressed his sense of “crisis, protest and disappointment concerning the path of German unity.” About 1,000 skinheads gathered for the National Party of Germany’s demonstration in Magdeburg against dual citizenship; a mere 400 people came for

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the counterdemonstration. Antifascist organizers then brought 600 together. Right-wing radicalism catalyzes little resistance anymore; it is trivialized and hushed up. Some suggest that the perpetrators are actually the victims. Given such responses, it is not surprising that good youths continue to “beat up foreigners.” The perpetual excuses from politicians—and from researchers who argue that violence against foreigners is a consequence of poverty and lack of prospects—are counterproductive. According to criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, “they are just simplifying the problem”—especially since the majority of xenophobic perpetrators, in the East as well as the West, are neither unemployed nor poor. They are usually workers, apprentices, and lower-level employees with little education. [. . .] What is happening in these “nationally liberated zones,” which the Bielefeld youth researcher Heitmeyer prefers to call “spaces of fear”? To what extent do the community leaders support extremism? How is violence transformed into power? How does this social-control mechanism function? [. . .]

14 R Ü D I G E R R O S S I G A N D E R I C H R AT H F E L D E R

WELCOME! BON VOYAGE! First published as “Willkommen! Gute Reise!” in die tageszeitung (March 6, 1999). Translated by David Gramling.

Some 345,000 refugees from Bosnia used to live among us. Barely 100,000 are still here. The others went back—into a land destroyed and torn asunder. Many ﬁnd themselves standing before the abyss. Some see no other option than to make their way back to Germany secretly, where they must fear forced deportation just like those who stayed here. Sabaheta Barjaktarevic can hardly sleep anymore. “She is always thinking about how my brothers and sisters are all alone down there,” explains her daughter Aida. The stress of the past few days is written on the face of this 26-year-old as well: “On the 22nd of February at six in the morning, someone pounded on our door and shouted ‘Police! Open up!’ ” Four officials from the Federal Border Patrol were standing at the door in full uniform and demanded to speak with Aida’s mother. Sabaheta Barjaktarevic was, however, not at home in her Berlin apartment—which is common since the 45-year-old Bosnian received her Certiﬁcate for Border Crossing. This document instills fear in the approximately 99,000 Bosnian refugees who still live in the Federal Republic. The Certiﬁcate for Border Crossing is a one-way ticket without an option to return—the discontinuation of the “exceptional permission to remain” for war refugees and thus an ultimatum to leave Germany. Again and again, this certiﬁcate results in deportation, such as in Barjaktarevic’s case. The UN refugee orga-

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nization, UNHCR, in Germany had stepped in on behalf of the family several times last year at the State Residents’ Office, but to no avail. “When the police realized that Mother actually was not there, they got angry,” Aida recounts. The officials demanded that Aida, whose “exceptional permission to remain” is valid until the end of June, wake her younger sister, Vahida (24), and the younger sibling Adnan (12). “They said, ‘If we don’t get your mother, then we’ll take these two. That way we didn’t come for nothing.’ ” The family was not permitted to notify its lawyer nor its host, the Berlin Rollbergen Church Congregation. Six hours later, the brother and sister called from the Sarajevo airport, where workers from the local UNHCR High Commission had arrived to meet them. The family had come to Berlin in August 1992 from their home village, Bratunac, after it was easily overtaken by the Serbian military and then ﬁnally “ethnically cleansed.” The family ﬂed into neighboring Tuzla. There, the city was already ﬁlled beyond capacity and was under constant ﬁre from Serbian artillery. The Barjaktarevics had to keep going. They went to Germany. Upon their arrival in Berlin, a neurologist diagnosed the mother as having “depression with psychic decompensation.” She appeared to be suffering from “insomnia, fear, nightmares, pavor nocturnus, and sweats”—typical symptoms of war trauma. The physician reconﬁrmed this diagnosis as late as December 1998. A Berlin police physician, however, saw the situation quite differently; he deemed the woman “capable of air travel” and determined that a “permanent, severely compromising traumatization of personality structure and everyday functioning” was not evident. Sabaheta Barjaktarevic is still in Germany. Underground, out of sight. Fatima Sombecki is also here again. Illegally. Her fate is emblematic for many. She was deported in September—along with her 9- and 13-year-old sons. “At the Sarajevo airport, two workers from the Bosnian Refugee Ministry were waiting for us,” she explains. “They only said ‘Welcome home! Enjoy your further travels!’ ” The 32-year-old Muslim from Breko, in today’s Serbian sector of Bosnia, did not know where these “further travels” would take them. “When after 12 days in the Sarajevo reception camp near Tuzla we were told we had to go to make room for new refugees, I tried to do just that,” she says. The three actually did make it as far as Breko. Contrary to their expectations, the Muslims even found a room to live in. Two days later, Serbian youth beat the older son until he bled. “That evening, Serbian police officers came to us and told us they could not guarantee our safety.” The Sombeckis ﬂed once again, this time over the nearby border into Croatia, and from there to Germany—illegally, for 500 marks. On the streets of Sarajevo, it is easy to ascertain who stayed here during the war and who ﬂed and has now returned. The difference can be noticed in people’s facial expressions, in their movements, in the way they behave.

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Those who stayed behind are usually poorly clothed but are more selfpossessed. Those who returned compensate for their sense of insecurity with an exaggerated, raucous manner. This behavior is understandable. The world they once knew no longer exists. Their friends have scattered; many families are torn apart. Only those who came from the respective majority regions can return home to the place they were driven out of. Any Muslim who wants to go to Sarajevo can do so relatively easily—just as Croats can go back to Croatian-dominated Lasva-Tal and Serbs can go to Serbian-dominated regions. However, most of these refugees ﬁnd their houses or apartments destroyed or looted. Or refugee families from other parts of the country are living there, people who were made to suffer an even more difficult fate. Encounters between the “homecomers” and the “squatters” lead to conﬂicts. At the same time, the new arrivals are usually coming from other ethnic groups’ majority regions. Muslims from Serbian-occupied East Bosnia have hardly had a chance to return to their homes. In other parts of the Republika Srpska, few dare to; out of 1,921 refugees returning from Germany this February, only 132 registered in the Serbian-controlled part of the country. Of course, the bureaucracies in the Muslim regions also try to prevent the return of Serbs and Croats with all kinds of tricks. The Croatian radicals leave no doubt that they intend to hinder the Serbs’ and Muslims’ return to their regions. No more shots are being ﬁred. Threats are enough to instill fear. So most returnees are forced to slip in among their own ethnic group in order to ﬁnd work and an apartment. And then they wait. But there are hardly any empty apartments anymore, and these are available only at horrendous prices. How is one supposed to ﬁnd a decent job when 60 percent of the population is unemployed? If one ﬁnds an illegal job, the paycheck is so small that it hardly even covers the rent. At most, the German state has paid 1,300 marks per family in return assistance. Those who did amass savings in Germany lost most of it in fees for various documents from the bureaucracies back home. Those with a little luck can stay with family members when they arrive. The others have to go back to the places they never want to see again: one of the numerous refugee camps. Of course, there are assistance organizations and programs to facilitate return. Funds have been raised for this purpose, but neither the Refugee Assistance Bureau at the UNHCR nor the International Organization for Migration has statistics about the living conditions of returnees. If the city of Tuzla, which had 110,000 inhabitants before the war, has to take in 40,000 refugees, and 31,000 of them last year as returnees, one can imagine the hardships.

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International efforts help only a few. Even the projects of the federal commissioner for returnee assistance have petered out. New apartments are indeed being built, and Hans Koschmick is trying, just as his predecessor Dietmar Schlee did, to prevail upon the Serbian agencies to accept returnees. In the state of Kozarac, more than 1,000 houses are being refurbished with German help. But in the end, this is only a drop in the bucket. 15 CAROLINE FETSCHER

THE NEW WALL First published as “Die neue Mauer” in Der Tagesspiegel ( July 30, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell.

A scandal as taboo: Citizens with dark skin live in fear here. Racism is rampant. In the East—and the West. The entire country needs a campaign against right-wing extremists. Now they are waking up. Even the chancellor admitted on Wednesday, “I am tired of having to read almost daily accounts of right-wing-extremist beating frenzies against foreigners.” Before his departure for the summer, Gerhard Schröder spoke out last week against the delay in reforms, and he was moved to speak on the topic of racism as well. “There is no excuse for murder,” he said, adding, “for bodily harm, or for desecrating graves and memorials.” After the allegedly racially motivated bombing in Düsseldorf, Otto Schily also adopted a sharper tone against right-wing radicalism. Racists do not take a summer break. We saw proof of this fact in places other than Düsseldorf. Every day, we read those ugly reports the chancellor has grown to expect—from Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt. As the Berlin Republic grows, we hear constant talk of its darker side. Embassies are opening in the center of this republic, in the new Berlin. Construction sites are evolving into magniﬁcent buildings, attracting artists into the capital. How cosmopolitan it is becoming here, they gush. How exciting the cultural scene is—in Berlin-Mitte and in Prenzlauer Berg. And so it is. Reports about right-wing violence, though, are not only showing up in the brief reports about right-wing thugs and the Düsseldorf bombing. Violence is a latent and perpetual threat for all nonwhites and Jewish communities. Nonwhite employees of Berlin ﬁrms do not travel on business trips to the surrounding countryside, and a chef named M. from Sri Lanka, who lives in Neukölln, only takes her daughter out with her in the west side of town. Potsdam? Sanssouci? Even those are not destinations for a family of color, she says with a shrug of her shoulders. That’s just the way it is. We go to the Charlottenburg castle; it is nice there.

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A Political State of Emergency [. . .] As long as large parts of the country, particularly in the East, are “nogo” areas for nonwhites, the country and its capital carry an unbearable stigma. As long as we tolerate, approve, or ignore this infraction of the constitutional agreement, we accept both latent and open racism—harmlessly labeled “hostility to foreigners.” The fact that nonwhites live with fear and restricted freedom of movement is politically, socially, legally, and culturally intolerable. There is a new wall; it is not only in Berlin. And it must fall. When the German capital moved from Bonn to Berlin, it moved east politically and geographically: to the new federal states of the republic and the neighboring countries in Eastern Europe. From its new position, the current capital communicates with the surrounding countryside and with foreign countries, and the East communicates with the West in a way that was not possible for many years. But if, alongside all the new texts and images, faces and stores, buildings and landscapes, primarily the latent or open racist text is powerfully intervening in this exchange, then an acute political state of emergency is at large. We must ask why the Federal Republic’s citizens have become accustomed to this situation and why they do not want to see it as a crisis. The “wall-in-the-mind” metaphor, popular after the Berlin Wall fell, referred to prejudices between “brothers and sisters” in East and West. Emotional statesmen emphasized that we are all German, that we should come together. As we attempted to do this, and the Black-Red-Gold coalition receded into the fallow land of the “Eastern zone” (and the Allies, under whose eyes we had become democratic, cleaned out their barracks), the other New Wall of racism and exclusion grew. This new wall is at its thickest where the real wall once stood. An invisible force, it encloses western Berlin just as it did in the transition period: nonwhite foreigners do travel to West Germany, but they prefer not to stop along the way. Many say they “just ﬁll up beforehand.” And they completely avoid “the zone” if possible. In early June at a Berlin “Forum on Foreign Cultural Policy,” Foreign Minister Fischer complained that foreign intellectuals can only seldom be placed at universities in the East because of rampant racism. Nonwhite train conductors and Mitropa dining-car waiters now have protection in the East. Foreigners live there with a self-imposed evening curfew, especially in villages and small towns. If possible, they avoid walking on the streets alone. Some asylum-seeker residences, such as the one in Brandenburg Kunersdorf, must be secured with NATO barbed wire and video surveillance, like Serbian enclaves in Kosovo. The only things missing are the tanks.

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Another type of resentment is generally accepted as well, namely an antiurban trend, a hatred-of-Berlin attitude. Berliners are seen as privileged, arrogant, rich, “different.” They are “enemies.” Berlin teachers do not like to travel in the East with their classes, because students there frequently suffer attacks at the hands of the local youth. Berlin is not yet the capital of the new federal states, not truly a city that represents the East. [. . .] In other countries, the new German racism is not a taboo topic. The fact that Berlin correspondents dependably report on the conditions and search desperately for “any other topic” does not improve the country’s reputation. Their reporting will not attract urgently needed computer experts from abroad. [. . .] According to Foreign Minister Fischer, this situation will be devastating and expensive. At the moment, however, almost nothing is in the works, neither on the federal nor the state level. There is no committee or subcommittee on the problem of racism and xenophobia. There is no comprehensive institutional and ﬁnancial framework for the topic. This absence can very easily look like tolerance or approval of the status quo. There is also no broad citizen movement. At least Vienna has its Thursday street demonstrations: it seems to be enough for Berliners that the Red-Green coalition is in power. And those eastern Germans who are indeed aware appear not to see their own responsibility in this. [. . .] The primary issue is how to control this criminality—no less a crisis than the R AF, against which the state fought with hundreds of millions of marks. The deaths and terrorist acts, the “national liberated zones” proclaimed by social marauders, are no less threatening than the criminal acts of the Red Army Faction. Henryk Broder proposes dispatching an EU commission to Brandenburg instead of Austria. “Democracy Watch” in Germany? At second glance, the proposal seems less polemical than inevitable. [. . .] 16 DANIEL BAX

IN PRAISE OF PROVOCATION First published as “Gelobt sei, was provoziert” in die tageszeitung ( June 3–4, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. This article surveys the career of the Böhsen Onkelz (The Evil Uncles), a right-wing band from the 1980s whose members renounced their racist lyrics in the postuniﬁcation era.

The Böhsen Onkelz have plenty of practice in the art of spiteful self-assertion. A Wicked Fairy Tale is the name of their new album, which shot to the top of the charts as soon as it came out at the end of April. Despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that these brute rockers are ignored by a broad sector of the music press—because of their radical-right early years in the 1980s and because many record stores, including the record chain WOM, refuse to stock their albums—

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the Onkelz have no intention of disappearing into obscurity. On the contrary, it could not have hurt their career when, in the middle of the 1990s, they publicly disavowed the right-wing scene and offhandedly characterized a few of their one-time partners in crime as “brown shit” in one of their songs. The conﬂict about their past was the ﬁrst thing to make them truly well known, causing their following to grow steadily through the years. That they kept their name is a sufficient symbol of the continuity: the wicked remain wicked [Böhse bleibt böse]. With the countenance of a martyr, they enjoy the sympathy of all those unfortunates who seek to imagine their idols as the last of the righteous in a world that demands false, questionable concessions. [. . .] The Böhsen Onkelz no longer offer much in the way of a platform for assault. Their aggressive self-pity is diffuse and can be interpreted in any of a number of ways, and their music is commercial punk rock of the same sort that the Toten Hosen have mastered. It has long remained an uncertainty whether the Onkelz’s commercial success would be any different if they were still shouting “Turks Get Out.” Only after renouncing extremist rhetoric did they achieve their current popularity. [. . .] But what’s behind all this? Is this rampant Teutonism the consequence of pop-cultural regression? Is it an indication of a general shift to the right? Or is it simply a subtle form of the German disposition? [. . .] Either it is the return of the repressed in the form of travesty or perhaps a knee-jerk reaction against Hollywood’s banalization of evil. A touch of self-ethnicization is also certainly in play here: look at us, we’re the ones you were always warned about. [. . .] 17 BROTHER’S KEEPERS

ADRIANO (LAST WARNING) First released as the single “Adriano (letzte warnung)” on the album Am I My Brother’s Keeper? in 2001. Translated by David Gramling. Brother’s Keepers dedicated this song to the 39-year-old MozambicanGerman Alberto Adriano, who was murdered by right-wing extremists on June 10, 2000, in his hometown of Dessau. This song references poems by the Jewish German lyricist Heinrich Heine (1797–1856). The ﬁnal stanza is in English in the original.

Torchman: Now is the time, here is the place, this is the night, Torchman has the word. When I think of Germany at night, it robs me of sleep. My brother Adriano was taken down, skin color black, blood-red, silence is gold thoughts are deep blue, a citizen is afraid of his people, a winter fairytale from Germany. Blue velvet.

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Recognized already as a child—here I am foreign in my own land. Operation article 3—you laughed at that! Boys, this is my life, we didn’t think it through in all those years when we tossed away our airplay. You might think that we rappers have nothing to say, but it will come back at you, you will see, it is catching up to us— unity makes us strong—Adriano died alone. G.E.R.M.: all at once your life hangs on a silken thread, then the warning signals blink under the heaving stoplights. The time is ripe, now heads have no more prices, we have to stop babbling and proceed strategically, watch the enemy and then slowly make ourselves known. Words are like the wind, and deeds speak loudly. We won’t wait, dig holes with spades. You should know: karma will tell you what’s what. Xavier Naidoo: this is a kind of last warning, our ﬁght back has been in the planning, we will come get you where you are at, we’ll arrest your brown shit in the end, for you seek your own demise, and what we’re putting out is clenched ﬁsts, not hands to shake— your defeat forever, and what we will hear is your crying and whimpering. ...................... Sekou: how many more men must die, pass by the public eye, on both sides of the Atlantic watch the panic multiply, walk on by, we divided supposed to coincide, side-line observers disturbs trying to stay alive. I realized at a young age life’s design maze like, but it’s amazing the way hate spreads when it’s been raised right, without daylight, the truths often hard to swallow, why we’re sending out our love to Amadou and Adriano. 18 R E P U B L I C A N PA R T Y O F G E R M A N Y

EXCERPTS FROM THE 2002 PARTY PROGRAM Published online at www.rep.de. Translated by Hilary Menges. The Republican Party of Germany (Republikanische Partei Deutschland) splintered off from the Christian Social Union in the 1980s. Its

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ﬁrst party chair in 1983, Franz Schönhuber, had been a member of the Waffen-SS during National Socialism.

German Identity Instead of Multiculturalism Everyone has an inalienable human right to a homeland. It grants security and support in a trusted environment through the feeling of not being alone, of belonging to a group that has grown together through history, language, and culture; a group that assumes responsibility for its members. One can be expelled from one’s homeland without changing locations: through cultural inﬁltration and mass immigration of foreigners. Those who support the now-arising “multicultural society” because they do not value homeland are not authorized to dismiss another’s right to homeland. Furthermore, as experience shows, every multicultural society is a society of conﬂict. Therefore, the most important demand of the Republican Party is protection of the German homeland, no multicultural society, no multiracial state! Culture Germany is one of the world’s greatest cultural nations. Representing this culture with self-conﬁdence is valid and legitimate; there is no reason for inferiority complexes. Priority of the Christian-Western culture—especially the German interest—in pedagogical education. Care for German customs and resuscitation of the treasury of German songs, including those of the expelled regions. Protection of the German language from excessive foreign-language inﬂuence, particularly in the media. At least 50 percent of German-language music titles in radio programs. No fostering of so-called multicultural or intercultural projects. Foreigners In Germany, maximum capacity has been exceeded. The high number of foreigners in many cities and districts has helped make Germans a minority. Schools are composed mostly of foreigners, and parallel societies are emerging—especially in the case of the Turks. The ability to receive foreigners from other cultural spheres is exhausted—partly already exceeded—and integration is barely taking place. Moreover, foreigners are not needed to balance out the German population decrease or save the social security system. In one of the most thickly populated world states and in light of large environmental problems, a certain drop in population density would be a blessing. In addition, the elderly must be protected, especially through the promotion of the German family.

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Appropriate measures become even more necessary as the foreigners no longer relieve but burden the social system. Therefore, we must seek all opportunities to limit the immigration of foreigners and send certain foreigner groups back to their homeland. [. . .]

Asylum The practice of political asylum rights is characterized by abuse on a massive scale. It must be restricted to address the real victims of political persecution. We therefore call for: Cancellation of the basic right of asylum, replaced by regulation through law. No extension of the right of asylum to non-state-persecuted and so-called poverty refugees. [. . .] Acceleration of court hearings determining rights to asylum, restriction of the process to two legal proceedings and denial of any reapplications. Consistent deportation of all rejected asylum seekers. Coercive detention of all rejected asylum seekers who delay their deportation through the destruction of identity papers. Deportation of criminal asylum seekers even prior to the conclusion of legal proceedings. Use of police enforcement and possible criminal prosecution to end the so-called church asylums. [. . .]

19 R E P U B L I C A N PA R T Y O F G E R M A N Y

THE LAST GERMANS Published as “Die letzten Deutschen” (2002) on the web page of the Republican Party of Germany in Saarbrücken: www.rep-saar.de. Translated by David Gramling.

I awoke to the muezzin calling into my ear on the loudspeaker from the mosque next door. I had gotten used to it a long time ago. The building used to be a church, but it was converted into a mosque when the Islamic congregation in our district outgrew its old mosque. The few Christians who were left did not raise any objections. Our Turkish mayor, Mehmet Özal, suggested that the time had come to grant the one true religion, Islam, more space. The few Germans who live in our district send their children to Koran school so that they can integrate with more ease later. In schools, lessons are conducted mainly in Turkish, sometimes in Russian or Arabic depending on the majority. The classes are assorted accordingly. The German children must adjust to this arrangement, but children have little difficulty acquiring foreign languages. Alex, our 10-year-old, speaks broken German at home, but sometimes he falls back into Turkish.

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We have to remind ourselves that we do not know how to speak Turkish, and we are often ashamed. Alex is the only pupil in his class with German parents, and he tries to adapt as well as he can. I try to listen to the news on the radio, but it takes me a long time to ﬁnd the German-language station. [. . .] The announcer says that because of the pressure of the Party of the One True Way in the Bundestag, a head-scarf mandate will be implemented for all women. My wife has worn one for a long time now, in order to not attract attention in our district. She is now less frequently recognized as a German and is thus much more kindly received. Meanwhile, after a unanimous decision, a “Day of German Shame” will be introduced, on which the evil deeds of the Germans will be pondered, particularly our xenophobia. [. . .] My wife has found work again, this time at a Turkish restaurant. Because foreigners are now privileged in the distribution of jobs (a consequence of the new antidiscrimination law), her job was quite a stroke of luck for us. I am not supposed to go to the Labor Bureau anymore. The case manager, Mr. Hassan Muftlu, says I am no longer ﬁt for labor placement because I lack knowledge of Turkish. He offered me a language course, which I accepted because one does not get a chance like that every day. Our landlord, Mr. Ali Yüksel, mentioned yesterday in passing that he had promised our apartment to his brother’s family and that we should probably look around for something else. When I timidly objected, he said only that he had good connections with the local authorities. So we have to go, but it is not all that difficult to say goodbye to our old neighborhood. Like many of our acquaintances, we will probably emigrate to the Anatolian steppe. The Turkish government there has generously offered the Germans a piece of land, a kind of reservation for us. We would be among our own people and could maintain our own language and culture. We have been considering this option for a long time. 20 MARTIN HOHMANN

SPEECH ON THE DAY OF GERMAN UNITY First published as “Ansprache von MdB Martin Hohmann zum Nationalfeiertag, 30 Oktober 2003” on the CDU-Neuhof website on October 30, 2003, and then promptly retracted due to public outcry. Translated by David Gramling.

Today we will be directing our thoughts toward the theme “fairness for Germany,” toward our people and its somewhat difficult relationship to itself. We will not dwell very long on outward appearances. But it is certainly strange, and many Germans take issue with the fact that a sentenced Turkish murder accomplice, after serving his sentence, may not be deported to his Turkish homeland. A German court construes German laws such that the so-called

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Caliph of Cologne does not see himself compelled to return to Turkey and continues to receive German social-welfare assistance. Many of you know similar examples in which the abiding German social-welfare state or the legal state is mercilessly abused. Thus, the individual, whom one used to call a freeloader, generally has no bad conscience. Well-meaning socialist politicians of all colors have signiﬁcantly strengthened these individuals’ sense of entitlement; one can even say they have made it a matter of course. [. . .] It is the community bond of the “we” that must be strengthened. It is bitter for us that we must undertake such a taxing strategy, especially at the current moment of economic stagnation. The number of cutbacks is signiﬁcant, and the number of cutbacks to come will be even greater; one need not be a prophet to predict this eventuality. [. . .] Many Germans sense a lack of fairness on the part of their own state. They have the feeling that normal Germans are handled more poorly than others. Those who fulﬁll their civil responsibilities, work hard, and raise children may expect no praise in Germany. On the contrary, they feel like the dumb ones, for the chronically stingy state can ﬁll its empty coffers at their expense. Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot repudiate this suspicion that Germans do not enjoy advantageous treatment in Germany. On the contrary. I have posed three questions to the federal government: 1. Is the federal government prepared, in view of the economic developments and the decrease in state revenues, to reduce its payments to the European Union? The answer: The German responsibility to the European Union will be maintained without any reductions. 2. Is the federal government prepared to advocate for German forced laborers now that 10 million German marks have been made available to foreign and Jewish forced laborers? The answer: One may not compare the cases. The federal government will not even advocate for symbolic reparation or an apology from Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. 3. Is the federal government prepared, in view of the economic developments and the decrease in state revenues, to calibrate its reparations payments as directed by the Federal Reparations Law (i.e., to the primarily Jewish victims of National Socialism) according to the decreased performance output of the German state? The answer was: No, respect for the previous sufferings of these people dictates that the level of reparations be maintained without cutbacks. [. . .] With these answers in mind, I will ask the provocative question: in modern history, is there not also a dark side to the Jewish people, whom we exclusively perceive in the victim role, or were Jews exclusively the victims, the ones who suffered? [. . .] We must take a more precise look. The Jews who subscribed to Bolshevism and the revolution had already severed their religious connections. They

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were Jews by ancestry and education, but their worldviews demonstrated that they were ardent haters of every religion. Such was also the case among the National Socialists. Most of them grew up in a Christian home, but they had set their religion aside and became enemies of the Christian and Jewish religions. The element linking Bolshevism and National Socialism was thus the antireligious trajectory and godlessness. Thus, neither “the Germans” nor “the Jews” were a perpetrator people. One may, however, quite justiﬁably maintain that the godless with their godless ideologies were the perpetrator people of this past, bloody century. These godless ideologies gave the “executors of evil” the justiﬁcation, and even a good conscience, for their crimes. In this way, they could defy the divine commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” The result was a historically unprecedented killing of millions. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, I decisively plead for renewed reﬂection upon our religious roots and bonds. Only they will prevent these kinds of catastrophes, which the godless have created for us. The Christian religion is a religion of life. Christ said, “It is my will that you have life and that you have it in its fullness” ( John, 10:10). This directive applies not only to the world beyond but very concretely to our real life and survival today. For this reason, we are advocating for a reference to God in the European Constitution. My dear ladies and gentlemen, we have seen that the allegation that Germans are through and through a perpetrator people misses the point and is unjustiﬁed. We should defend ourselves against this claim in the future. Our maxim shall be “Justice for Germany, Justice for Germans.” I shall conclude by saying, May God grant a good future for Europe! May God grant a particularly good future for our German fatherland!

21 AGAINST FORGETTING First published as “Gegen das Vergessen” in Die Islamische Zeitung ( June 2004). Translated by David Gramling.

The Muslim death prayer is not easily forgotten. It is now exactly 11 years since the right-radical Solingen arson attack burned ﬁve Turkish women and girls to death on May 29, 1993. Four youths lit the Genç family’s house ablaze, annihilating the family in one strike. The attack catalyzed not only worldwide horror but a domestic political discussion as well. In addition, the act demonstrated the incommensurability of rightist and racist theses with Islam and the lives of Muslims. These days in Germany, the event and the debate around it have fallen out of the headlines. Despite constant appeals for remembrance—11 years after the xenophobia-motivated Solingen attack—there is hardly anything to read or learn about it. Surely, forgetting is not the solution, but neither is a pro-

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fane memory tourism. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany demands that “memory must be kept alive, so that nothing like this may ever happen again, particularly in these hectic times when the call for increased security and tougher laws predominate.” Many Muslims fear that the public rhetoric about Islam could soon lead to increased attacks against Muslims, particularly against Muslim women. Many Muslims in Germany believe that the struggle against Islam has become a politically correct form of xenophobia. [. . .] Recently, the dividing line between Turks and Germans has again grown more acute. Many understand European conservatives’ rejection of Turkey’s desire to enter the EU as a message that Turks are unwelcome in Europe. And Germany is most certainly in Europe.

4 WHAT IS A GERMAN? L E G I S L AT I N G N AT I O N A L I D E N T I T Y

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

This woman’s hand-written sign, demanding an “unlimited residency permit,” was part of a Protestant Church convention in Berlin that openly criticized the government’s antiimmigration policies. Her protest challenges the rationale of a rotating foreign workforce and the restrictions on permanent residency. Comprehensive laws on naturalization for recruited laborers and their families would not be passed until some twenty years later.

D E M O N S T R AT I N G FO R V I S A R E FO R M , 1 9 7 7 .

HEN MAHMUT ERDEM, the protagonist of Christian Wernicke’s article “The Long Road to the German Passport,” obtained West German citizenship in 1989, he had fulﬁlled all of the criteria that nineteenth-century applicants had to demonstrate: unequivocal moral character, solvency and fastidious ﬁnancial planning, exemption from foreign military service, and release from previous citizenship. Like the new Prussian citizens of the early nineteenth century, Erdem received his conﬁrmation of citizenship not from a centralized federal office but from a local agent of the province of Braunschweig. Even for a highly educated applicant like Erdem, the naturalization process was ambiguous, arbitrary, and prohibitive. The German word for citizen, Staatsbürger, is derived from the medieval status denoting those who were permitted to live within the castle walls of a given city, or Burg. The late twentieth-century term ausländischer Mitbürger, or foreign fellow citizen, sought to broaden this ideal of civic community while withholding the more technical status of “citizen.” Thus, the discourse on foreign fellow citizens prized a romantic ideal of civic participation over the pragmatic legal status of “citizen.” Most of the texts in this chapter, however, illustrate the everyday dilemmas of citizenship rather than the ideal of civic subjectivity. The feud about the prospect of “double-passport holders” is the subject of ﬁve texts in this chapter. Four of the ﬁve adopt clear pro and con stances, whereas the ﬁfth, “Ethnicism in the Cloak of Multiculturalism,” by Sonja Margolina, abstains, viewing dual citizenship as an overladen ruse in the debate about Germany as an immigration country. Other texts, like Irina Wießner’s “Conservative and Manipulated,” propose that the Turkish state and media have exerted such relentless ideological pressure on German residents of Turkish descent that they are caught in an aporia of loyalty between their ancestral, imaginary homeland and their estranged, immediate surroundings. For Margolina, dual citizenship serves only to uphold the logic of German blood lineage, instead of forging a new deﬁnition of the citizen that is not ethnically deﬁned. Margolina further cautions the German left that affording immigrants dual citizenship will neither ensure integration nor mitigate ethnic nationalism. In October 1998, the governing Social Democrat/Green coalition under

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Gerhard Schröder took the epoch-making step of reformatting the law of blood citizenship (ius sanguinis). The idea that the normal citizen was of German ethnicity or blood lineage had persisted through two empires and two republics, since its most recent and binding articulation in 1913. The new legislation, the 2000 Citizenship Law, immediately availed 900,000 Turks of a signiﬁcantly more streamlined naturalization process. Turkish daily newspapers hailed the action as the end of Germany’s “guest-worker ideology.” The law provided for optional dual citizenship until one’s twenty-third birthday, except in some special circumstances. Jeannette Goddar, in her essay “Naturalization Impediments for Women,” focuses on immigrant women’s often-ambiguous legal status as wives, ﬁancées, and daughters—long-term residents in Germany who have had neither the opportunity nor the legal standing to ﬁle independent residence applications. Furthermore, Goddar contends, many aging Turkish women who have worked in Germany for decades are hesitant to apply for naturalization because they would then be barred from inheriting ancestral land in Turkey—often their only potential source of income or collateral for retirement. Thus, even though the 2000 Citizenship Law conferred citizenship upon any child born on German soil whose parents had lived there legally for eight years, Goddar points out that much conjecture remains about whether the new law would assist migrant women in overcoming familial pressures, sexual servitude, and economic privation. Michael Brenner’s 1999 article “Rewarded for Good Behavior” contrasts the historical development of French and German citizenship law and then compares the citizenship options for nineteenth-century German Jews with those available to twentieth-century German Turks. Dieter Grimm, a former justice of the Federal Constitutional Court, then discusses the historical disjunction between multicultural concepts such as “cultural tolerance” and the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution. For Grimm, the German constitution emphasizes freedom and liberty in the intracultural, not the intercultural, sphere. Consequently, it does not offer an adequate basis for a jurisprudence of immigration. Nonetheless, coercive assimilation, claims Grimm, is incommensurable with the Basic Law. He further points out that exception from military service, religious taxes, and other duties is ubiquitous among the domestic population. Thus, one ought not consider special provisions for Muslim employees at prayer time to be a volatile new development in German everyday life. A 2000 working paper by the Christian Democratic Union, the centerright party of Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel, foreshadows the 2005 Immigration Act. According to the CDU’s “working principles,” Christian values require justice and solidarity with all peoples of the world, but Germany must focus on attracting entrepreneurs and elite immigrants, rather than the unskilled laborers it recruited throughout the 1960s. A pivotal moment in

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citizenship and immigration law came with the establishment of the Independent Commission on Immigration, chaired by former Bundestag president Dr. Rita Süssmuth. The commission’s report effectively closed the tumultuous 20-year-old debate on Germany’s status as an immigration country, unequivocally stating that immigration must be recognized as a structural feature of Germany’s society and economy. This declaration notwithstanding, the Süssmuth report espouses many of the same goals and recruiting principles as the CDU working paper: theoretical solidarity with the world’s poor, the full cultural and linguistic integration of the current immigrant population, and strategic recruitment of highly qualiﬁed transnationals in order to counteract Germany’s low birthrate and balance out its aging population. Despite its restrictive scope, the 2005 Immigration Act was the ﬁrst in the Federal Republic to extend the option of naturalization to legal residents with work permits. The chapter concludes with three critiques of the predominant immigration principles shaping legislative affairs between 2000 and 2005. According to the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, the Süssmuth Commission devoted insufficient attention to religious freedom and to compliance with the European Parliament’s antidiscrimination statutes. The refugee-advocacy network PRO ASYL critiques the 2005 Immigration Act for overlooking long-term undocumented residents on German soil. PRO ASYL demands that any immigration law provide the undocumented with an opportunity to enter into legalization proceedings. For migration researcher Rainer Münz, Germany’s ﬁrst-ever immigration law does not deserve that precedent-setting distinction; its directives are far too tentative to address Germany’s urgent need for new immigrants. The 2005 Immigration Act will provide only a temporary reprieve, as new industry needs and national security concerns arise within the European Union.

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1 EMPIRE- AND STATE-CITIZENSHIP LAW (1913) Published as “Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz” in Reichsgesetzblatt (1913), 583–93. Translated by Tes Howell. This law refers to “refuge areas,” which are the colonies that Germany acquired between 1884 and 1885: German Southwest Africa, Cameroon, the South Sea colonies, and German East Africa. Tsingtau, acquired in 1897–98, had a distinct legal designation.

Section 1. A German is someone who possesses state citizenship in a federal state or direct imperial citizenship. Section 2. Alsace-Lorraine is a federal state in this sense of the law. Section 3. Citizenship in a federal state is acquired 1. By birth, 2. By legitimation, 3. By marriage, 4. For a German by acceptance, 5. For a foreigner by naturalization. Section 4. Legitimate children of a German man acquire the citizenship of the father at birth; illegitimate children of a German woman acquire the citizenship of the mother. [. . .] Section 8. A foreigner who has settled in a federal state can be naturalized by the federal state per application when he 1. Is legally competent according to the laws of his previous homeland or would be according to German laws, [. . .] 2. Has lived a morally upright life, 3. Has found his own dwelling or residence in the area of his settlement, and 4. Is able to care for himself and his family according to the circumstances prevalent in his chosen area. Prior to naturalization, requirements 2 to 4 must be discussed by the community of the area of settlement and, insofar as they do not also act as independent charity organizations, by the respective charity organizations. Section 9. Naturalization into a federal state may occur only when the imperial chancellor has determined that none of the other federal states have objected to it; should a federal state object, then the Federal Council will decide. Objections can be based only on facts that justify concern that the candidate’s naturalization would endanger the welfare of the Reich or a federal state. [. . .] Section 33. Direct imperial citizenship may be granted 1. To a foreigner who has settled in a refuge area or to a native in a refuge area; 2. To a former German who had not settled in a federal state; this applies to his children or to those who are considered to be his dependents. [. . .]

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2 ARTICLE 110 OF THE WEIMAR CONSTITUTION (1919) Passed in 1919 as Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs. Translated by Tes Howell.

Citizenship in the Reich and the states is acquired and lost according to the determinations of the Imperial Law. Every citizen of a state is simultaneously an imperial citizen. Every German has the same rights and duties in every state of the Reich. 3 LAW ON THE REVOCATION OF NATURALIZATIONS AND DENIAL OF GERMAN CITIZENSHIP (1933) Published as “Gesetz über den Widerruf von Einbürgerungen und die Aberkennung der deutschen Staatsangehörigheit” in Reichsgesetzblatt 1 (1933), 480. Translated by Tes Howell.

Section 1. Naturalizations completed between November 9, 1918, and January 30, 1933, can be revoked if the naturalization is considered undesirable. Upon this revocation, the naturalized individual loses not only his naturalized status but also German citizenship, which he would not have acquired without naturalization. The revocation will take effect upon delivery of the revocation decree or at the time of its publication in the Imperial Index. [. . .] Implementation provisions for section 1: 1. Whether or not a particular naturalization is considered desirable will be adjudicated according to national principles. In the foreground are those racial, civic, and cultural factors that promote an augmentation of the German population through naturalization, conducive to the interests of Reich and Volk. In addition to considering the facts from the period prior to naturalization, a decision must also take into account the circumstances that developed after naturalization. Hereafter, the following are to be considered for revocation of naturalization: a. Eastern Jews, unless they fought on the German front during the world war or have made themselves particularly useful to German interests, b. Persons who are guilty of a serious misdeed or a crime or have otherwise behaved in a manner harmful to State and Volk. [. . .] 4 BASIC LAW OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (MAY 1949) Passed as Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Translated by Tes Howell. For an excerpt from article 16 on the right to asylum, see reading 7 in chapter 3.

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Conscious of their responsibility before God and man, Inspired by the determination to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe, the German people, in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law. [. . .]

Article 3 [Equality before the Law] All persons shall be equal before the law. Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate those disadvantages that now exist. No person shall be favored or disadvantaged on the basis of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disadvantaged because of disability. [. . .] Article 12 [Occupational Freedom; Prohibition of Forced Labor] All Germans shall have the right to freely choose their occupation or profession, their place of work, and their place of training. The practice of an occupation or profession may be regulated by or pursuant to law. No person may be required to perform work of a particular kind except within the framework of a traditional duty of community service that applies generally and equally to all. Forced labor may be imposed only on persons deprived of their liberty by the judgment of a court. [. . .] Article 116 According to the Basic Law and subject to further legal regulations, a German is whoever possesses German citizenship or was accepted as a refugee or displaced person of German origin or as said person’s spouse or descendant in the territory of the German Reich as it stood on December 31, 1937. Former German citizens, whose citizenship was revoked on political, racial, or religious grounds between January 30, 1933, and May 8, 1945, and their descendants can be naturalized again per application. They are not considered expatriated provided they took up residence in Germany after May 8, 1945, and did not express a contrary will.

5 CHRISTIAN WERNICKE

THE LONG ROAD TO THE GERMAN PASSPORT First published as “Langer Weg zum deutschen Pass” in Die Zeit (March 24, 1989). Translated by David Gramling.

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The Pressure to Decide on One State Makes Changing Allegiances Difficult Mahmut Erdem stays calm and acknowledges the CDU representative’s assertions with a gracious smile and the ﬁve words “That is just plain dumb.” The speaker on the stage ﬁdgets nervously with his tie and papers. His doctrine, that human-rights offenses in Turkey are “rooted in the Oriental mentality,” aggravates the audience of students who have come to this evening’s Amnesty International event at the trendy Göttingen theater The Lumiere. Excited interjections, demands for an “apology to the Turkish guests in the room,” even a threat of “criminal charges for sedition” do not persuade the young CDU politician to retract his declarations about torture and repression in Anatolia. Mahmut is enjoying himself. “I am indeed a Turk, but since February 28, I cannot accept his apology.” Since then he has held German citizenship, as documented by Form 10 001: dull green with a watermark of the federal eagle. The naturalization certiﬁcate conﬁrms that Mahmut Erdem, born January 1, 1963, in Gemerek, Turkey, with ﬁle number 301.11020/1-Er from the Bureau of Public Order of the City of Göttingen is hereby declared a German in the sense of the Basic Law. The 26-year-old law student, who has lived in Lower Saxony since age eight, has taken a step that only a few of his (former) countrymen dare. Mahmut knows from experience, and the statistics prove it. Of the barely 900,000 Turks who are entitled to apply for “discretionary naturalization” after a residence period of at least 10 years, fewer than 1 percent sought a German passport between 1973 and 1986—8,166 to be exact. Whereas the number of eligible foreigners and their prospect of success increase each year, the number of naturalizations has stagnated at a steady 14,000 per annum. [. . .] At an SPD press conference last year, Federal Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann speculated about the reasons for immigrants’ hesitation. “Strong national, cultural and religious ties to their homeland,” “social pressures,” “overall parity between the legal status of foreigners and Germans,” the government’s “demand for the forfeit of one’s previous citizenship,” and “the fear of problems when visiting the homeland,” especially among children and grandchildren of recruited workers, are said to stand in the way of naturalization. Results from a Friedrich Ebert Foundation survey corroborate this reluctance to switch allegiance. 38.7 percent preferred to remain citizens of their homeland, 23.6 percent wanted to return there sometime, and 13.8 percent disapproved of the pressure in Germany to give up their previous citizenship. Conﬂict with the Family [. . . Though Erdem is] the typical son of a working migrant woman, he recalls early experiences that would later make him an exception and a candidate for naturalization. At ﬁrst he played in the Turkish urban backyard mi-

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lieu, but soon he had more German friends than from any other group. In Turkish class in Hannover, he memorized the words of the [Turkish Republic’s] founding father [Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk: “Happy is he who may call himself a Turk.” But as a Kurd of Shiite-Davidic faith, his national pride remained minimal; he “never thought much of those kinds of sayings.” His school career was a decisive factor in this special path. The bright, eager-tolearn boy attended extra-help classes in the afternoon, transferred to a fullday comprehensive school, and graduated from high school in good standing. A steep path, which the usually level-headed climber recounts with blazing eyes: “I proved that we can leave the underclass and make ourselves into something.” [. . .] He inquired secretly about naturalization criteria on his own and cautiously conﬁded in a brother. When he solicited family advice on the subject one night at the kitchen table, he was met ﬁrst with icy silence, then loud protest. Mahmut tabled his plans. But unlike his siblings, he still felt lost during visits to Anatolia—like an Almancı, as his relatives called him. Before he ﬁnally handed in his naturalization application two years later while studying law in Göttingen, there were still many stages of dissociation to work through. The family disapproved of his decision to move in with his German girlfriend and was ashamed of him when he ﬁnally broke his promise of marriage to a Turkish girl that his father had arranged for him. Long talks with his ﬁancée made taking the step to the Göttingen town hall easier: room 1520, Residence Office, Citizenship Affairs. [. . .] The process is just as undramatically exacting as it is crushingly laborious. Mahmut had to provide a ﬂood of papers, from his birth certiﬁcate to his certiﬁcate from the Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Three legal processing sites assess the prerequisites, each one with more scrutiny than the previous. The Empire- and State-Citizenship Law of 1913 demands that a German-to-be must ﬁrst be unrestrictedly capable of employment; second, prove an “unequivocal life change”; third, have a residence; and fourth, “be able to provide nourishment for himself and all those who depend on him.” Thanks to visits to the Bureau for Foreigner Affairs and university lectures, Mahmut is in command of bureaucratic German and understands that he is subject to the general principles any applicant faces. The Federal Republic is ostensibly “not a country of immigration; it does not strive to increase the number of German citizens purposefully by way of naturalization.” Certiﬁcates, certiﬁed copies, and translations of Turkish documents are only the necessary preliminary materials; Mahmut must do much more to belong not only to the population but also to the Volk. His 10 years in Germany were easy to prove. Later, the district government of Braunschweig

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looked over his “dedication to free-willed democratic order” in accordance with the Constitutional Defense’s routine inquiry. The candidate had already passed the language exams before graduating from university. The city usually waives medical health reports, but Mahmut had to go to the bureau’s physician, because he has a walking handicap from a childhood palsy and an accident; the extent of an eventual restriction on his employability must be assessed. He spends three and a half hours at the Health Bureau, during which he is asked if he is a homosexual. No AIDS test, but “actually that wouldn’t bother me all that much.” [. . .] His reserved demeanor in public and prudence in the formalities paid off in February 1987. After nine months, an average processing duration, the district government approved the naturalization. Braunschweig’s guarantee was official but under one condition: Mahmut Erdem must have his Turkish citizenship revoked within two years. Thus began phase three of the change of allegiance: penitent journeys to the consulate and to the Domestic Bureau of the Turkish Republic. [. . .] Ankara took another year with the exemption [from military service] and the revocation of citizenship. Mahmut was lucky once again. Thirteen months after the Turkish military released him, so did the state. One last exchange with Braunschweig followed; whoever wants to be a German has to pay an entrance fee. At least 100, at most 5,000 marks—generally threefourths of one’s gross monthly income. As a student, Mahmut was charged 62 marks. On February 28, Agent Klinnert offered his congratulations and handed over the certiﬁcate of naturalization “without ﬂat champagne or ofﬁcial ceremony.” [. . .] Mahmut still has the fourth phase of the naturalization process before him—achieving inner integration. His Turkish siblings meanwhile consider him “the lost son of the family.” His mother is assiduously silent about the change of allegiance with neighbors and relatives. He says he will never “assimilate through and through,” because he identiﬁes with the ideals of the multicultural society. Reverence for family, the pleasures of encounter, and hospitality, he says, are gifts that he would like to share as “a German citizen of Turkish nationality.” He will continue to work on the status and role of foreigners, because, to name just one reason, the new passport does not protect him from insults on the street. As a future law-school graduate, he is specializing in foreigner law. [. . .] Mahmut still hopes that young Turks born and raised here will receive at least the same entitlement to rights of naturalization as resettlers with German ancestry from Poland or the Soviet Union. Birthplace should be treated equally next to ancestry as grounds for recognition. At least he hopes so.

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6 FOREIGNER LAW (1990) Passed as Ausländergesetz. Translated by Tes Howell.

[. . .] Section 85. Simpliﬁed naturalization of young foreigners. A foreigner who applies for naturalization after completing his sixteenth year and before concluding his twenty-third year may be naturalized as a general rule when he: 1. Gives up or loses his previous nationality; 2. Has had permanent and consistent residence in the domestic territory for eight years; 3. Has attended school in the domestic territory for six years, at least four of which were completed in a general education facility; and 4. Has not been convicted of a crime. Section 86. Simpliﬁed naturalization of foreigners with long-term residence in Germany. (1) A foreigner who has had permanent and consistent residence in the domestic territory for 15 years and has applied for naturalization before December 31, 1995, may be naturalized when he 1. Gives up or loses his previous nationality, 2. Has not been convicted of a crime, and 3. Can prove he can provide for himself and any family members entitled to aid without resorting to social or unemployment assistance; the requirement in no. 3 will be waived if the foreigner can show he is unable to do so without recourse to social or unemployment assistance for reasons beyond his control. (2) The foreigner’s spouse and underage children can be naturalized according to par. 1 even if they have not had permanent residence in Germany for 15 years. Section 87. Naturalization by acceptance of multiple nationalities. (1) Requirements section 85 no. 1 and section 86 par. 1 no. 1 will be waived if the foreigner cannot renounce his previous nationality or can only do so under particularly difficult conditions. This is to be presumed when: 1. The law of the state of origin does not allow for the renouncement of nationality; 2. The state of origin regularly refuses release and the foreigner has submitted an application for release to the naturalization authorities for official forwarding to his state of origin; 3. The state of origin arbitrarily denies release from nationality or has not decided on the complete and proper release application within an appropriate time frame;

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4. The request for release from nationality would mean an unreasonable hardship for members of certain groups, particularly political refugees. (2) Requirements section 85 no. 1 and section 86 par. 1 no. 1 can be waived when the state of origin makes release from nationality dependent on military service and when the foreigner has spent the majority of his education in German schools and has grown up on federal territory according to a German way of life and is at the age where he is eligible for military service. [. . .] 7 IRINA WIESSNER

CONSERVATIVE AND MANIPULATED First published as “Konservativ und manipuliert” in die tageszeitung (October 15, 1994). Translated by Tes Howell. Between reuniﬁcation in 1990 and the 1999–2000 citizenship reforms, dual citizenship took on particular symbolic importance among German journalists and politicians. The following two texts exemplify the polemical entrenchment that the “double-passport” debate generated. Wießner is the federal chair of the Society for Endangered Peoples (Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker).

Many Turkish immigrants cannot identify with German society. The Turkish media, loyal to the state, wields great inﬂuence: A call for single citizenship only. A large segment of the ﬁrst generation and the immigrant spouses from Anatolia who later followed cannot accept the German lifestyle because of Islamic moral concepts and upbringing. A family from Anatolia, reared traditionally and in the spirit of nationalist Kemalism, convinced of the superiority of Islam and the Turkish people, does not want to accept, for example, that the daughter of German neighbors may move out of her parents’ house when she is pursuing an education in the same city. A Turkish family sees it as ayıp (improper) when grown German children do not show the requisite respect for their parents and grandparents and do what they want instead. The family, according to many Turkish citizens, must be defended in the face of such impropriety. This contemptuous attitude toward their German surroundings, which an extremely large portion of the Turkish ethnic group holds, arises primarily from its background and upbringing, and secondarily from its meager or nonexistent effort to get better acquainted with Germans. The Germans are not much better; ignorance and disinterest persist on both sides. Directly related to their assessment of German society as morally inferior is the increasingly inﬂuential nationalistic, fascistic, or radically Islamicoriented Turkish press and the powerful Islamic movement behind it, both of which warn against Westernization and Germanization. Ankara’s political inﬂuence on the Turkish minority is so strong that one

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ought to be wary of granting dual citizenship. Its power is evident in the Turkish media, which functions as a corrupting, anti-German inﬂuence on Turks in Germany, will not leave them alone, and in a certain way, deprives them of both native countries. [. . .] Unfortunately, men like [Cem Özdemir] are obviously in the minority— men who are not afraid of the decision to accept a new homeland. Sometimes the attitude of German and Turkish spokespersons toward dual citizenship seems like the decision-making process of a couple considering whether to get married or not after years of living together; marriage is not actually necessary, but it does offer several advantages, security, and perhaps even a new quality of togetherness. Why should one not be able to expect a commitment to German citizenship from all migrants who envision their future here? Why should they not make a clear statement about their new country with an unequivocal citizenship commitment? No one gets upset when a European becomes a U.S. citizen. Why must we condone such indecision in Germany? Dual citizenship, with rights on both sides, does not help overcome the rupture between cultures. Tansu Çiller, the Turkish prime minister [1993– 95], called on her countrymen living abroad to transfer their savings to Turkish banks as a kind of donation to the troubled fatherland. Through this appeal, she generated pangs of guilt among many Turkish immigrants. Hürriyet, a newspaper with widespread circulation, also requests donations for troops in the mission against the PKK. [. . .] Turkish voters with dual citizenship are not “neutral” voters who hold the future of the new homeland dear to their hearts. As long as they allow themselves to be manipulated so completely by the press in Turkey, they will remain “foreigners” who are just exploiting the right to vote. Through the Turkish press in Germany, Turkey will succeed in inﬂuencing German politics through pressure from Turkish voters on German parties. [. . .] With what, then, should a German party (whether Red, Green, or Black) gain the favor of Turkish voters? With reactionary women’s politics? By sanctioning human-rights abuses in their old homeland? By continuing to provide military assistance for the mission against the Kurds? [. . .] Is it an illusion to expect that people, once out of their homeland, will view their former country and its government in a more critical and sophisticated light? [. . .] Just like the native German citizen, the Turkish voter will initially have his own interests in mind before he decides on a party. But after that, the potential party’s disposition toward Turkey will play a leading role. The Green Party, which advocated so vigorously for the rights of foreign migrants, will get nowhere, for its platform and stance toward Turkey reﬂect neither the moral concepts nor the wishes of most Turkish voters. Even the SPD has distinguished itself as too friendly toward Kurds. However, the CDU, which steadfastly rejected dual citizenship, will sur-

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pass everyone. It stands, particularly in Bavaria, for the preservation of family values and unborn life, and its foreign policy is loyal to NATO partner Turkey when prompted; it officially denies (upon request) the existence of a Kurdish problem. Instead, the CDU talks about “ﬁghting terrorism” and tries to resist internal calls to put pressure on Turkey, keeping its efforts as low-key as possible. In order to keep the dependence on “foreign” votes as minimal as possible, the owners of those votes must take a side. Anyone who votes must do so only as a German citizen, regardless of national origin. [. . .]

8 FRANCO FORACI

THREE-PRONGED ARSENAL OF MALICE First published as “Dreigliedriges Hetzarsenal” in die tageszeitung (October 29, 1994). Translated by Tes Howell. This article responds to Wießner’s “Conservative and Manipulated,” which argued against dual citizenship.

Concerning Some Leftists’ Chauvinistic State of Mind Allow me to say, Ms. Irina Wießner, that you are a racist. Leftist blows cleverly hidden under a magic cloak of university services. Part of this ideal masquerade is that you are an associate of a more or less honorable organization for the defense of human rights—the Society for Endangered Peoples. Your humanitarian mission for the disenfranchised and incapacitated of this world, especially for the Kurds, opens doors for you in the leftist scene; but your “scholarly” heart beats like that of a politicizing Turkologist—more for the arteries on the right side of the left’s paralyzed body and mind. At any rate, your minor treatise on the pages of the last Intertaz (October 15) reveals extreme cultural high-handedness. You represent, with no inhibition and with incisive formulations, the kind of nationalistic body of thought that I would have expected from someone of the simplistic and feather-brained ilk of a prejudice-laden Mr. [Heinrich] Lummer. Your own prejudicial Turkish treatise, presented in progressive packaging, comes to us in the form of an ostensibly serious appeal against the legal introduction of dual citizenship, a call so bleeding-heart leftist that it could make one ill. One must only be able to read between the lines. One more thing at the outset: it would be essentially bearable to allow you to blunder on uncontradicted about avoiding unnecessary publicity, if the place and forum of your shameful remarks had not been the multicultural special feature of the tageszeitung. As it is, however, the feeling remains that you are probably speaking from the heart to a considerable portion of the disoriented, naive, but hopelessly ignorant German left, which considers

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your shocking theses potentially enlightening and absolutely knowledgeable in the search for new identities in the postcommunist era. [. . .] Smugly wrapped up in pseudointellectual vocabulary, you repeatedly insert familiar positions and popular clichés about Turks: you maintain that many Turks here would espouse a “reactionary women’s politics” if they were politically integrated. Furthermore, a considerable number would “also (continue to) stand apart from their fellow German citizens—full of suspicion and scorn.” For they “cannot accept the German lifestyle because of Islamic moral concepts and upbringing.” [. . .] The upshot of your three-pronged arsenal of malice is that Turks in Germany obstinately shut themselves off from the modern age. What kind of leftist wants anything to do with unreasonable, authoritarian, religiously doctrinaire antidemocrats? First point won. Instead of the original soundtrack from the right, “Turks smell like garlic and rape our women,” there is a new tune from the left à la Wießner: “Turks are machos, nationalists and fascists.” Be most wary of Islamic fundamentalists. [. . .] I dare to assume that all tageszeitung readers who are truly looking around their neighborhoods can come up with an array of clear counterexamples for every one of your sweeping attacks against the Turkish community. But this viewpoint does not matter; of course, you know better because of your profession. Being an expert in Turkish regional studies does not automatically qualify you for complex political insights. From a political-science standpoint, your equation of “nationalistic Kemalism”—as you understand it—with the “superiority of Islam” is utter nonsense. By ignoring historical facts, you instrumentalize structurally incompatible elements in order to strengthen deeply rooted emotional resentments against Turks. [. . .] It seems to me, Ms. Wießner, that you have truly taken Heinrich Lummer as a model. In his 1992 Ullstein pamphlet “Asylum,” he reported about the incorrigible “Turkish charm” that is endangering our “Western fundamental values.” “We cannot expect to succeed in the integration of Muslims who have given up Islam,” pontiﬁcates this unrelenting opponent of the multicultural society, “and an integration of Muslims as Muslims, in turn, can only be superﬁcial. [. . .] Foreign inﬁltration is threatening our country from the inside out because the German population is constantly shrinking.” Another thesis reads, “The fact that a million and a half Turks have hardly integrated themselves after 20 years of being entrenched in their habits [. . .] shows how little can be expected from a ‘color-blind’ melting pot concept.” We hear this theme more explicitly in skinhead jargon: the Turks do not want to assimilate; they’re bleeding us dry. Obviously, and tomorrow they will all walk around with crooked noses, band together in banking, and rule the global economy. Déjà vu. [. . .] Shortly before the conclusion of the third section of your tirade, you let

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the façade drop. Even the most ignorant person realizes by now that the Turkish example was only a vehicle for your poaching adventures. “In order to keep the dependence on ‘foreign’ votes as minimal as possible,” you recommend that “the owners of those votes take a side. Anyone who votes must do so only as a German citizen, regardless of national origin.” The multicultural world in the immigration country of Germany should coalesce with the essence of Germanness, or just be silent. Dual citizenship is possible in Germany in certain exceptional cases. There are over 2 million dual citizens from the Elbe to Lake Constance. Most come from non-European countries, including many Turks, and are followers of the most diverse of religions. This diversity has never threatened the Federal Republic; on the contrary. Why should it be any different with a general introduction of dual citizenship? For to be a dual citizen means full membership on all levels; it means participation without the pressure of having to give up one’s identity; it means a stabilizing internal bridge against cultural schizophrenia. No one will become the henchman of another nation and deal against the interests of a country in which he has built his life. Dual citizenship is an assent, not an obstacle to internal societal peace. Allow me to say, Ms. Wießner, that you are a cunning racist.

9 SONJA MARGOLINA

ETHNICISM IN THE CLOAK OF MULTICULTURALISM First published as “Der Ethnizismus im multikulturellen Gewand” in die tageszeitung ( January 2, 1995). Translated by Tes Howell. Margolina (b. Moscow, 1951) has worked as a freelance journalist in Berlin since 1986.

The debate about dual citizenship demonstrates the identity problems of the left. In a modern German context, granting these civil rights would be nothing but a concession to the Turkish state. Dual citizenship has become an idée ﬁxe. I see the debate as a sham and believe that its ferocity and blindness to reality has much more to do with identity issues of the left than with discrimination against foreigners. In addition, political correctness masks insecurities and fears of immigration (not only those felt by the right). Some 6.5 million foreigners currently live in Germany, and only 2 million of them are Turks. Some believe that their contempt for “the Germans,” their antiquated women’s politics, and their support for Turkey make Turks into “the foreigners” who do not want to belong and would vote conservatively if they had dual citizenship. Such a “leftist” argument against two passports is implausible. One may not refuse people political rights because of their conservatism or, for that matter, because of their outdatedness. That approach

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is just not democratic, and it indicates a tendency to instrumentalize foreigners for political purposes. It is particularly false to stigmatize the Turks as an exceptionally foreign element because of their conservatism. Indeed, most immigrants/emigrants from authoritarian countries are conservative and do not condone modern German customs. Thus, in many respects, Russian Germans barely differ from Anatolian farmers: they are at a loss in this atmosphere of “individualism” and “coolness”; they miss the community spirit and extended family at home, and forbid their children, for example, to take part in sex education. Russian Germans probably also vote conservatively. One suspects, and not without reason, that the CDU wants to bring potentially like-minded voters into the country. However, this approach does not solve the historical problem of “ethnic Germans.” Feelings of resentment toward the individualist West came from the preindustrial age and have no nationality; or more speciﬁcally, their national affiliation changes with time. Before World War II, Germans and their eastern neighbors cultivated these feelings; today only right-wing conservatives in Germany nurture them, whereas they are still generally disseminated in other countries—especially in Muslim states. How often have I heard Croats, Poles, or Russians complain about “the Germans”—but, of course, only when they were alone. The schizophrenic relations of emigrants and guest workers to their “second homeland” are a consequence of culture shock and inadequate integration. [. . .] And our multiculturalists rush to play out their political-power interests against their own society. [. . .] The ideology of multiculturalism understands the preservation of ethnic identity as a basic human right. But the connection between citizenship and this identity is barely tenable. The political steps toward the elimination of an ethnically deﬁned concept of citizenship could signify an important turning point: the rejection of a traditional German understanding of the nation as a “blood community.” Dual citizenship, meanwhile, would reinscribe its legitimacy through preservation of jus sanguinis. It promotes loyalty to the country of origin and equates cultural identity with national belonging; the acceptance of German citizenship is seen as a betrayal of cultural roots. Turks often have reiterated this rationale to justify their refusal to accept German citizenship. The understanding that citizenship is a political agreement and actually may not have a “genetic” connection with cultural roots is all too often missing from the minorities’ arguments. A concession to the ethnic at the cost of the political contributes to the notion that foreigners do not want to identify themselves “inwardly” with German culture because they are already committed to another identity. As long as the newly emerged minorities reject the idea of belonging both to a nation and to another cultural sphere, it will continue to be omitted from the dialogue, thus making the efforts of liberal elites to achieve jus soli superﬂuous.

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Recently, the “right” to a collective identity and the value of difference have been popular topics of discussion. The debate includes ethnic identities in this multicultural fervor despite the fact that no one is asking what kind of abyss actually separates the so-called postmodern identity from the ethnic. In the latter case, the issue is not self-classiﬁcation in a cultural milieu or a choice of relations (Gerhard Schulze), but the dissolution of the individual within a collective whole that dissociates itself from others rather than coexisting with them. Ethnicism in the cloak of multiculturalism is a meaningful step backward on the path toward archaic tribal unions and “molecular civil wars” (Hans Magnus Enzensberger). Especially after 1989, when the oppressed ethnicities gained their own states, the illusion of their “primeval innocence” was destroyed; out of the oppressed came the oppressors. [. . .] Migrants who are willing to give up their ethnic ties in favor of social ones can be deterred from integration: they will be sufficiently armed with arguments, mottos, with the semantics of an alleged “identity of the native country.” The “collective identity” discourse legitimizes a self-ghettoization among foreigners and their retreat into the “extended family” of the community, which “offers the ethnic group protection, keeps it grounded, but also limits the freedom of decision-making and the advancement of the individual” (Thankmar von Münchhausen). Because European societies are confronted with the continually growing stream of people from different cultures, the question arises whether the emerging ethnic groups should be institutionalized as minorities and consequently kept from integration. This question may be asked, but the preliminary problem of citizenship and political rights in Germany is anything but resolved. [. . .] The German discourse on dual citizenship seems false and ideologized to me. The German and the Turkish sides argue using fetish concepts like “ancestral identity” and “cultural roots,” and often shamefully misappropriate the adjective collective. For “collective identities” have destructive consequences everywhere. I am not against dual citizenship because of an alleged political preference for those Turks living in Germany, nor because of their manipulation at the hands of the Turkish state. I am against the equation of the cultural and the national, of the cultural and the political, against every concession of politics to ethnicity. At the same time, I have few illusions about the curative effects of citizenship. It would be naive to hope that citizenship alone would fundamentally change the relationship of German Turks to Turkey. After all, jus soli does not prevent Islamists in France from increasing their inﬂuence among Algerians with French citizenship. In Islamic communities abroad, an inherent dynamic develops that the host society has great difficulty managing. It is true that racism and poverty make marginalized immigrants particularly receptive to fundamentalism, but it would be shortsighted to reduce this border-

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encroaching movement to racism in the host country. According to such argumentation, foreigners are still just victims of merciless Western capitalism. Sometimes the victim role is very well suited for the promotion of special interests in the power struggle. The political correctness of a perpetrator driving himself into a corner cannot be a serious answer to the challenge of immigration and the difficulties of integration. 10 JÜRGEN GOTTSCHLICH

BRAVO ALMANYA! First printed as “Bravo Almanya!” in die tageszeitung (October 19, 1998). Translated by David Gramling. Gottschlich is the Istanbul correspondent for various German newspapers.

The Turkish public is reacting with enthusiasm to the Red-Green coalition’s resolution on dual citizenship. “Guest-worker ideology is on its way out.” Nine hundred thousand Turks are becoming Germans, and Bild magazine is happy. Seldom has a headline been so widely cited in Turkey as the one from Friday’s Bild: “Yeni Vatandaslar Hosgeldinız” (“Welcome new citizens!”). “Bravo Germany” effused the tabloid Sabah [Morning], and the reliable Cumhuriyet [Republic] wrote that this development was nearly a revolution. The Germans are accepting dual citizenship, doing away with their antiquated citizenship law, and even Bild is all for it. Although the official reaction is reserved—the Turkish foreign ministry greeted the intentions of the new government with a moderate tone, intending to wait and see what becomes of them in concrete terms—the public’s enthusiasm is widespread. From the Turkish point of view, the acceptance of dual citizenship is the decisive breakthrough. After decades of abasement, after incessant new legal restrictions on visas and admittance for spouses and other relatives, after the shocks of the burning houses in Mölln and Solingen, this is the ﬁrst big positive step for Turkish immigrants in Germany. The approximately 900,000 Turks, to whom the press here [in Istanbul] are currently referring, are those who may avail themselves of a German passport under the new regulations. There is no question that they will apply for them as well. Ismail Günidi, the Interior Ministry official in Ankara responsible for the conferral and retraction of Turkish citizenship, has already announced that many bureaucratic hurdles will be removed for those Turks who wish to assume German citizenship. The Turkish minister responsible for citizens abroad, Rifat Serdaroglu, was the most daring of the officials. In various interviews, he has said, “With this move, Germany has brought its citizenship law up to twenty-ﬁrst-century standards.” In a similar tone, the chief editor of the popular paper Hürriyet [Freedom], Ertugrul Özkök, commented on the Red-Green rendezvous on

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Saturday: “Finally in Germany, the ideology of the guest worker is on its way out.” The twenty-ﬁrst century, Özkök hopes, will bring an entirely new understanding of minorities. The intriguing aspect is that Hürriyet considers the Green Party Bundestag representative Cem Özdemir as the true father of this major success. Apparently, Cem Özdemir, who has fought for so many years for the rights of the Turkish minority in Germany, has delivered at last. While Hürriyet in Turkey effusively praises Özdemir, the same newspaper’s German edition shoots him down. In the conﬂict about ﬁlling the new government’s commissioner of foreigner affairs position, the columnist Ertug Karakullukçu took great pains to make clear to his readers that the leftist Claudia Roth is preferable to the traitor Özdemir. If current expectations are fulﬁlled and most Turks who are indeed entitled soon apply for a German passport, the SPD can plan on a quick million additional votes in the next elections. Of the 160,000 who can already vote, 76 percent voted SPD. In 2002, the quota could be higher. 11 REFORM OF THE STATE CITIZENSHIP LAW (1999) Published in Bundesgesetzblatt 38 (1999), 1618–23. Translated by Tes Howell.

Article 1: Alteration of the Empire- and State-Citizenship Law 1. [. . .] A child born to foreign parents in domestic territory shall acquire German citizenship when one parent: a. Has legally held permanent and consistent residence in the domestic territory for eight years and b. Possesses a residence permit or has possessed for three years a residence permit for an unrestricted period. 2. [. . .] Where the person undertaking the obligations stipulated in article 1 states a desire to keep his foreign citizenship, German citizenship will be revoked when the statement is received by the relevant authorities. It will also be lost where no statement has been made prior to his twenty-third birthday. 3. Where the person incurring the obligation stated in paragraph 1 states a desire to keep his German citizenship, he must prove that he has given up or lost his foreign citizenship. If such proof is not provided by his twentythird birthday, German nationality shall be lost unless the German government has already received per application the written approval of the relevant authorities to retain German citizenship. [. . .] Article 2: Alteration of the Foreigner Law (1) [. . .] A foreigner who has legally had permanent and consistent residence in the domestic territory for eight years is eligible for naturalization per application when he:

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1. Acknowledges the liberal democratic order of the Federal Republic’s Basic Law and declares that he has not pursued or supported any actions that are directed against this liberal democratic basic order, the stability or security of the federation or a state; which are intended as an illegal encroachment on the government or on constitutional institutions of the federation or a state or their members; or which endanger the external interests of the Federal Republic of Germany by application of or preparations for violence; 2. Possesses a residence permit or right of residence; 3. Can prove he can provide for himself and any family members entitled to aid without resort to social or unemployment assistance; 4. Gives up or loses his previous nationality; and 5. Has not been convicted of a crime. The requirement in number 3 will be waived when the foreigner can show he is unable to provide without recourse to social or unemployment assistance for reasons beyond his control. (2) The foreigner’s spouse and underage children can be naturalized according to article 1 even if they have not had permanent residence in the domestic territory for eight years. [. . .]

12 JEANNETTE GODDAR

WOMEN—AN IMPEDIMENT FOR NATURALIZATION First published as “Einbürgerungshemmnis Frau” in die tageszeitung (February 13–14, 1999). Translated by Tes Howell. Goddar (b. 1968) is a freelance journalist in Berlin. In this text, TIO (Treff- und Informationsort für türkische Frauen e.V.) refers to a meeting space and help line for Turkish women, operating since 1978.

Dual citizenship is said to be the great reform piece of the Red-Green coalition government. However, even if it does go into effect, despite the changeover in Hesse, fewer women will proﬁt from citizenship reform than men because many female immigrants cannot even fulﬁll the prerequisites. “We will grow old in Germany,” she says. Ayse K. is now 50. She holds an application for pension beneﬁts in her hand: now that she is German, she ﬁnally has a right to get something back, at least a part of the money that she paid into the pension fund. She cleaned and scrubbed in a hospital for almost 20 years in Berlin-Neukölln. She has not been able to work for several years. Not much time has elapsed since this Turkish Berliner gave up her dream of retiring in Turkey. Just two years ago, she ﬁnally decided to apply for a German passport. “I was scared,” she explains in broken German, “and I never knew for sure that I wouldn’t indeed go back after all.” Only when it became clear that her children would never leave Germany did she accept the thought that she would stay here too. But she does not feel like a German.

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For most female immigrants sitting in the rooms of the Turkish Women’s Organization this morning in Berlin-Kreuzberg, the decision to apply for a German passport was purely pragmatic. “It’s very useful from a bureaucratic perspective,” says nurse Emine G., “and there’s nothing for me in Turkey either.” It was completely different for her mother. “She is already at the age where she can retire in Turkey,” she says, “but she wouldn’t receive any pension there as a German.” Women of the ﬁrst generation frequently paid into the pension funds of both countries. “She’ll receive little money in Turkey,” says Aysin Yesilay-Inan, “but she might be able to live off of it there.” Aysin Yesilay-Inan, who works in the Turkish Women’s Organization as a counselor and primarily helps women ﬁll out the countless forms, sees a dilemma in women giving up their Turkish passport when they have not yet built an existence for themselves here: “Many women have ancestral land in Turkey; it is often their only possession. In Turkish marriages, it is anything but customary to split the man’s income.” The women can retain ownership of the land only if they remain Turks: no Turkish passport, no Turkish inheritance. However, Yesilay-Inan also observes that it is often easier for women to forgo the passport of their homeland. “Perhaps this is because their mind-sets are less patriotic.” A reform of the citizenship law could create at least some independence for married women who either follow their husbands or are married off to Germany without ever having seen their future life partners. This group does not only include Turkish and Arabic women who marry Turks or Arabs living here. “More and more Asian women are being brought into the country,” says Thuy Nonnemann of the Berlin Vietnam House. “Many of them end up here completely helpless in catastrophic conditions—locked up, blackmailed, or abused.” They may defend themselves against these unbearable conditions only after four years—prior to that time, they receive no independent right of residence. According to Red-Green coalition plans, they could apply for German citizenship after two years of marriage. And even though perhaps only “two years of mistreatment” will be “prevented,” as Hatice Pekyigit of the Berlin help line TIO cynically remarks: two years of mistreatment is a long time. Still, all the female immigrant organizations are pushing for women to receive their own residence-permit status upon their arrival. The frequency of cases in which women follow male immigrants to Germany has increased considerably. “Many men cannot make things work with women of the second generation,” observes Pekyigit. “So women whose behavior is more docile are ﬂown in from Turkey. They arrive and are completely helpless because they can’t speak German and don’t know anyone.” The men, whom the young girls and women meet here, are “often even more conservative than their fathers in Turkey,” observes the Saarbrücken psychologist Ferah Aksoy, who works mainly with young Muslim women.

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“The young women hope for a great life and ﬁnd to their horror that their life here is worse than in Turkey.” According to Aksoy, there is no way back for most of them because of the loss of face but also because many have given up everything. A German passport in the pocket is an enormous advantage: “security always compensates somewhat for feelings of inferiority.” The signiﬁcance of a new citizenship law for the majority of foreign women who have been here for some time is still unclear. Most immigrant women, working jobs typically done by women, do not believe in a sudden emancipatory effect. “Most families who came in the sixties came from traditionally conservative rural regions,” explains Aksoy, “and many have hardly budged from their values.” Aksoy separates the daughters of these families into roughly three groups: those who completely reﬂect the role modeling of their parents, those who ﬁght for their freedom through tricks and white lies, and a small minority of self-conﬁdent immigrant women. The latter group is becoming increasingly large,” says Aksoy. “This is easy to see, particularly in Berlin. But such processes take a long time.” Indeed, the self-image of the generation that comes into the world after the introduction of a new citizenship law (and receives German citizenship without active parental assistance) could change dramatically. “Today it’s par for the course that parents threaten their children: if you don’t behave, we’ll send you back to Turkey,” says Sanem Kleff of the Berlin organization Education and Science (Erziehung und Wissenschaft). “Then the story is: your grandma in Anatolia always wanted to have you with her. Young women are often enough sent back for a few years and then have serious problems when they return and still can speak only broken German.” If children automatically had a German passport, hopes Kleff, then this means of pressure would be unavailable to parents. “It is incredibly important for the socialization of the second and third generation that this sword above their head disappears.” The psychologist Aksoy observes that foreign parents are often completely overwhelmed by child rearing in a cultural area considered to be hostile, and consequently, they turn to absurd measures. But she also fears that having a German passport will not be very helpful to many young girls. “Familial pressure will remain,” says Aksoy, “and when one is not raised to be independent, it is very difficult to say, ‘no, I’m not going to do that right now.’ ” In a study on Islamic girls and women in Giessen and Lollar, teacher Fatma Dülger found that most underage girls live with two identities: they feel simultaneously like a German and an Iranian or Turk. She also determined that the German passport gives a sense of security to the girls, of whom several already have dual citizenship. “It gives them some independence from their parents,” she says. “Furthermore, there are parents who do go back to Turkey. Until now the children always had to go with them even when they were almost of age.”

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Dülger also considers it important that the children born here become German without having to take initiative in the process. “Up until this point, it has always been the educated who opted for a German passport and began the long bureaucratic journey. And when the parents didn’t get involved, then the children were stuck.” Admittedly, though, there is also the fear that a new naturalization law, if truly passed, will bring countless disadvantages to women. For only those who do not receive welfare or unemployment beneﬁts would be naturalized, and this is an ever-shrinking group. In the Turkish population alone, the unemployment rate is at 23.2 percent; women are overrepresented here as well as in the welfare ranks. “Nine out of ten women who come here receive state support” says Saadet Özulusal of TIO, “or they do not apply for welfare and muddle through somehow in order not to endanger their residence-permit status.” But whether someone managed to live without state assistance has never yet played a role in the application for naturalization [during 15 years of residence]. “Naturally, we welcome the new law,” says Özulusal, “but we also see some problems. It seems likely that we will develop a two-class law: only those who can afford it can become a German. And it will be overwhelmingly women who will form the underclass.” The associates of ZAPO, a Berlin project oriented toward immigrants from Eastern Europe, also perceive disadvantages for their clients. “Most of these women work for unbelievably low wages or cannot ﬁnd employment at all,” says Hilde Hellbernd. Others slip into welfare as soon as they have children, and then do not learn the German language because they spend most of their time in the home. Consequently, they cannot ﬁnd a better-paying job—and ultimately are not naturalized because of their poor Germanlanguage skills. On the journey to naturalization, women have an advantage over men in only one area: they have fewer previous convictions.

13 ROGER DE WECK

PRO: TWO PASSPORTS First published as “Pro: Zwei Pässe” in Die Zeit ( January 7, 1999). Translated by Tes Howell. De Weck (b. 1953, Friburg, Switzerland) became editor in chief of Die Zeit in 1997.

Dual Citizens—Good Citizens Millions of people have two passports. Is this problematic? Do they have a problem? Not at all. Dual citizenship is not a danger but an opportunity. It can only be good for Europe if, for example, numerous Germans are also French and vice versa. Dual citizenship is useful, but even more useful would be triple or quadruple citizenship. Then Europe would be Europe.

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Increasingly, people carry two cultures within them; they have a father and a mother tongue, a motherland and a fatherland. Or they grew up in two countries and love one just as much as the other. Or they have found a second homeland without separating from the ﬁrst. It is anachronistic to want to limit these people to a single citizenship. Citizens of two states are good citizens. They can enrich both states’ commonwealth and body of thought. The French-German Daniel Cohn-Bendit is now the German candidate of the French Greens in the European elections. That is okay, that is allowed, and almost everyone thinks that is nice. Nevertheless, dual citizenship is to remain disagreeable? If cosmopolitanism is a virtue today, then “ duopolitanism” simply cannot be bad. No German takes exception to the fact that Bernhard Vogel was ﬁrst the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate and then of Thuringia. In 30 years, it will be a given for us Europeans that a good (and bilingual) politician changes locales: from Paris to Berlin, from the French cabinet to the German cabinet. Such changes will cause as little sensation as the recent move of Schleswig-Holstein’s trade and commerce minister to North Rhine– Westphalia. In business, science, and culture, the leap over national borders is becoming increasingly easy, increasingly necessary. Politics will follow. The opponents of dual citizenship have an old, incoherent image of the state. The state of the future in Europe is not the nation-state. Precisely this fact should deter the European-oriented CDU from inﬂating nation-state citizenship. [. . .] Both nation and region will inspire identity as before, as the Bavarians in Germany remained the Bavarians (and in turn, within Bavaria, the Franconians are still Franconians). But national identity will—as has long been the case with regional identity—always be based on something other than citizenship. The notion of a Europe of open regions and self-contained nations is absurd. All European nations—even étatiste France—will one day be more culturally inspired than state-inspired nations. Hence the uniqueness and extraordinariness of the European Union as opposed to the authoritative political system: it is neither nation nor empire, two extremely dangerous political entities. National sovereignty plays a role in the EU—nevertheless, the citizen should not be allowed to share his nationality? All or nothing: either German or French but by no means GermanFrench. Madness. Nothing against the French, the dual-citizenship foes will argue, but the issue here is Turks. So what? What’s the problem? Will Germany be harmed if a young German also has a Turkish passport? Damage occurs when the young German only has a Turkish passport. He who does not have to live a divided existence will communicate and connect with others so much the better.

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14 JAN ROSS

CON: ONE PASSPORT First published as “Contra: Ein Pass” in Die Zeit ( January 7, 1999). Translated by Tes Howell. A correspondent for Die Zeit, Ross has come to represent “modern conservatism” and “small government” with his 2002 book The New Enemies of the State, a critique of the Social Democratic administration of Gerhard Schröder.

Dual Citizens—Half Citizens Dual citizenship has become the political mascot of enlightenment and liberalism. Whoever expresses objections to it is suspected of being a nationalist and obscurantist; or even worse, he simply does not understand where the problem lies. Is the passport not just a formality, not really that important? One must ﬁrst throw the question back to the citizenship-law reformers. They are actually the ones who overestimate the passport. They believe they hold a particularly useful instrument for foreigner integration in their hands. It is free and ideologically correct, a demonstrative act against hyperGermanness and barroom prejudices. Unfortunately, the passport contributes very little to integration. For the issue is primarily a social problem, not a legal one, and he who pursues the legal/political path makes two mistakes. He neglects the social because he believes to have found a legal patent remedy to solve the “foreigner question.” And he debases the law when he abuses it as an apparent replacement for the much more difficult task of social integration. To see the means for integration in the political status of the citizen is to misjudge the difference between state and society. The reformers therefore overestimate the citizenship law as a remedy and an aid. At the same time, they underestimate it in its own intrinsic value, and the debate about dual citizenship demonstrates this fact. Not that dual citizenship would be inherently objectionable: the conservatives love to exaggerate the danger of divided loyalty. But a strangely dispirited and uncharitable image of one’s own community manifests itself in the routine acceptance of dual citizenship. One cannot impute desirability to a community that could prompt its new citizens to forgo another identity for a freely chosen German one. It may also be that this currently prevailing negative self-assessment is even justiﬁed. There is not much inspiration in being a German these days, with no conception or mission, no republican humanitarian emotionalism or American sense of mission of freedom. We do not necessarily need to be like this; after all, one cannot falsify such ideals. But to be or become a country, to which one is happily committed, would be pleasurable and worth all efforts—politically and culturally. The treatment of citizenship as just some free gift, as something that does not cost anything and is therefore worth nothing—this attestation of low self-esteem is certainly

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not suited to awakening the respect of others, nor to our ambitions to cultivate the desirability of being German. The strangest aspect of this dual-citizenship discussion is a rarely noticed contradiction voiced by its proponents. They are the ones who demand a departure from the traditional German concept of nation as a pure bloodline—the renunciation of all things ethnic and national, blood and soil [Blut und Boden]. They regard ius sanguinis, Germanness by virtue of the parents’ German lineage, as a terrible anachronism. According to them, it should be replaced by the enlightened “Western” understanding of nation as a community deﬁned by cohabitation, oriented toward the everyday, and constructed by common convictions; it should be a union of free citizens, not a fateful alliance of clan members. Constitutional patriotism instead of tribal nationalism. However, it is precisely this understanding of state that demands the conscious choice, the decision for a citizen identity. What kind of constitutional patriots are those people who undervalue their constitutionally based citizenship so much that the process of opting for this citizenship, while having to renounce another, seems perpetually unreasonable to them? Particularly those who understand affiliation with a nation not as a natural act but rather as one of will and freedom, must be prepared to demand or make a sacriﬁce. The new citizens’ continued dependency on the country of their familial origin is by no means excluded. One can certainly love two women. But one can be married only to one.

15 MICHAEL BRENNER

REWARDED FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR First published as “Belohnte Bravheit: Integration vor Einbürgerung: Deutsche Judenemanzipation” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( January 26, 1999). Translated by David Gramling. Brenner, professor of Jewish history at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, is author of Jewish Culture of the Weimar Republic (Munich: Beck, 2000).

Integration before Naturalization: The Emancipation of German Jews “Naturalization can only come at the end of a successful integration,” reads one of the core sentences of the Hessian CDU party’s signature campaign. The concept of citizenship as a reward for successful proof of integration has a tradition in Germany. Whether it has proven itself valid is another story. At the end of the eighteenth century, when liberal thinkers such as the Prussian minister of war Christian Wilhelm Dohm sought to transform German Jews from mere subjects into useful citizens, they adopted a similar approach. In order to make Jews into “happier, better people and more useful members of society” the state made them undergo an educational process and adapt to the cultural environment; only upon attaining this goal would

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they achieve lawful emancipation. All German states more or less followed this model during the nineteenth century. Thus, it took almost a century until the constitution of the empire no longer discriminated against Jews as second-class citizens. A look to the West shows that this process transpired in other ways as well. In the wake of the Revolution, French Jews were emancipated overnight, so to speak—or, more precisely, over two nights, because not until a year later did the poorer and less acculturated Jews of Alsace become entitled to what their Sephardic brethren in Bordeaux had acquired immediately. Of course, two decades later Napoleon made quite conspicuous inquiries as to whether the French Jews had indeed proven themselves French, but in general the French principle was effectively the opposite of the German. France sought no prerequisites initially, and the Jews became equally enfranchised French citizens without performing preliminary tasks. In Germany, in contrast, they obtained equal rights only after they had proven themselves worthy by means of an extended process. The question whether German anti-Semitism had a special path has not been intensively discussed since [Daniel] Goldhagen. Clearly, the answer to this question is extremely multilayered, but one thing can be said with some certainty: the debate, protracted over decades, on whether Jews enjoy equal rights or not decisively contributed to the fact that large parts of the population repeatedly questioned their Germanness even after 1870. Certainly, the “motherland of emancipation” has its own anti-Semitism and its Dreyfus Affair. But the Dreyfus Affair would not have been possible in Prussia because there were no Jewish officers there until the First World War. And whereas France and Italy featured prominent Jewish ministers, this arrangement was to remain unthinkable in Prussia and in other German states (with the single exception of Baden) until the Weimar Republic. Certainly, this de facto delay was no longer due to legal conditions but to societal consensus in the affected spheres. Dohm and his liberal successors, who ultimately accomplished Jewish emancipation, were anything but anti-Semites. They spoke well of the Jews, who must ﬁrst be taught how to become German. Their path was supposed to make Jews “happier, better people” and above all “more useful members of society.” Similarly, one may not ascribe xenophobia to the supporters of the signature campaign. The “Ruttgers paper” makes clear how the Jews’ usefulness for society was accentuated in those days: “Foreign fellow citizens are an enrichment to our society.” But considering the not-so-joyful consequences of the German path of Jewish emancipation in the longer term, those who see “naturalization only at the end of a successful integration” must ask themselves who actually decides whether and when this integration is successful, and what effects will years of discussions and public signature campaigns have on the population?

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By the time Jews ﬁnally became equally enfranchised citizens, the debate had gone on so long that, in the minds of many Germans, Jews could never be Germans. A culturally, religiously, and racially deﬁned concept of Germanness appears to have ﬂouted citizenship considerations. Social integration had already come up against insurmountable hurdles just at the moment of successful emancipation. What is ultimately important for the integration of foreigners is not whether they live in Germany with one or two passports, but whether their Christian fellow citizens can imagine Muslim Germans and Black Germans in their minds. Change in citizenship law regarding ancestry criteria must thus be followed by an intensive promotion of societal acceptance of many “other” and new German citizens. The longer one discusses the tasks they must perform in order to obtain the German passport, the more barriers will be established in people’s minds.

16 DIETER GRIMM

THE OTHER MAY REMAIN OTHER First published as “Das Andere darf anders bleiben” in Die Zeit (February 17, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. Grimm (b. 1937) was a justice of the Federal Constitutional Court from 1987 to 1999 and subsequently became professor of public law at Berlin’s Humboldt University and a member of the Global Law Faculty at New York University.

When the Constitution Was Written, No One Thought about Multiculturalism [. . .] Uncertainty reigns supreme in legal practice. The High Administration Court in Münster decided a case concerning a female Muslim student’s being excused from coeducational sports instruction on the premise of compulsory conformity, whereas the High Administration Court in Bremen adjudicated according to the preservation of identity. Clearly, overarching principles are necessary to resolve the discrepancies. Nothing is more important than examining the document upon which society has standardized the foundation of its coexistence: the constitution. One must, of course, consider that the problem of multiculturalism had not yet presented itself at the time of the enactment of the Basic Law. One cannot expect explicit answers from it, nor can one even ﬁnd such relevant terms as “tolerance” and “culture.” Nonetheless, the Basic Law is a constitution that supports tolerance, even tolerance toward cultural difference. Among its most signiﬁcant principles are the equality of all people—rooted in human dignity, the unrestricted development of identity, the freedom of religion and of conscience, the freedom of speech and art, the freedom to assemble and form organizations. In short, differences of opinion, plurality of religions and worldviews, and cultural diversity are legitimate according to the constitution; difference must

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be tolerated in principle. Each can choose his/her lifestyle. Each can also reject other lifestyles but not infringe upon their right to exist. The state must guarantee the freedom of all and may not interfere on behalf of one party over another. The Basic Law did not establish these tenets with regard to intercultural conﬂicts, which no one could have foreseen in 1949, but rather in light of intracultural conﬂicts: of denominational conﬂicts that came from the various interpretations of the Christian tradition or out of political conﬂicts that arose from differing interpretations of the common good and—under the auspices of truth—led to civil war or repression. The Basic Law formulated its answer generally and abstractly and therefore is a valid instrument for these new conﬂicts. The notion that members of other cultures must conform fully and completely is unconstitutional. The freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of speech, and equality are human rights. Whoever lives here as a member of a foreign culture can lay claim to these rights and cannot simply be forced to give up his/her customs and convictions. But that premise does not mean that the immigrant may force his/her cultural idiosyncrasies upon the native population. It also does not mean that he/she does not need to be considerate of the convictions and customs of the native population. The Basic Law is not value neutral; it is based on the value of human dignity and the consequent principles of individual selfdetermination and equality in freedom. For this reason, it also protects the autonomy of different social subsystems such as politics, economy, science, art, and law. After all, it is established upon a pluralistic democracy as the best form of governance reﬂected by these principles. After the experience of National Socialism, these principles were ascribed such a high value that they are seen as unalterable. [. . .] The question is only whether the constitution allows or even provides for exemptions from restrictions on freedom in a conﬂict between a foreign culture and the German legal system. At issue is also the relation between unity and difference, equality and dispensation that demands clariﬁcation with every encounter between cultures. Here the problem of multiculturalism becomes mostly a practical one; here is where the legal arguments occur. For example: may animals be slaughtered without anesthesia, contrary to the ban on ritual animal slaughter, if religious faith demands this act? Must a motorcycle-riding Sikh wear a helmet although his religion prescribes that he wear a turban? May a worker be ﬁred because he performs compulsory prayers during work hours or does not show up for work on a religious holiday? Must a prisoner of Mosaic belief eat standard prison food even if it contains forbidden ingredients? May a father refuse medicinal treatment for his cancer-stricken son for religious reasons? May parents keep their daughters from continuing their education because their own culture reserves higher

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education for the sons? Must polygamy be allowed for a foreigner living here if it is acceptable in his culture? [. . .] Regarding exemptions from generally applicable regulations, in and of themselves well-founded, room for tolerance is greater than usually assumed. No one should be prevented from performing religious duties just because the native population is agitated by the foreignness of the behavior or takes offense at the existence of exemptions. The obligation to wear a helmet would then most likely be resolved for the Sikhs under the freedom-ofreligion principle. When a religiously ordained behavior creates disadvantages for others, but the conﬂicting interests can be balanced, exemptions from the generally applicable law are also possible. Prayer during working hours would then not lead to dismissal if the work ﬂow were able to accommodate it and if compensation, through overtime perhaps, were possible. Such exemptions are by no means new. The legal system is rather full of them in favor of certain groups: youth are not prosecuted under general criminal law. Employees who belong to the workers’ council do not fall under the general limited right of cancellation. Officials are excluded from the statutory retirement insurance. Poor people do not have to pay the radiolicense fee; priests do not have to serve in the military. The population’s social cohesion and adherence to the laws have not suffered. One must understand that cultural difference can be a perfectly good reason for exemptions. Now and then, they are already written into the law—for example, in the case of animal slaughter. [. . .] Clarity of legal interpretation is all the more important should a minority wish to forbid or force upon its members a behavior for the preservation of cultural identity that is in opposition to the fundamental guarantees of freedom and equality inherent to the native legal system. Society is not forced to give up its own identity in order to recognize a foreign cultural identity. In the area of equality, there are many examples of this. Forced marriage of young girls, ritual genital mutilation, exclusion from higher learning, but also dishonorable punishments or the prohibition of expression and blocked access to information, must therefore not be tolerated when they have religious or otherwise cultural roots. Not all cultural conﬂicts can be resolved harmoniously. In certain core areas, the only choice is between conformity and ﬂight. 17 C H R I S T I A N D E M O C R AT I C U N I O N

WORKING PRINCIPLES FOR THE IMMIGRATION COMMISSION OF THE CDU PARTY OF GERMANY First published as “Arbeitsgrundlage für die Zuwanderungs-Kommission der CDU Deutschlands” (November 6, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell. The Christian Democratic Union was founded in Berlin

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in July 1945. It is widely regarded as the center-right party on social and political issues in Germany, often working in close conjunction with the Christian Social Union of Bavaria.

[. . .] As a nation, we are responsible for our past and the construction of our future. The common ground of our cultural and historical heritage and our mutual will to freedom and unity are an expression of national identity and the basis for the convergence of people in our reunited Volk and state. A democratic national consciousness encourages acknowledgement of one’s willingness, duties, and responsibility in the community. However, we know that our community lives by spiritual principles that are neither self-evident nor eternally stable. A special commitment for us is to preserve, strengthen, and continue to develop the Christian-inﬂuenced fundamental values of our free democracy. This stance distinguishes us signiﬁcantly from socialist, nationalist, and liberalist thinking. The foundation and orientation of our political action are a Christian understanding of people and the basic values derived from it: freedom, solidarity, and justice. [. . .] No society can handle unrestricted immigration if it does not want to jeopardize its internal stability and identity. The Federal Republic consequently has the right to control and limit immigration—like every other country that is under comparable immigration pressure. The question is not immigration, yes or no, but rather immigration, widely unregulated as before or regulated and restricted. [. . .] Germany must be open to qualiﬁed foreign employees, entrepreneurs, and scholars to ensure peak scientiﬁc performance, great innovative power, and economic vitality. Cosmopolitanism is a prerequisite for outstanding achievements in all areas, not just in sports. If we want to be successful in the global competition for the “best minds,” a half-hearted, indecisive gimmick or instant program like the Green Card initiative will only hurt our country; it will not be of any use to it. Whoever wants to win “the best” must receive them—and their families—with open arms and without resentment and offer them lasting, attractive employment and living prospects in the Federal Republic. [. . .] Every state and every society must pay attention to a certain common foundation, a mutual trust and a communal spirit. The acceptance of a common canon of fundamental values is part of this foundation. A community with the most varied individual notions of living can otherwise not remain stable. Without loyalty to the underlying moral concepts of the host country and a corresponding common identity consciousness, our community can neither fulﬁll its duties nor remind its citizens of their responsibility for everyone’s common welfare. In addition to learning the German language, integration therefore requires a clear commitment to our system of government and constitutional law and assimilation into our social and cultural living conditions. Conse-

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quently, the values of our Christian-Western culture, those shaped by Christianity, Judaism, ancient philosophy, humanism, Roman law, and the Enlightenment, must be accepted in Germany. This does not mandate the abandonment of personal cultural and religious character but rather the approval of and assimilation into our value frameworks and rules that are meant for coexistence. [. . .] Foreigners who want to immigrate legally and obtain permanent residence should participate in an assimilation program. This program should include German language training, but also the essentials of the Federal Republic’s system of laws, the history and culture, as well as the social and professional orientation of our country. Early efforts could help to avoid separatist tendencies and the formation of parallel societies. 18 R I TA S Ü S S M U T H

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION First published as “Bericht der Unabhängigen Kommission Zuwanderung” ( July 4, 2001). Translated by Hilary Menges. In this report, the Independent Commission on Immigration presents the results of its work: “Structured Immigration—Promoting Integration.” The 21-member commission was appointed on September 12, 2000, by the federal minister of the interior, Otto Schily. Süssmuth (b. 1937, Wuppertal) was president of the German Bundestag from 1988 to 1998 and chair of the Independent Commission on Immigration (2000–01).

Germany is in actuality a country of immigration. People came and have stayed; others have migrated back to their homelands or have continued their migration to other lands. Immigration has become a central public theme. Taboos have been replaced by a general recognition of this reality. Objectivity increasingly determines the public debate. [. . .]

Secure Long-Term Prosperity The goal of an employment-oriented immigration must be to bring about long-term social prosperity, security, and freedom. Prosperity is desirable not just for its own sake but also as a precondition for Germany’s capacity to live in freedom, justice, and solidarity and its capacity to fulﬁll its responsibilities vis-à-vis the imperative of global solidarity with poorer nations. [. . .] World Economic Challenges Globalization opens up economic opportunities but also places new demands on the productivity of the national economy and the people that it affects. The prosperity of the modern industrial states is based on state-ofthe-art technology and knowledge. Knowledge is gaining in importance and is increasingly developed on an international basis. Simultaneously, inter-

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national competition for highly qualiﬁed labor power continues to intensify, and the national organizational framework is losing importance. [. . .]

Demographic Change With static birthrates and without further immigration, the German population is expected to sink from 82 million to 60 million by the year 2050. In this case, the number of persons capable of employment in Germany would drop from 41 million to 26 million. Individual life expectancy is rising, the number of births continues to decline, the population is generally aging. This would still be the case even if more children were born per family in the future, because today there are fewer potential parents than in earlier generations. [. . .] This predictable decrease in population will probably decrease the national economic demand. However, this decelerated growth could lead to the curtailment of business-investment activity and productivity increases. [. . .] Access to the Job Market among Immigrants Coming to Germany for Humanitarian or Social Reasons The commission recommends that immigrants with the intent of long-term residency, either for economic or political reasons, should be granted immediate unrestricted access to the job market. In the case of other immigrants, access to the market should be restricted to avoid a draining effect. The laws of the new market-oriented immigration system regarding access to labor should not be undermined. [. . .] Regarding labor-market access for asylum seekers with pending applications, the current regulation granting access after a waiting period of one year should remain unchanged. In order to mitigate draining effects, the one-year waiting period stipulates that the asylum proceedings should be concluded within this time, during which an applicant is not allowed to work. [. . .] The commission suggests that a broad package of measures be developed with creativity and determination to make Germany more attractive to qualiﬁed immigrants. This program will require combined efforts in society and politics. Failures in this regard could jeopardize the entire project of jobmarket-oriented immigration. [. . .] Germany’s image abroad is indelibly marked by its history, particularly the tyranny of National Socialism. Foreign media devote special attention to xenophobic assaults. Another disadvantage for us is the meager proliferation of the German language in foreign countries, exacerbated by the worldwide encroachment of the English language. [. . .] Efforts to increase Germany’s attractiveness might also motivate highly qualiﬁed Germans to either stay in or return to their country. Currently, 17,000 to 18,000 Germans work in the United States, along with more foreigners who received their natural-science degrees in Germany.

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[. . .] At the close of 2000, approximately 7.3 million people with foreign citizenship were living in Germany, 64 percent of whom had been here for over 8 years; 48 percent, for at least 10 years; and 32 percent for more than 20 years. More than two-thirds of foreign children and youth living in Germany were born here. The vast majority of these people will stay for the long term. The basic goal of avoiding multiple citizenship still stands as before. However, exceptions must be considered in various cases of hardship, and when reciprocity must be guaranteed in relation to other EU states. [. . .] The introduction of jus soli prohibits the legal treatment of people as foreigners over a period of generations when they have long been an integral part of German society. The far-reaching signiﬁcance of this reform should be extensively evaluated. In the social consciousness, it will henceforth become increasingly self-evident that citizenship is not inextricably tied to ethnic heritage. [. . .] Last but not least, it is necessary to achieve as broad a consensus as possible between state authorities and residential populations to ensure legitimacy in elections. Those afforded political participation by naturalization, which includes the right to vote, are of central importance. [. . .] The tendency to seek naturalization is not great among migrants who came to Germany before the 1973 recruitment ban. Apparently the requirements for naturalization seem unattainable to them. In recognition of far-reaching integration efforts of these people, the commission feels a more generous position on multiple citizenship is appropriate for this group of people. These immigrants, as well as German society, have neglected the acquisition of the German language, because they were expected to have a limited period of residency. During naturalization procedures, the blame for this situation should not be ascribed to these law-abiding immigrants, who have worked hard since their arrival in Germany and who have raised their children here. [. . .] 19 CENTRAL COUNCIL FOR MUSLIMS IN GERMANY

STATEMENT OF THE ISLAMIC COUNCIL ON THE REPORT OF THE IMMIGRATION COMMISSION First published as “Stellungnahme des Islamrates zum Bericht der Zuwanderungskommission” (August 29, 2001). Translated by Hilary Menges. The Central Council for Muslims in Germany officially formed in 1994, although representatives of Islamic umbrella alliances throughout Germany had been meeting since 1986 to organize around federal legislative topics such as religious education.

The Islamic Council of the Republic of Germany welcomes the objectives described in the Immigration Commission’s report about regulated immigration. Given the backdrop of the report’s reference to a new phase of integration

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policy, the Islamic Council expresses emphatic support for a civil society in which the foreign is understood as an opportunity for enrichment. The goal must be a culture of recognition and togetherness in equality, in which the fundamental rights and duties of the Basic Law will be accepted on the basis of difference. Cultural differences—for example, wearing a head scarf—must be tolerated and accepted by the social majority. The disappearance of individual heritage—and identity—must not occur under integration, because this development would lead to a false equation with assimilation. It must also be expressly acknowledged that integration is not a process of removing supposed “deﬁciencies” among migrants. The goal is rather, a new balance between rights and duties through the clear and manifest expectation of legally guaranteed rights. For example, the state must make an all-encompassing offer of incorporation and integration assistance to migrants and combine it with incentives in the form of increased accessibility to legal residence and work permits. In addition, the guarantee of religious freedom is an essential prerequisite for the integration of minorities, as mentioned in the Immigration Commission’s report. Instituting Islamic instruction as a proper compulsory subject at public schools is an important step toward the equalization of Muslims with the already established religious communities. In order for equal religious status to be conferred upon Islam in Germany, the recognition of Islam as a legal body of public right (in keeping with the strong conviction of the Islamic Council) is an urgent condition. The Islamic Council emphatically demands the introduction of an antidiscrimination law in Germany, which would allow migrants to defend themselves against discrimination and its consequences. As always, people in Germany experience discrimination due to their heritage or religious convictions, whether in daily life or in the workplace. It is now necessary to translate word for word the antidiscrimination guidelines of the European Parliament, in order to bring to fruition the protection of religious minorities appropriate in a lawful democracy. To ensure a promising and successful coexistence of the societal minority and majority, the Islamic Council advocated early on a clear and deﬁnite delimitation of the terms integration and assimilation. Gratifyingly, the report of the independent Immigration Commission took up this train of thought and currently attributes the guarantee of the existing religious beliefs of Muslims to “identity-building and identity-supporting functions.” If one wants to integrate migrants as equal partners in the societal structure for the long term, integration cannot and must not mean the surrender of ancestral culture and identity. A nonbureaucratic naturalization as well as the acceptance of dual citizenship are tried and tested methods in this process. A sustained representation of the Islamic Council’s positions on integra-

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tion will be further achieved through an intensiﬁed inclusion of migrants in intercultural housing projects that serve to promote integration. This program should include the establishment of home ownership as well as the participation of migrants in programs that promote economic independence through state-supported programs toward establishing one’s livelihood. In this way, migrants will achieve a secure and long-term place in German society and, through their economic performance and the creation of new jobs, contribute to increased investment in the private sector. 20 PRO ASYL

COUNTERFEIT LABELS ARE BECOMING LAW Press release ﬁrst published as “Ettiketenschwindel wird Gesetz” on the PRO ASYL website ( June 18, 2004). Translated by David Gramling. Members of welfare and human-rights organizations formed PRO ASYL in 1986 during the height of the asylum debate. The organization currently claims a membership of 12,000 throughout Germany. This press release presents one of several dissenting opinions that emerged in public debates in the days following the immigration compromise of June 2004.

The government and opposition are claiming, in a kind of grand-coalition harmony, that the compromise on the immigration law is of truly historical dimensions. From the perspective of PRO ASYL, the only thing with epochal signiﬁcance is this vain self-celebration among politicians. At the conclusion of a multiyear political dramaturgy, they have presented a law that delivers on almost none of the promises of the past. The curtain is closing—and the central questions remain open. A swindle of labels is about to become law. Immigration itself will hardly be possible in the future, except for an entrepreneur who can bring his ﬁrst million along with him and create ten new jobs or who can promptly ﬁnd employment after completing his studies. Real opportunities for immigration, which are desirable for demographic as well as economic reasons, are nowhere in sight. PRO ASYL’s view is that many one-time political declarations of intent, not only those made by the Greens but those of other Bundestag parties as well, are either absent from the bill or have been transﬁgured in an entirely unsatisfactory way. Despite all of the propaganda about mutual agreement, the praxis of delay and toleration [in recognizing undocumented foreign nationals and asylum seekers] has not been dismantled. PRO ASYL’s analysis of the proposed new statutes reveals that the preconditions for achieving legal residence will become even more difficult under the Foreigner Act currently in force. The new law contradicts an agreement among the Federal Assemblies of the Green Party from May 8, 2004, as well as agreements among various bodies of the SPD, Union parties, and FDP. In any case, integration will not take place for those who have been “tolerated” for several years. [. . .]

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The law includes no statutes for older applications. Even the Foreigner Act passed by the Kohl administration in 1990 included this feature. In contrast to other European states, which have added right-to-remain and right-tolegalization statutes into their new foreigner laws, what is ostensibly Europe’s most modern body of immigration law has missed its chance to make up for the past. A tightening of deportation law and the introduction of sanctions in the area of integration are intensifying the repressive character of the law. The message of this law is not openness to the world but a kind of barracks mentality. Through the introduction of so-called exit centers, the law will have an even more macabre effect: reports indicate that more people than ever are living in prisonlike conditions under the Red-Green government—or simply in prison, because there are no efforts to restrict the excessive German prison law. In the last round of negotiations, there was a fatal intermingling of immigration issues with security dilemmas. Even though the effectiveness of the ﬁrst two antiterror-law packages has not yet been assessed, the law introduces a new activist position in this regard. The legal instruments that are currently in place already cut deep into the structure of our legal state. Despite the original resistance of the CDU, statutes for the recognition of sex-speciﬁc and nonstate persecution as grounds for asylum were included in the bill. This now-belated modernization is following up on a mandatory EU guideline. An immigration law would not have been necessary in order to achieve this step forward. The meager result of this gigantic legislative process can be boiled down to this formula: pseudomodernization in a kind of Grand Coalition harmony. Hardly any problems will be resolved in the long term. The CDU, as announced, will continue to up the ante on security questions. German corporations will press for a neoliberal tradition of increased access for “useful” immigrants. The politically weakened SPD can call attention to this false victory, and the CDU can tout the limits [on new immigrants] that it wanted. With closed eyes, the Greens carefully catered to the coalition partners they pocketed in the last elections. For the great majority of those who have been tolerated for years and for most refugees, the law offers few options. [. . .]

21 RAINER MÜNZ

WE WOULD RATHER BE AMONG OUR OWN KIND First published as “Wir bleiben lieber unter uns” in Die Zeit ( June 24, 2004). Translated by David Gramling. Münz (b. 1954, Basel) is professor of population science at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In this text, “backyard preachers” refers to imams who set up makeshift mosques in urban backyards.

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Despite Stoiber, Beckstein, Müller, Schily, and all the others who negotiated the Immigration Act—or better said, the Immigration Limitation Act— Germany needs immigrants. Urgently. We’ve known the reason for this for years. In the coming decades, the number of Germans of working age will shrink markedly, an unpleasant consequence of the low birthrate. The number of elderly will, however, steadily grow for at least 40 years. Two felicitous developments are responsible for this situation. On the one hand, the life expectancy has increased, and on the other hand, the elderly are of a generation that was not decimated in a world war. This demographic development will most certainly affect our affluence. And it endangers our competitiveness. In the future, more and more young people with newly acquired knowledge will move into the labor market. At the same time, this shrinking number of younger people will provide for more and more old people. The result: the wiggle room for wage increases will become smaller, the retirement living standards will not be able to be maintained, Germany as a location will become unattractive, the attempt to ﬁll the holes in the national household budget with taxes and dividends will become all the more difficult. Two things could help us out of this predicament: a longer working life and more qualiﬁed immigrants. Of course, immigration is unpopular, and so is a higher retirement age. There is, however, no reasonable alternative to either. Even those who hope for higher birthrates through an increase in the ﬁnancial subsidy for families must admit that children born next year will not be available for the labor market until 2025, and those with higher qualiﬁcations will not reach it until 2030. Far too late. Given this insight, Germany should be in a position to generate the most modern immigration laws of Europe. In order to secure a large societal majority for this, the Red-Green federal government founded a commission under the directorship of the CDU politician Rita Süssmuth in mid-2000. Employers, unions, churches, communities, scientists, and the political parties took part. Exactly three years ago, the Süssmuth commission suggested the following: the active selection of qualiﬁed immigrants according to the model of the classical immigration countries, the active promotion of integration through language courses and orientation for immigrants, and changes in the asylum law. The selection of highly qualiﬁed immigrants according to a point system—independent of whether they already have been offered a job—should provide Germany with a clear advantage in the international competition for economically attractive migrants. Canada and Australia have had successful experiences with this strategy for years and have thus served as a model for the commission. This ambivalent attempt at a future-oriented immigration law has failed. The CDU rejected the plan, though its own experts, under the direction of

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the Saarland-based minister president Müller had made a very similar suggestion. The CSU was against it as well, and Red-Green was lacking a majority even within its own party in the Bundesrat. The result is a compromise that does not deserve the name Immigration Act. The point system, which was actually the core of the plan, was dropped in committee. As a result, the 1973 moratorium on foreign labor recruitment has been maintained. Ambitious young people from other countries will not, for the foreseeable future, be able to settle in Germany—unless they are self-sufficient entrepreneurs with at least a million euros and ten new jobs in their suitcase. The iconoclastic idea of coaxing the best and most creative minds to Germany has thus been buried. Nonetheless, the law provides for limited exceptions to the moratorium on recruitment: precisely for those entrepreneurs just mentioned. Second, exceptions will be made for university students, who will be granted one year after graduating to ﬁnd a job. And, ﬁnally, for top-notch scientists and elite managers, an unlimited right to settle will be created. Germans, other EU citizens, and citizens of countries that have just joined the EU will continue to outrank these people in the applicant pool. Asylum law will also be improved. Refugees who are from nonstate groups or who encounter discrimination because of their sexual orientation or the threat of genital mutilation did not have a right to asylum until now. This situation is changing. The controversial “stopgap toleration” policy will be discontinued. Asylum seekers who may not be deported to their home countries because of war or terror can receive a limited residency permit in their ﬁrst year. In the second year, this situation will be standard practice. Refugees who are recognized according to the Geneva Convention have until now only received so-called minor asylum. Now these refugees will be viewed as equal to those recognized in article 16a of the Basic Law, thus allowing them to work. Hardship commissions may also distribute a limited residency permit if an applicant is required to leave the country or may be deported. The new feature of the law is the stipulations for internal security. The deportation of terror suspects and backyard preachers will be made easier. If deportation is not possible, the government bureaus may restrict the mobility of terror suspects and forbid them to have contact with certain other people. Security detainment for suspects who may not be deported, which the federal interior minister suggested and the CDU vehemently supported, is nowhere to be found in the new law. This kind of detainment apparently offends against the enlightened opinions of constitutional scholars and the Basic Law. An essential demand of the commission has been fulﬁlled by the new law: promoting the integration of immigrants. Immigrants now have a right to language and integration courses. Until now, this right was available only to

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resettlers from the former Soviet Union. The estimated cost (235 million euros annually) will be covered by the federal government. Interior Minister Schily, Saarland Minister President Müller, and Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein agreed on this stipulation at the last minute. Language and integration courses are mandatory only for immigrants who do not possess EU citizenship. If these immigrants do not take part in the course, their social assistance may be discontinued. In extreme cases, their residence permit may not be renewed. Without a doubt, the new law offers some improvements. But it forgets about the great opportunity to open the gate for highly qualiﬁed immigrants. There will not be another change anytime soon, and an EU-wide regulation is nowhere in sight. This law does not help to shape the future.

22 ACT TO CONTROL AND RESTRICT IMMIGRATION AND TO REGULATE THE RESIDENCE AND INTEGRATION OF EU CITIZENS AND FOREIGNERS (2005) Passed in 2005 as Zuwanderungsgesetz. Translated by Tes Howell. This law resulted from a compromise between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in June 2004. As Germany’s ﬁrst comprehensive immigration law ever, it marks a symbolic threshold in the country’s legislative and political history.

Section 1. Purpose of the Law 1) The law serves to manage and restrict the movement of foreigners into the Federal Republic of Germany. It facilitates and shapes Zuwanderung, or immigration, while maintaining consideration for the integration capacity and economic, labor-market interests of the Federal Republic. The law also serves to fulﬁll the humanitarian responsibilities of the Federal Republic. It regulates the entry, residence, employment, and integration of foreigners. Regulations in other laws remain unchanged. [. . .] Section 19. Settlement Permits for Highly Qualiﬁed Persons 1) A settlement permit may be granted to a highly qualiﬁed person in special cases, if the Federal Institute for Labor consents. [. . .] 2) Highly qualiﬁed persons for clause 1 are: 1. Researchers with special topical knowledge, 2. Instructors in a particularly important function or research assistants, 3. Specialists and management staff with particular career experience, who receive a wage of at least double the assessment standard of state health insurance. [. . .] Section 43. Integration Courses and Programs 1) The integration of foreigners who are living legally and permanently in the Federal Republic into economic, cultural, and societal life will be promoted.

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2) Integration efforts on the part of foreigners will be supported by an offering of integration courses. Integration courses include instruction in the language, the legal order, the culture, and the history of Germany. Consequently, foreigners should become accustomed to the living conditions in federal territory to the extent that they will possess the necessary selfsufficiency to handle all aspects of everyday life without assistance from a third party. [. . .]

5 RELIGION AND DIASPORA MUSLIMS, JEWS, AND CHRISTIANS

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

F R E I M A N N M O S Q U E , 1 9 7 3 . Postwar Munich had a relatively large population of Muslims, many of whom had been refugees or prisoners of war. The municipal government accepted this single-minaret design after an initial objection that “though ﬁtting for an illustration out of A Thousand and One Nights, it is certainly not appropriate for Munich.”

religious affiliation as a crucial force in migrant community building and for the cohesion of the modern nation-state. The September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center, which were partially planned in Hamburg, incited an extensive debate about Islamist political organizations in German cities. September 11 also encouraged discussions among Muslims in Germany about the possibilities of a distinctly European Islam. Muslim scholar Bassam Tibi in “Between the Worlds” (2002) and social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler in “Muslims Cannot Be Integrated” (2002) illustrate the acute tensions that inform German debates about faith and civic identity. Some of the earliest institutional advocates for multiculturalism and the social integration of immigrants were Christian churches. In the ﬁrst text in this chapter, “The Synod Speaks for Guest Workers” (1973), the Catholic Church of Germany takes a decisive position against the “rotation principle” of the guest-worker program. The Synod memo declared that, as fellow citizens and “ fellow Christians,” guest workers deserve stable and just employment conditions, as well as full enfranchisement in their local political communities and congregations. Five additional texts speak to the future of Jewish communities in Germany. Recalling his childhood in Bavaria, Michael Brenner (“No Place of Honor,” 2000) compares postwar Jewish identity to Islamic identity in the 1990s. An interview with author Micha Brumlik (1998) and a report on Jewish pop culture in Berlin (“The Hype over the Star of David,” 1998) illustrate the symbolic role Judaism plays in the cultural imagination of 1990s Germany. Israeli president Ezer Weizman (“With a Backpack of Memories and the Staff of My Hope,” 1996) and Green Party activist and member of the European Parliament Daniel Cohn-Bendit (“As a Jew—Here?” 1996) debate the meaning of Jewish life in Germany in the post-Holocaust era. These two texts are of primary signiﬁcance in the context of the “ﬁfth wave” of RussianJewish emigration to Germany since 1990, when hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews accepted Germany’s invitation to “return,” much to the consternation of many Israeli politicians. Cohn-Bendit defends his preference to live in the Jewish diaspora in Germany, whereas President Weizman claims that Germans must eradicate every mark of racism in their society before Jews can reasonably dwell there.

HIS CHAPTER EXPLORES

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The majority of these texts were written before 2001. They foreground a wide spectrum of social, educational, and civil-rights debates that are not immediately concerned with fundamentalist terrorism or a global clash of cultures. Since the labor-recruitment moratorium in 1973, religious organizations have played an emblematic role in German public discourse about cultural integration. The print media have often represented grassroot and diasporic Muslim religious organizations as a failure of, and a threat to, German civic society. Left-leaning integrationists have railed against the presence of archconservative religious leaders from Turkey and Iran, nicknamed “import imams,” who conduct religious services in languages that few Germans understand. In 1980s West Germany, many Turkish supporters of the secularist principles of Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Republic’s ﬁrst head of state, found themselves in the midst of radical religious organizations that were far more separatist than those they had known in Turkey. Yet Muslim community organizations have undergone major transformations in Germany since the mid-1980s. Many existing congregations offer monthly German-language worship services for third- and fourth-generation immigrants who speak German as their primary language. In the late 1980s, the Turkish political exile Cemalettin Kaplan and his Cologne-based Muslim youth academy aroused the suspicion and consternation of German law enforcement. Kaplan quickly became a metonymic ﬁgure for pro-Iranian, theocratic movements in Germany before his death in 1995. The monolingual and semiprivate religious space of Kaplan’s “caliph state” represented a new kind of cultural sovereignty in Germany, one that questioned the power of the state on several levels. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the federal government often monitored Muslim religious organizations’ activities along with those of other domestic networks like the Red Army Faction, the Gray Wolves, and various Kurdish resistance organizations such as the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Muslim community events in stadiums, courtyards, and mosques have generated xenophobic alarm among German politicians who view these events as indications of widespread “foreigner inﬁltration.” One early text, “What Remains for Turks Abroad?” (1982), considers the emergence of religious political extremism in Turkish communities in Germany, citing the fact that many of the fundamentalist organizations founded in Germany would be banned as insurrectionist in Turkey. “Germany, Your Islamists” (1997) surveys the Islamic political network Milli Görüs (National Perspective), with its large-scale events and its substantial traction in Germany. One can view head scarves, cruciﬁxes, burkas, and other markers of religious affiliation either as mobile symbols of religious political sovereignty or merely as private aspects of one’s everyday wardrobe. In Germany, they are emblematic of a political freedom that both enacts and aggravates German constitutional principles. The debate about head scarves and cruciﬁxes be-

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came particularly relevant in the case of the Afghani-born German citizen and schoolteacher Fereshta Ludin, who was banned from wearing a head scarf while teaching in the state of Baden-Württemberg. In “The Universalist Swindle” (1998), Dilek Zaptçıoglu contends that Ludin’s religious worldview does not impair her desire and capacity to teach Goethe or Schiller any more than a Catholic’s worldview affects his or her teaching style. How can religious Muslims participate in the civic culture of democratic societies? How will Soviet immigration transform Jewish Germany? Will the next decades conﬁrm or refute the fabled “clash of civilizations” between Islamic and Judeo-Christian societies?

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1 WILHELM HILPERT

THE SYNOD SPEAKS FOR GUEST WORKERS First published as “Synode spricht für Gastarbeiter” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (November 24–25, 1973). Translated by David Gramling.

Synod guarantees full participation in church bodies, rejects rotation principle The foreign employee must be respected as more than a fellow Christian and fellow citizen in church and social life. So declares the position paper “The Foreign Employee: His Position in the Church and in Society,” which the common synods of the dioceses of the Federal Republic collectively compiled at Würzburg’s Kilian Cathedral. The synod paper concludes that “Many German Catholics do not realize that every foreign believer is from the outset a fully enfranchised member of the pastoral congregation in which he resides. A transformation in our attitude toward the foreign fellow churches must be achieved, a transformation which priests and socially responsible lay people must always be willing to undertake.” Some 3.5 million foreigners are living in the Federal Republic; among them, about 1.8 million are Catholics and 500,000 are orthodox Christians. Foreigners will henceforth be accepted into the various bodies of the dioceses and pastoral congregations, according to an official stipulation of the synod paper. Furthermore, every diocese will have a special staff, led by a “spiritual leader in the mother language,” for the spiritual guidance of foreigners. The synods recommend that state and municipal governments relax their foreigner laws, facilitate the reuniﬁcation of families, and focus the perquisites of the Labor Promotion Law toward those foreigners who come from a non-EC country. The synods have also expressed opposition to the socalled rotation principle: “Foreigners should not be sent home to their homeland after a few years just to be replaced by other foreign laborers. No one may withhold the opportunity for integration from foreign workers.” Nonetheless, the willingness of individual foreign laborers to return to their homeland will be supported on a case-by-case basis. [. . .]

2 PETRA KAPPERT

WHAT REMAINS FOR TURKS ABROAD? First published as “Was bleibt den Türken in der Fremde?” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (September 25, 1982). Translated by Tes Howell. The term Hodscha is a German transliteration of the Turkish word hoca, meaning “teacher” and “spiritual leader.”

The migration situation of Anatolians is partly characterized by the fact that the practice of Islam has become a defensive tactic against social discrimi-

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nation. At ﬁrst, government officials in Turkey showed no particular interest in the religious support of breadwinners in Germany (whose numbers now run into the hundreds of thousands). Radical sects and brotherhoods, banned and persecuted at home for their unconstitutionality and militancy, have seized the initiative and organized the construction of mosques, Islamic congregations, and extracurricular religious instruction. Organized Islam in Germany—approximately one-ﬁfth of the Turks living here belong to religious organizations or associations—appears therefore to have become far more radical, violent, and militant than Turkey ever allowed it to be. For a long time, Turkey’s official stance was that “this is Germany’s problem, not ours.” The “official representatives” of the highest Turkish religious authorities, as opposed to the sect hodschas, or trained priests, are having a difficult time reconquering the terrain for official orthodox Islam. Competition from fundamentalist sects, partly ﬁnanced by Arab oil nations, is already hard to beat. It is well known that even in religion courses (in addition to the Arabic Koran lesson), students will inevitably hear catchphrases like “Turkish children must not make friends with Germans because they are Christians, eat pork, go dancing, and do not wear head scarves,” or “What is taught in (public) schools is wrong, regardless of whether the teacher is German or Turkish,” or even “Teachers who are against Koran courses must be killed.” Still, German authorities have little chance of intervening. Outside of Koran courses, students are not allowed to tell anyone what they have learned there, where the courses take place, or even the name of the instructor. If they disobey this order, the children will face beatings. The courses are ﬁnancially supported through parents’ membership fees, ranging from 20 to 50 German marks a month, as well as through voluntary and involuntary donations. “The hodschas collect money for their school and other purposes. Whoever does not donate is in danger of being beaten or even killed,” complains a critic of the courses in Hamburg. When confronted with the harsh words of these radical fundamentalist organizations, which incidentally try hard to convey a sense of seriousness to German authorities, this critic prefers to be silent and pay the fees. It is estimated that more than 50 percent of Turkish schoolchildren attend Koran courses in Germany. Yet the parents are frequently not fanatical fundamentalists or absolute opponents of integration. Given the gradual loss of traditional values in their new cultural group, they are now sending children to religion courses based on the feeling that “Islam enables one to preserve a piece of the homeland,” as one father put it. “Religion is one of the few supports in which one can still take pride.”

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3 HEINRICH BILLSTEIN

AN ISLAMIC BOOT CAMP: THE KHOMEINI FROM COLOGNE First published as “Islamische Kaderschmiede: Der Khomeini von Köln” in Die Zeit (February 12, 1988). Translated by Tes Howell. The Cologne-based cleric discussed in this article, Cemalettin Kaplan, died in 1995.

A Home for Young Muslims Alarms Authorities Neither gentleman in the truck makes an effort to disguise his presence. They observe the building from an appropriate distance, without particular caution, and note each Turkish boy and girl leaving this morning with a checkmark. Around noon, the city officials will be there again to take out their tally sheet and note how many Turkish minors reenter this building in North Cologne. The Cologne authorities’ unusual devotion to the Turkish children at 20B Delmenhorster Street has lasted for over a year. The reason: this “boarding school for Muslim youth,” where over 100 Turkish children and youths will be trained as Islamic clerics over a period of four years, does not exactly reﬂect German principles on the protection of minors, nor Western pedagogical concepts. Last September, the North Rhine–Westphalian regional youthwelfare department and the city of Cologne were so frightened for “the physical, spiritual, and mental welfare” of the young Muslims that they ordered immediate closure of this “monastic community.” Since then, the “elite training facility employing iron discipline,” as the city council classiﬁed the boarding school, has become a festering problem, now causing concern among police and legal authorities. In their formal justiﬁcation of the closure, youth-welfare officials claimed that the institution’s representatives employed no trained caregivers and presented no curricular plan, despite an official request. However, what exasperated the officials most was that the children’s education was modeled on Islamic-fundamentalist Iran. Law enforcement still does not know what is actually happening in this facility, which is located in a desolate industrial area. Officials do not even know the precise number of underage inhabitants. At the same time, rumors about paramilitary training and corporal punishment stubbornly persist. Bloodthirsty videos that glorify Iran’s war against Iraq are supposedly just as essential to the school’s curriculum as drills in Koran proﬁciency. The revered Iran allegedly pays the monthly rent of 12,000 German marks for the building, which was once used as a home for asylum seekers. All this conjecture is rejected politely but resolutely by the organization’s directors. The young Muslims themselves are tight-lipped on the subject. Thus, official suspicion is based on the views of the Turkish cleric Cemalettin Kaplan. His Federation of Islamic Associations and Communities established the boarding school. The Khomeini of Cologne, as his oppo-

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nents call him, is viewed as the most radical of the Turkish fundamentalists who have made Cologne their European center in recent years. The 61-year-old religious zealot wants to transform Turkey into an Islamic republic based on the Iranian model. According to Kaplan, the Turkish state, with its “repulsive democracy, has risen up like a cobra over the ﬁeld of martyrs, the Islamic land of Anatole.” Such declarations can be found in Kaplan’s missionary periodical Tebling (Proclamation), which calls for an overthrow of the faithless regime in Ankara. Due to his hateful tirades against the secular “godless Turkish Republic,” the hodscha was sent into early retirement as a mufti (the highest religious ofﬁcial) of the province Adana and then expatriated to Germany. Since then, the [German] Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been on the heels of the Cologne Khomeini imitator. The North Rhine–Westphalian branch has been issuing warnings about his activities since 1985. Meanwhile, Cologne’s Administrative Court forbade him to continue inciting violence from his exile location. In the court’s judgment, such activity is not protected under the basic rights of freedom of religion and opinion. (By the way, this bellicose man obtained recognition as an asylum seeker long ago.) Youthwelfare officials are convinced that the hodscha’s ideas represent real danger for young Turks and that the minors in the home are therefore “being inﬂuenced in a manner not in accordance with the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, and indeed to such a grievous degree that the welfare of the children and youths appears to be endangered.” The city of Cologne has been unable to enforce the closure ordered by the provincial youth-welfare office. Indeed, the city’s law-enforcement personnel have a dilemma. Because the Muslim zealots are not willing to bow out voluntarily, city officials have threatened compulsory evacuation. This action would be a spectacular one for the Federal Republic, one that appears possible only by way of a massive police deployment. There are already plans for such a large-scale operation. Legally, the case is supposedly airtight. Still the city hesitates. What to do with the young inhabitants of the home? After all, the issue is their spiritual salvation. Eike Johannis, the city-council member from Cologne-Nippes, is convinced that the children will be back in Cologne after three days if their parents do not detain them. The game would start all over again. Officials have long suspected that several minors were hidden with Turkish families or in mosques before each social-services inspection. Consequently, law enforcement seems to fear embarrassment just as much as it fears the use of force. In the next few days, the gentlemen from the city clerk’s office of the Nippes district will return to their posts in front of the house. Ultimately, they do not want to stand there empty-handed when the order for compulsory evacuation ﬁnally comes. “Otherwise all of Germany will laugh at us,” predicts one of the officials.

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In the coming days, at least, there will be little chance of a headline-worthy development in the pursuit of the stubborn Turks of North Cologne. After all, Carnival is here. Cologne’s police officers are otherwise occupied.

4 R U D O L F W A LT H E R

FOULARD AND CRUCIFIX: THOUGHTS ON THE CULTURE WARS First published as “Foulard and Kruziﬁx: Kulturkampfüberlegungen” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (August 17, 1995). Translated by David Gramling.

What behooved Bismarck to undertake a so-called cultural struggle between 1871 and 1887? His was not a struggle for culture, as the politically powerful Borussian professors thought, but rather a contribution to nonculture and pietistic intolerance. Certainly, Bismarck was not turning against the Catholic Church per se. This cultural struggle instead targeted the political representatives of Catholicism in the new empire; it was a preemptive campaign against the Catholic Central Party, which needed to be disciplined in the new German style. Nonetheless, the party’s voting membership doubled in size during these 16 years of small-minded legalistic hick-hack. Despite its devious ingenuity, Bismarck’s enterprise was a failure. The Federal Constitutional Court’s recent judgment declaring the Bavarian norm of hanging a Christian cross in every classroom unconstitutional has been decried as a modern version of the Bismarckian culture struggle and compared with the National Socialist politics of Gleichschaltung, or institutional consolidation. Both comparisons are absurd, because the Karlsruhe constitutional court decision does not discriminate against any minority. Instead, it ends the privileging of religion in public schools, speciﬁcally a religion that is now practiced by only a minority. However, the menacing counterimage of a rampant Serbo-Croatian threat to public safety is masquerading about in the guise of a rhetorical question. After the judgment on August 11, 1995, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung aired the following thought: “What if Christian parents were to complain about Muslim girls wearing head scarves in German classrooms?” Is this position convincing at all? In French schools, where a strict separation of church and state has prevailed since 1905, there have been repeated conﬂicts since the 1980s, because individual school principals have categorized head scarves as a catalyst for religious agitation. In 1989, the late-Gaullist representative Chemière barred three head-scarf-wearing girls from school. Since then, and especially since the education minister’s 1994 decree, a minor war has been gathering momentum within French schools. François Bayrou prohibited the wearing of overt religious symbols. He meant head scarves among Muslim women

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and not the crosses around the necks of Christians or the kippahs of Jewish pupils. This decree violated not only the basic premise of equal treatment but also retrogressed to before the 1905 legislation separating church and state. The state interfered in the private issues of a religious minority out of domestic political motives but targeted, as Bismarck once had, the actual and imagined political ambitions of this minority. In the case of the Karlsruhe decision, things are quite different. In schools, the cross stands for the institutionalized association of church and state. The state allows the Christian profession of faith the right to advertise with its central symbol in the neutral space of state schools. At issue here is the surviving privilege of institutions that can (but do not necessarily) violate the rights of other religions and the feeling of individual persons through a special arrangement with the state. In contrast, a girl’s head scarf cannot breach the basic principle of equality among people, whether they wear a cross, a kippah, or nothing at all. The common factor that makes the conﬂict about head scarves in France and the cross in this country comparable is simply the blindness with which the government and some journalists, in their loyalty to church and state, betray basic universalist principles of right in favor of allegedly ChristianWestern convictions. Such feeble ressentiment does nothing more than fuel the ﬁre among advocates for civil and holy war. 5 EZER WEIZMAN

WITH A BACKPACK OF MEMORIES AND THE STAFF OF MY HOPE The following is an excerpt from Israeli president Ezer Weizman’s speech to the German Bundestag in Bonn on January 16, 1996. First published as “Mit dem Rucksack der Erinnerungen und dem Stab meiner Hoffnung” in Frankfurter Rundschau ( January 17, 1996). Translated by Tes Howell. Weizman (b. 1924) was the seventh president of Israel, from 1993 to 2000. His visit to Germany in 1996 catalyzed a broad debate about the future of Jewish community and identity in Germany.

[. . .] Ladies and gentlemen, this is not an easy visit for me. Only 50 years have passed since the end of that terrible war, a moment in my people’s long history. It was not easy for me to visit the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It is not easy for me to be in this country, to hear the memories and the voices that call to me from the earth. It is not easy to stand here and talk to you, my friends, in this building. Jews lived in Germany for more than a thousand years. Until the National Socialists destroyed it, this was the largest and oldest Jewish community in Europe, from the ﬁrst merchants, who came here in the Romans’ wake, to the scholars of the twentieth century. From Calonymus to Mendelssohn, from the ritual-murder accusations in Fulda to the horrors of the pogrom night. From stigma to the yellow star, from the anti-Semitic writings of Martin Luther to the Nuremberg Laws, from Raschi’s

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biblical interpretation to Heinrich Heine’s lyrics, Rabbenu Gershom, the light of exile, Walter Rathenau, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Albert Einstein—these are only a few names that this country has known. Among the millions of my people’s children whom the Nazis led to their deaths were more names than we could remember today with the same measure of reverence and deep respect. Yet we do not know these names. How many unwritten books died with them? How many uncomposed symphonies remained lodged in their throats? How many scientiﬁc discoveries could not develop in their minds? Every one of them was killed here twice. Once as a child, dragged into the camps by the Nazis, and once as the adult whom he or she could not become. National Socialism not only ripped them away from their families and people but also humanity in general. As president of the state of Israel, I can mourn for and remember them, but I cannot forgive in their name. I can only demand, ladies and gentlemen of the Bundestag and the Federal Council, that with your knowledge of the past you focus your attention on the future as well. That you recognize every impulse of racism and destroy every manifestation of neo-Nazism. That you acknowledge these elements courageously and destroy them at the root, so that they do not grow and develop branches and blossoms. I imagine that for you as well, ladies and gentlemen, a visit from the Israeli president is not a very comfortable moment. Yet we are not meeting as private people but rather as representatives of sovereign states, and we must ﬁnd a common path in order to address and accomplish the goals we set for ourselves. [. . .]

6 DANIEL COHN-BENDIT

AS A JEW—HERE? First published as “Als Jude—hier?” in Frankfurter Rundschau ( January 19, 1996). Translated by Tes Howell. Cohn-Bendit (b. 1945, Montauban, France) was expelled from France for revolutionary activities in 1968. In 1989, he established the Office for Multicultural Affairs in Frankfurt.

A Response to Israel’s President Ezer Weizman During a state visit this week, Israel’s president Ezer Weizman expressed once again his bewilderment that Jews—50 years after the Holocaust—can still live in Germany. This statement not only offended me but also made me a little angry. My parents had to leave Germany in 1933: my father had returned already by 1949. Consequently, I feel compelled to explain why Jews live in Germany and, yes, why they can even feel comfortable here. But I will get to that later. If Jews could not ﬁnd a homeland in Germany after Auschwitz, then the

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same should apply to homosexuals, Sinti and Roma, and the disabled. How could even Germans, born after 1945, live in Germany with this history? Indeed, an upbringing in Germany cannot merely consist of the cultivation of guilt. Teachers know the potential consequences for a German adolescent who learns what his or her ancestors were capable of doing to their fellow human beings. But the Germans and humankind in general will have to contemplate Auschwitz and the notion of total annihilation for some time to come. When I was forced to leave France in 1968, I encountered a generation here that was prepared to take the collective guilt of the Germans upon itself. And, in fact, it wanted to establish a democracy that would preclude the possibility of war and Auschwitz forever. Of course, there was a naïve dimension inherent in this battle—and there still is. Germans want to be the best democrats, the best ecologists, the best paciﬁsts, the best antinationalists, and the quintessential antiracists. It is true that this can get on one’s nerves occasionally. . . . If Weizman does not want to understand that Jews can live in a Germany where such horrible events as the murder of Turkish citizens in Solingen or Mölln occur, then he has struck a nerve in contemporary Germany. But he should kindly not forget that millions of people from Munich to Hamburg ﬁlled the streets to say no to racist terror. After Kristallnacht, millions of people stayed at home and acted as though they no longer knew the Jews, whose friends they had been just days before. After the Holocaust, many issues still remain unresolved. One must ask the Germans: how could almost an entire people fall under the spell of total barbarianism? The French must explain why the French police, who picked up my grandfather, collaborated with such barbarism. Many Austrians must ask themselves why they viewed the annexation as a blessing. The list of collaboration could continue. I have lived in Germany since 1968 because the decision to stay became a voluntary one. Ezer Weizman, as president of the state of Israel, has not only the right but also the obligation to promote Israel—a state in which devout Jews live with devout Muslims, Christians, and atheists. Conversely, he must understand that there are many Jews who prefer to live in the diaspora. Provocatively speaking, I will go so far as to say that Israel signiﬁes the end of Judaism and the beginning of a national Israeli consciousness. I subscribe to a different understanding of Judaism than Weizman. Having grown up in France and living in Germany, I feel comfortable as a cosmopolitan in the diaspora, but I also appreciate every multicultural society that tries to overcome one-dimensional ethnic thinking. For this reason, I would like to return to Weizman’s claim. More than 500,000 Jews lived in Germany before 1933. Germany will come to terms with itself and its history only when hundreds of thousands of Jews, together with

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Muslims, Christians, and atheists, help shape the Germany of the future. Or, following Jean-Paul Sartre, when Germany is again accustomed to the fact that Jews in Germany can be employers and entrepreneurs, debtors and bankers, conservatives and Greens, ministers and independents, harlots and thieves—then being Jewish in Germany will have become normal. It is worthwhile to ﬁght for this future. Therefore, it makes sense to me that Jews live in Germany today and stand up for it; may this German democracy continue to improve and reform itself. I live today in Germany voluntarily and without guilt. 7 THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF

GERMANY, YOUR ISLAMISTS First published as “Deutschland, deine Islamisten” in Die Zeit ( June 20, 1997). Translated by David Gramling.

Crescent, Döner Kebab, Propaganda: A Visit to the Largest Rally of Muslim Fundamentalists in the Federal Republic As though an invisible hand were showing the way, the masses stream through the gates of the Westphalian Stadium. No usher needs to interfere; everyone seems to know what to do: women left, men right. No questions, no protests. Today, at the beginning of the soccer season, the sold-out stadium is orderly, Islamically speaking. The 48-year-old Federal Republic had never seen such a sight in this enormous arena before last Saturday: nothing but women with head scarves up to the roof of the east bleachers, chaste and devout. Scarves—as far the eye can see. Were it not for the ads for “Brameier German Soccer League Bed Linens” and the challenge “Borussia—Just Do It!” one could imagine oneself back in Turkey. But the Westphalian Stadium is quite certainly located in Dortmund, Germany. And many visitors, the younger ones at least, have a German passport or were born here as natives. A sign on the upper balcony of the women’s stands conﬁrms this fact: “We are immigrants!” The annual rally is billed as the “Peace and Culture Festival,” and many of the 40,000 guests agreeably wave the ﬂag of the Islamic organization Milli Görüs, or National Perspective, which coordinated the event. The ﬂag is typical: a crescent encircles the European diaspora, against a background of Islamic green. In the 1990s, missionaries have been fairly successful in the Federal Republic. For a long time Milli Görüs has covered the republic with a dense network of alliances. The organization controls around 300 of the 1,000 mosques and owns community centers that provide the devout with secular services: they can shop in their own supermarket, drop off the children at day care or the youth center, the sports club, Koran school, or a com-

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puter course; they can book pilgrimages or trips to Turkey, check out videos and books, and receive advice on income taxes or education. Milli Görüs now reaches nearly one-ﬁfth of the 2 million German-Turks, and as much as a third of the youth, according to the Bielefeld youth researcher Wilhelm Heitmeyer. The German majority society seems to have intentionally ignored this development, as it has ignored many events in the adjacent but strange immigrant world. But the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been watching in recent years and has described Milli Görüs in its most recent report as “Islamic extremist,” because it strives for the “displacement of the secular system of government in Turkey” and the establishment of an “Islamic theocracy.” It is hard to overlook the fact that for Milli Görüs, the old Turkish homeland continues to exist as a conceptual anchor in this Westphalian stadium as a conceptual anchor alongside the new German one. Political stars from Turkey occupy the seats of honor on the sidelines, among them three cabinet ministers and the mayor of Istanbul. It is no coincidence that they all belong to the party of the fundamentalist leader Necmettin Erbakan, a major supporter of Milli Görüs. A band dressed in old Ottoman military costumes ﬁrst plays folk songs but later—repeatedly— plays the national anthem. And a chorus, numbering into the 10,000s, sings along: “my beloved fatherland Turkey.” Does this sound like a religious event? Why young native Germans go into a stadium in order to sing the Islamic hymns of their parents’ home country cannot be investigated by a male reporter, at least not in the women’s stands. Friendly yet determined security guards thwart every attempt—and cite the Koran in the process. The rebuttal that men and women are separated in the Federal Republic only in changing rooms, public bathrooms, and saunas is rejected conﬁdently by the gentlemen: squatters’ rights apply in the Westphalian Stadium, and this afternoon those rights belong to Milli Görüs. And so it goes when Islamists know and use not only the Koran but German law as well. So, back to the opposite stands, where the young Sedat sits among the masses and waves the Turkish ﬂag. At 22 years old, he has come directly from Borsigplatz, a Dortmunder. And therefore a real Borussian. Normally, he is in the stadium “for unity’s sake,” but today he is here “because of national sentiments” and “for religious reasons, of course.” For him, it is always somehow an emotional matter, a great and real one. The Germans, he says, would not understand; they automatically call it fundamentalism, “but,” he quips, “to be Borussian, that is also fundamentalism.” Years ago, Sedat’s parents took him to Milli Görüs, ﬁrst to the mosque, then to the courses. So that he won’t lose his connection to Turkey, they reasoned at the time. So he doesn’t run through the city someday with the other

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bellowing and drunken Borussia soccer fans. He still became a Borussia fan but does not bellow or drink. “I’m still a Muslim.” The idea that the organization teaches the youth can be seen in the halls of the Westphalian Stadium. Through the corridors under the stands, the legions roll past the vendors. Enormous architectural drawings for new mosques in Bremen and Rendsburg are plastered on concrete pillars. Next to that one can pick up the Milli Gazete, the semiofficial newspaper of Milli Görüs and the Turkish Welfare Party, which rails sometimes against America, sometimes against Israel, but always against secularism. A few meters farther is the Koran on CD-ROM, and then an entire selection of videos for youth. The videotapes are covered in naïve drawings, as though the stories were fairy tales. The vendor says innocently, “all of this is for children under six, no blood or violence.” On the table in front of him is a video entitled Küçük Mücahid, facilely translated as “Little Mujaheddin.” The cover image shows a boy adoring a bearded religious ﬁghter, complete with ammunition belt and machine gun. This is the Taliban’s ideology, packaged for children. Many of the videos follow a template, as the sociologist [Wilhelm] Heitmeyer’s research group discovered after analyzing these ﬁlms: a boy, an immigrant child, lives in a Western city, a sinful cesspool of criminality, drugs, and demoralization; the boy goes astray, but Muslims, selﬂess and helpful, reach out; they offer orientation, warmth, and identity through Milli Görüs. Slowly, step by step, Milli Görüs’s ideological pull encourages religious involvement. Heitmeyer’s group reports that the process climaxes with the summer camps, from which many youths return completely changed. Many a girl has gone with ﬂowing hair and returned in a head scarf. Those who might like to speak about the head scarf this afternoon in the Westphalian Stadium, of course with women, must resort to craftiness and catch them on the way back from the restroom. Four girls from Lübeck, hardly of age, agreed to talk. Of course, they are wearing head scarves, and they are wearing the latest Islamist chic fashions: platform shoes, tight clothes (ankle length), satin shirts (with a high neckline). One need only give the signal and they all start talking: they complain about the hypocrisy of a society that proudly touts the Basic Law while discriminating against those who wear head scarves. One of the girls describes her search for an apprenticeship. Repeatedly she was told “If you take off the head scarf, you can start today.” But she does not want to do so. Last week, she went to apply at a Lübeck hospital, where she was told, “Your head scarf scares the patients.” “Why?” she asked. “Do the nuns here scare the patients less?” The young woman received neither an answer nor the job. Milli Görüs takes advantage of this situation: ﬁrst, the organization hammers into the girls’ heads that a good Muslim woman is one who wears the head scarf. Whoever criticizes this article of faith contributes to the negative

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image of Islam. In the end, Milli Görüs represents itself as a defense against the pressure to assimilate. The young women consequently feel they are agents of emancipation. Unfortunately, the conversation with the girls from Lübeck barely lasts ﬁve minutes, for a few attentive guards once again feel they have to defend the women’s freedom. [. . .] 8 MEIKE WÖHLERT

THE HYPE OVER THE STAR OF DAVID First published as “Der Hype um den Davidstern” in Zitty ( July 1998). Translated by Hilary Menges.

Anything that qualiﬁes as Jewish is the latest fashion. But things have not yet returned to normal—quite the opposite. A few weeks ago, something changed at the post office. The Jewish Congregation of Berlin began to send out its newsletters not enclosed in envelopes but unwrapped. Since then, many members—especially elderly ones—have canceled their subscriptions. They don’t want their neighbors to know they are Jews. Upside-down world? Recently, Jewishness is all the rage: Jewish restaurants, shops, clubs, and cultural establishments have been cropping up all over Berlin, from the Scheunenviertel district to the Spandauer suburbs. Bagels must be included on the menus of the trendy cafés; tours through “Jewish Berlin” enjoy long-running success and are even offered in English. [. . .] In June, throngs of visitors attend the Jewish Streetfest on Ryke Street; in October, curious minds will not be able to ﬁnd a spot in the packed Hebrew courses at the Jewish adult-education center. The term Jewish living sticks to the city like döner and meatballs, gleefully complemented by the terms new blood or rebirth. So, everything’s great with the Jews? “Whatever is now happening in Berlin has absolutely nothing to do with Jews themselves,” says Julius Schoeps, director of the Potsdamer Moses Mendelssohn Center for JewishEuropean Studies. “It is a result of the fact that non-Jewish society has not yet come to terms with its history. It is the opposite of normalcy—it’s folklore.” Schoeps is not alone in his views. Many Jews regard this overwhelming interest dubiously, because the Germans are celebrating a form of Judaism that no longer exists. Its roots were extirpated here, and as a result, the tiny, inchoate seedling is now being excessively watered, preserved, and engaged. The hype says more about the burdens of the Nazi past than about the Jewish present. The journalist Henryk M. Broder, who lives in Berlin and Jerusalem, articulates the main issue: “The fewer real Jews there are in existence, the more enthusiasm there is for Jewish culture.” Before the war, there were 160,000 Jews in Berlin; in 1945, only 5,000 re-

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mained. Until reuniﬁcation, the number in West Berlin was not more than 6,000; in the East, it was just over 200. Since then, the ﬁgure has doubled to approximately 12,000—mainly due to emigrants from the former Soviet Union. Yet the Holocaust memorial and the Jewish Museum are central civic and political topics that foster public discussion. When the head of the Jewish adult-education center was ﬁred and then reinstated amid internal struggles, however, the topic took a more prominent place in Berlin’s newspapers than in Senate decisions. In London, Paris, Amsterdam, or New York, no one would have been interested. In contrast to these cities, tried-and-true Jewish life in Berlin is only a trickling stream. To exculpate our conscience, we eat, write, and play violin at its banks. Andrew Roth, coauthor of the English travel guide Jewish Life in Berlin, believes that “many people eat in Jewish restaurants to show that they are the ‘other’ Germans—those who at the time hid a Jew in their cellar back then.” [. . .] Hartmut Bomhoff views the enthusiasm for the façade of Judaism with particular skepticism: “It is easier to go eat in the Tabuna than to discuss the 1940s with the grandparents.” And when people “run to klezmer concerts and name their children Sarah and David, Jews have nothing to do with it.” Bomhoff, who was previously active in Jewish-Christian dialogues, has since retreated: “For me, the more that is appropriated from Jewishness, the bigger the chasm grows.” Professor Schoeps goes one step further. He views the current trend as “markedly dubious,” because he sees anti-Semitism and fascination with Jewishness as two sides of the same coin. Although everything Jewish “is ﬁgured positively for the moment, that can quickly turn into the opposite. The exaggerated declaration of belief in Judaism corresponds to exaggerated rejection.” Gabriel Heimler, an artist and fellow Meshulash member, goes so far as to call the recasting of Judaism through socially acceptable clichés as “cultural Shoah.” Henryk M. Broder’s judgment does not come across so harshly: “Klezmer is as Jewish as lederhosen are German. That is okay; people need their symbols.” Nevertheless, he does ﬁnd the hype to be “somewhat illmannered.” [. . .] Broder meets many converts “who say to me, I should eat kosher and not go to the cafés on Saturday. I ﬁnd it in part very funny when these people tell me what correct Jewishness is. I know what correct Jewishness is. I always have to wake my father up when he dreams of the KZ [concentration camp].” Conversion fever is running rampant in Berlin, too. Yehuda Tiechtel, a New York rabbi, has been living here for two years, and it never ceases to surprise him: “I have been in many lands and on many continents but I have never been approached by so many people who want to convert.” Tiechtel says the

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reasons offered are quite vague for the most part, but Rabbi Tiechtel has little time for the converts: he has his hands full with the existing Jews. Berlin has a particular meaning for Tiechtel: “Starting in this city, Hitler and the Nazis set out to destroy Judaism. And now we are bringing Jewish knowledge and self-awareness back here. It is a great revenge against Hitler!” He says this with delight, with true enthusiasm. When people on the street react and stare at him because of his traditional black suit, he bears this attention with composure: “To live in Berlin is very different from living in New York or Israel.” But he is still very open-minded: “When people react to my clothing, I explain to them what the hat and the bands are for. It is a good thing when people show interest.” [. . .] Friday evening. A man in a green uniform stands in front of the synagogue on Ryke Street. Another one blocks the entrance, holding the type of metal detector one sees at airports. Pat downs and purse searches are under way. Why? The man stares without understanding: “because there is a synagogue here,” he says, shaking his head. “Normalcy? The entrance to the Community Center in the Fasanen Street looks like the Stammheim trials! That does not exist in any other country,” says Professor Schoeps. Taunting, threatening letters are daily occurrences for him and for Andreas Nachama, the head of the Jewish Congregation of Berlin. The letters represent the largest share of Berlin’s approximately 100 annual punishable anti-Semitic offenses—along with destruction of property, disturbing the peace, desecration of cemeteries, and other crimes. The state police, not the “normal” criminal police, are officially responsible for handling these offenses. Precinct director Peter-Michael Haeberer explains why: “The state is not endangered when the head of the Jewish Congregation receives an abusive letter. The danger arises in the existence of a body of thought. One might think that after 50 years, it would gradually stop. But it does not stop.” Like many other members of Meshulash, Hartmut Bomhoff found the “German Manifesto” in his mailbox on May 8, 1995. That day was the 50-year anniversary of the end of the war. The manifesto declared “If you have not emigrated by May 9, you’ll be in for it.” He stayed and had his number removed from the phone book. [. . .] Nicola Galliner, head of the Jewish adult-education center, does not always identify herself to strangers as a Jew. “When I want to have my peace and quiet, I’d rather not say anything. As soon as people know, they treat me differently.” Or as Michael Blumenthal, the future director of the Jewish Museum, said in Newsweek: “During every visit to Germany, I arrive as an American and leave as a Jew.” The phenomenon of being treated differently: it is an ambivalent combination of rejection, inhibition, enraptured wonderment and compulsory explanations. [. . .] So what should young Germans do, if not ask questions when their inter-

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est is not satisﬁed by biting into a bagel? They can’t get to know Jewish life in street signs; their grandparents took care of that. And in school they learn much about deceased Jews but very little about the living. In such a knowledge vacuum, stereotypes can spread unchecked. In November 1998, the Meshulash group planned an exhibition entitled Jewish Life in Berlin—Traditions and Visions. Part of the project description read, “We invite artists to present their imagination to us: deft and futuristic, without false pathos or folkloristic touch.” 9 ˘LU DILEK ZAPTÇIOG

THE UNIVERSALIST SWINDLE First published as “Der universalistische Schwindel” in die tageszeitung ( July 18, 1998). Translated by Tes Howell. Zaptçıoglu was editor in chief of the magazine Bizim Almanca (Our German), and is a correspondent for the Istanbul-based newspaper Cumhuriyet (The Republic), as well as the German newspapers Die Zeit and die tageszeitung.

The head-scarf debate: The Muslim Fereshta Ludin is prohibited from becoming a teacher in Baden-Württemberg. For migrants in Germany, this is a fatal sign. The discussion about the head scarf is not new. Nine years ago, France was already discussing the head scarves of young female students in Creil. The judgment in favor of the girls divided the SOS Racism movement and cost it the support of the socialists, who traditionally adhere to rigid secularism. At that point, Germany seemed like a minor paradise for believers of every orientation. Here no one said anything when girls came to class with head scarves; upon request, they were released from physical education or swim class—situations that would make the French shake their heads. But, of course, the French did not understand that church taxes are automatically deducted from every salary in Germany and that one of the largest parties calls itself Christian Democratic. Appearances in Germany were always deceiving: these head-scarf-wearing girls, having ﬁnished with their tolerant schools and training, were confronted with the bitter truth while on the job search (if not earlier). They had little chance as a salesperson or secretary. The human-resources staff always found some reason not to hire a young woman with a head scarf: some simply said that the girls could not work wearing such a getup. Things were different in manufacturing: there, almost all female employees of the Muslim faith wear a head scarf, and even the cleaning ladies’ heads are usually covered. The employers not only accept this practice; they explicitly welcome it for hygienic reasons. There is, of course, a difference between the Muslim woman who cleans the classrooms and the one who stands at the board talking about Goethe and

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Schiller. What signiﬁes hygiene and religious freedom for one person is a possible sign of religious fanaticism and professional unsuitability for another, even if the employee is in no way a religious fanatic. [. . .] In German schools, students learn about Western culture and civilization, which are historically based on Christianity. By deﬁnition, this diverges from Islam. No instruction is free of the values and norms that this part of the world has created for itself, which it declared to be universally valid, and against which there has been worldwide resistance. Therefore, a teacher with a cross around her neck is a daily phenomenon in German schools; she ﬁts into the overall picture, whereas a teacher with a head scarf sticks out, just because she is Muslim. School is not neutral in its worldview, and the values and norms that it imparts have universal pretenses—but they are not impartial. If Fereshta Ludin were a Muslim who felt her culture and civilization were superior to others, she would have to reject working with such lesson plans outright. She would try to teach the children about her own worldview. Given that she cannot do so in German public schools, she would go to a private school or perhaps try to establish a private Islamic school, where ﬁlling classrooms would be no problem. But these are not her intentions at all. Fereshta Ludin is merely insisting on wearing the head scarf in the classroom. Actually, this statement is incorrect, as there is no public place where a devout Muslim may “take off” the scarf. Whether the scarf is a Muslim item or not is of little interest. If she herself feels this practice to be religious, then it is. She wants to wear the head scarf and to teach the children the same things her non-Muslim colleagues do. That she does not see this desire as a contradiction of her Islamic faith should make every secularist extremely happy, for it shows that Fereshta Ludin restricts her faith to the private sphere of the conscience and does not want it to be understood as politics. In the French head-scarf debate, the issue was clearly the traditionally rigid perceptions of secularism and the question whether this perception should now be moderated and modernized. The debate revolved around the fact that every kind of religious or worldview-oriented symbol was forbidden in French schools—for students as well as teachers. In Germany, one is admittedly a bit more lax with such symbols, and there are schools, teachers, and even political leaders who refuse to apply constitutional court decisions to crosses in the classroom. In short, at issue is distrust of the other, buried deep in the nation’s soul. It is a distrust of every “foreigner,” especially when he has become so similar to “us.” When he has assimilated himself and conformed, he can be all the more dangerous and could weaken and betray us from within. So, beyond the apparently value-neutral discussions about symbols in the school, the head scarf has an important, perhaps unique, discussion-worthy aspect: how do

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Germans envision their future with (Muslim) migrants, when they make them an assimilation offer that they themselves refuse to honor? [. . .]

10 MICHA BRUMLIK, ANGELIKA OHLAND, AND RAINER JUNG

JEWS IN GERMANY: A DELICATE RELATIONSHIP First printed as “Juden in Deutschland: Eine heikle Beziehung” in Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, (September 18, 1998). Translated by David Gramling. Brumlik (b. 1947) has taught pedagogy and education at the universities of Heidelberg and Frankfurt since 1981.

There are many shared rituals among Jews and non-Jews—as well as deep divides. What’s missing is normalcy. The Jewish Congregation and the Berlin Gorki-Theater were bitterly divided over Fassbinder’s Garbage, the City and Death. Yet, according to Micha Brumlik, a Frankfurt-based educator, journalist, and member of the Green Party, this extreme hostility arose from other sources. If it were up to him, the exchanges between Jews and non-Jews would be much less complicated. AO/RJ: Mr. Brumlik, in 1985, you and other Frankfurt Jews prevented the staging of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Garbage, the City and Death, claiming it was anti-Semitic. Now, the same production is to be staged by Berlin’s GorkiTheater, and you want the Jewish community to accept it. What led you to change your mind? Brumlik: The Jewish community has changed signiﬁcantly. In 1985, it had a sort of “coming out.” The Fassbinder scandal proved how effective it can be. We have become more self-conﬁdent—despite the fact, of course, that antiSemitism still exists. [. . .] AO/RJ: Then may Fassbinder call a rich Jew a “rich Jew”? Brumlik: Of course. After all, that is not a taboo, and it wasn’t one back in 1985 either. In Frankfurt, it was no secret that Jewish housing speculators did treat their renters poorly. The local Frankfurt press documented it daily. [. . .] AO/RJ: Mr. Nachama, chairman of the Jewish Congregation of Berlin, sees the Fassbinder drama squarely in the tradition of Josef Goebbels. How has he come to such an extreme position? Brumlik: Recently, the Jewish Congregation of Berlin has been treated in a disparaging way by Berlin’s municipal government. Think about the manner in which the Senate carried out the dismissal of the director of the Jewish Museum; the state had no right to treat the Jewish community like a dumb school boy. In Berlin, just like in Frankfurt 13 years ago, the underlying tensions are more important. The Fassbinder piece is only a trigger. [. . .] AO/RJ: But in symbolic and moral spheres, the Jewish community has definite inﬂuence. For example, regarding the Holocaust memorial: would it be

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at all possible to reconsider the project, as long as Mr. Bubis [chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany] wants the memorial? Brumlik: Someone like Michael Naumann, the SPD’s deputy for cultural affairs, could order up some Jewish professors and journalists from the United States to argue against the memorial. The inﬂuence the Jewish community enjoys is power derived from the mercy of the rulers. And during times of conﬂict, it can be just as easily withdrawn. [. . .] AO/RJ: What would you consider normal relations between Jews and nonJews? Brumlik: Under “normal,” I would understand everyday relationships in which all young people could treat each other impartially and without inhibition, independent of whether they have Jewish or non-Jewish parents. This yearning for normalcy is completely justiﬁable and legitimate. When politics or other societal powers aim to enforce this normalcy, it becomes problematic. In 1985, when we ﬁrst demonstrated against the Fassbinder piece, the Frankfurt director Ruehle argued that the production depicted Jews and non-Jews as ﬁnally being able to look at each other freely. For me, that smacked of an attempt to enforce reconciliation. A parallel situation arose when Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan visited a military cemetery with SS graves and the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp—on the same day. That simply doesn’t ﬂy. AO/RJ: But this tension exists within every young German who has grown up with The Diary of Anne Frank and Schindler’s List. They identify themselves with the Jewish victims, resulting in a strong philo-Semitism—and isn’t this based on clichés, just as anti-Semitism is? Brumlik: Maybe. Nevertheless, the comparison between philo- and antiSemitism is still wrong. Why should I object if today’s young people are scrupulously and arduously examining and debating Jewish and German history? If they happen to side with Jewishness, I would not tell them they are merely compulsive philo-Semites. Individual motives are the decisive factor. I thought it was terrible when former Nazis, after the war, became passionate supporters of Israel’s powerful military state. One who comes to mind is Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the murdered president of the employer’s union. [. . .] AO/RJ: And where do you see German society in 1998? Are we tending toward liability, or responsibility? How about the notion that “The 15 percent who won’t accept liability for their parents’ guilt are the true danger.” Brumlik: Those who accept responsibility outnumber those who don’t. But the 15 to 20 percent who represent right-wing extremism and right-populist positions—they are a danger. These people do not accept one bit of liability. And I suspect that this position indeed reaches into the political center. AO/RJ: The banks that refuse to pay out money to Jewish accounts have not accepted any responsibility either. Nazis haven’t been involved for a long time, but their children and grandchildren are now in positions of power.

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Brumlik: This type of behavior is scandalous. But I didn’t expect anything else. The heads of the banks represent the interests of the employer. It would be overconﬁdent to expect a particular civic consciousness from them. AO/RJ: You yourself belong to the ﬁrst postwar generation of Jews in Germany. What has struck you? Brumlik: The feeling of foreignness in the family home and the desire to leave Germany. Otherwise, I grew up relatively normal, in regard to school and the like. In the 1950s, when I was in kindergarten and school, Jewish establishments were not as intensely guarded as they are today. Young Jews in today’s Germany must feel like they’re in an electronic ghetto. AO/RJ: Can one feel both Jewish and German? Brumlik: I prefer to speak of Jews in Germany, but, of course, every Jew must deﬁne this relationship personally. However, I feel myself to be neither a Jewish German nor a German Jew. Even now. But at the moment (and I hope it comes soon) when German citizenship rights are changed and one no longer has to belong to an ethnically German people in order to be German, I will say, I am German. But such normalcy has yet to come.

11 MICHAEL BRENNER

NO PLACE OF HONOR First published as “Nur keinen Ehrenplatz” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (December 2–3, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell. Michael Brenner is a professor of Jewish history and culture at the University of Munich. This text refers to the “guiding culture” debates of 2000, which will be discussed in chapter 7 in more detail.

On the Jewish Minority’s Role in the Temple of the Guiding Culture My earliest encounter with the meaning of German Leitkultur, or guiding culture, in the context of the Christian Western world reaches back 30 years to my ﬁrst day of school. I was introduced to the wonderful German custom of emptying a schoolbag ﬁlled with candy. The question that occupied me on this day was: chocolate or bonbons? But our young teacher in that provincial Bavarian town embarrassed me with a completely different question. Right in the ﬁrst hour she presented us with the clearly formulated either/or status: “Who is Catholic, and who is Protestant?” Neither one seemed familiar to me, and consequently I could not decide between the given options. When I returned home, I learned that there were other options besides the ones given. I would soon learn more about this in intensive Jewish religious instruction. For the next 13 years, I remained the only Jewish pupil in my class, although I was supposed to notice that I wasn’t; the other one naturally hung on the cross before all our eyes, as in every good Bavarian school. In my high

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school years, other exotic deviations from the Catholic-Protestant majority joined my class: a Muslim whose family came from Iran, a New Apostolic, and—certainly the most exotic of us all—a student behind whose name the initials O.B. [“without avowal”] popped up in the annual report, which did not mean that his father was the mayor but rather that he had no professed faith. Because my own religious instruction took place one afternoon a week in the Jewish community center, we played a kind of multicultural soccer during my class’s religious lesson. [. . .]

Synagogue Yes, Mosque No Until now, not much has changed in Bavaria despite clear constitutional directives. In the liberal city-state of Bremen, guiding culture is grounded in the state constitution as a guiding religion. Article 32 states, “Public schools are community schools with generally Christian-based religious instruction of nonspeciﬁc faith in biblical history.” This clause was once legitimately considered a particularly progressive summary of Catholic and Protestant religious instruction. However, wouldn’t one need to adjust such a passage to ﬁt the considerably altered reality, in order to ensure appropriate instruction for other religious communities? For a long time, Jews were the only non-Christian minority in Germany. That situation has changed. For one thing, Jews live in a more or less pluralistic society—ethnically and religiously. They are no longer the only minority but rather a small minority among others. They are, and this leads us to the other side of the coin, anything but a typical minority. After the Holocaust, a Jewish presence in Germany was and is still crucial to the survival of German democracy. Success or failure of democracy in Germany was measured abroad largely by whether a Jewish community, however small it might be, could feel at home here. The departure of Jews from Germany would have unforeseeable consequences—not for the Jews but for Germany. It would be mistaken to view the treatment of the Jewish minority in Germany today as representative of the interaction with other religious and ethnic minorities. Fortunately, anti-Semitism is still widely considered a social taboo. However, opinions and ordinances against other religious minorities and foreigners are, on the contrary, socially acceptable. There was a time when politicians could express wonderful sentiments about their Jewish fellow citizens and in the same breath warn about the danger of foreign inﬁltration in Germany. Since Heinz Galinski and Ignatz Bubis took over the consistory, this situation has changed, and the pointed words of Paul Spiegel recently have made this line even clearer. Spiegel’s prediction was correct: one cannot measure the policy toward Jews by the Sunday speeches on November 9, nor by the Week of Solidarity, but by the social openness toward minorities and foreigners, “the others.” Just to name two examples: it is easy to imagine a

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synagogue in the cityscape, but a mosque? Luckily, one can now become well informed about Jewish culture at German universities, but where can one gain sound knowledge about Turkish culture and history? The question—how does the Jewish minority deﬁne itself in the present debate?—simply has no answer. It could make things easy for itself and take the side of established society, resume the pre-1933 tradition in the context of German-Jewish symbiosis, and place itself in the illustrious company of the Einsteins and Rathenaus, Freuds and Zweigs. As a concession, the idea of a Christian Western world would be expanded into a Jewish-Christian Western world. The Jews would then receive a place of honor, so to speak, in the notso-roomy temple of German guiding culture. Spiegel made it clear that he is choosing the more uncomfortable path and will oppose this kind of position. According to the core of his legitimate protest against the guiding culture’s prescriptions, the Jews have lived better in a pluralistic society than in a monolithically deﬁned one. Both empires in Central and Southeastern Europe (the Hapsburg and Ottoman, respectively), which perished in World War I, accommodated not only large but also thriving and relatively free Jewish communities. This was possible in part because they could not and did not want to be deﬁned by a guiding culture. Under completely different premises, such circumstances also hold for the United States, which offers the modern version of a multiracial empire, in that it allows countless immigrants to realize their own cultures. For the representatives of the European nationstate model, this multiculturalism was signiﬁcantly more difficult, which is why their politics wavered between assimilation and exclusion. However, even in both France and Great Britain, there has long been a multicultural and multireligious milieu because of their colonial past and the more strongly pronounced secular elements in their societies. This model is a dream for some in Germany and a nightmare for others. In any case, it is indisputable that Germany is only in the early stages compared to other Western societies. We should be grateful to the initiators of the guiding-culture debate. They have made us aware of what some had not previously seen so clearly: that German society is still strongly inﬂuenced by Christianity, thus making the discussion about a guiding culture one about a guiding religion as well. One may support and defend this state of affairs. But one can also call it into question and assert that in a modern twenty-ﬁrst-century society, Christian religions must be strong enough to give up their symbolic dominance in the public sphere, as is already the case in most Western countries. The Jewish community has a particular task ahead of it because of its special history and legal status: it is indeed one of the smallest minorities but also the most visible in terms of its symbolic power. As such, it can advocate for other minorities and for an open society. The fact that Jewish spokespeople

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have recently been doing so more often has caused some irritation among established politicians. This is good. The option is either a backward society, shaped by fears of foreign inﬁltration, or an open society, which earnestly questions the relevance of many guiding values—whether they be guiding cultures or religions. For a long time, the Jews, as the only minority, have been assigned the task of making their respective societies a little more colorful and ﬂexible. This position has brought them recognition and admiration from the one, mistrust and hatred from the other. Today they are—thankfully—no longer the only ones in this role.

12 JAN ROSS

ERNST, THE MOSLEMS ARE HERE! First published as “Ernst, die Moslems sind da!” in Die Zeit (December 19, 2001). Translated by David Gramling. Ernst Jünger (1895–1998), the subject of the ﬁrst section of this essay, was a major literary ﬁgure of the 1920s “reactionary modernism” movement, whose texts reﬂect on his experiences as a soldier in World War I.

The question of the year: How are we doing with Islam? Are we tolerant enough? Or are we, on the contrary, too lax? Everywhere in Germany there is a new desire for clarity and, when necessary, conﬂict. “Ernst, the Moslems are here,” called Frau Jünger from downstairs, when the messengers from the University of Bilbao arrived unannounced at the poet’s house in Wilﬂingen with news of the conferral of an honorary doctorate. A Muslim professor had made the arrangements for the award, and the bearers of the message were a group of religious comrades. The scene took place in 1989. Ernst Jünger came down, expressed his delight, and professed his sympathy with Islam. First off, the prophet Mohammed had been a warrior, which pleased the old soldier. Because of the pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam is a religion of travel, and Jünger is a passionate traveler as well. Finally, the 94year-old soldier looked over to his Liselotte: having four wives, as the Koran allows, would also not be that bad. In any case, there was no reason to decline the offered title, and Ernst Jünger did indeed travel to Spain to accept the tribute with a respectful speech about Islam. The man relating this story belongs to the small Muslim delegation. He narrates it with a Badish accent. Abu Bakr Rieger comes from the Black Forest and converted to Islam during law school. For a few years, he settled in Weimar as a lawyer (out of love for Goethe, he says) and was particularly happy to lead Muslim friends and visitors through the sacred sites of German national literature. Since then, he has sat in a Potsdam office and published the Islamische Zeitung, which has a circulation of 10,000 copies monthly. He

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is also the vice-chair of the Islamic Council—the second-largest Muslim umbrella organization in the Federal Republic (after the larger Central Council of Muslims)—which is regarded with suspicion by the German authorities because its dominant member organization is the Turkish-Islamic Milli Görüs organization. For Rieger, however, no mere theocratic dreams can account for the imminence of unrest and the current realities of Islam. Rather, a resistance to the economization of society generates this potential—for example, by way of the Koran’s prohibition on interest accrual. Limitless capitalism dissolves the bonds of place and space in human life; Rieger rediscovered himself in Mecca, in the Kaaba center of the world. One might almost say that he became Muslim out of homesickness. So much is going on in Germany! September 11, 2001, and the war in Afghanistan abruptly thrust Germany’s Islamic world into view. Curiosity was awoken; concern as well. Otto Schily banned Metin Kaplan’s Caliph State, a rather bizarre marginal group. The Bavarian interior minister Günther Beckstein is demanding the same for Milli Görüs, which, considering its 27,000 members and intimate link with Turkish domestic politics, would deﬁnitely be quite a different exercise of power. Are we tolerant enough, or are we too trusting and lax? A ruling will be handed down in Karlsruhe in mid-January on the constitutional appeal by a Muslim butcher, who was not allowed to practice ritual slaughter by authorities and courts. Politicians, school authorities, and lawyers are at odds about whether female Muslim teachers ought to be allowed to wear a head scarf in the classroom. Reﬂection on Islamic religious instruction has become pressing—and precisely at the moment when the role of Christianity in state-sponsored education is no longer a self-evident proposition, as the emerging conﬂict around Brandenburg’s church-estranged life-skills curriculum demonstrates. The discourse about foreignness, with which the majority society sees itself confronted, ﬂuctuates peculiarly between fear of conﬂict and desire for self-assertion. For God’s sake, a clash of civilizations must not take place, and when Italy’s minister president Berlusconi spoke in Berlin on the supremacy of the West over Islam, hands ﬂew into the air in appalled deﬁance. However, whether or not there was also a kind of politically incorrect self-praise in this gesture is still unclear. It is, after all, the leftists and liberals—tending on the one hand toward multiculturalism but just as bound to Enlightenment and emancipation on the other hand—who ﬁnd themselves in a strange contradiction when faced with veiled Muslim women. Should one be foreigner friendly or critical of fundamentalism? Should one defend difference or ﬁght the dark Middle Ages? Conversely, conservatives look with fascination upon Islam’s loyalty to tradition and sense of family, which generates unsettling competition for indigenous Christianity and the customs of the land.

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In the Mosques, the Old People Are Praying We must do away with a certain well-meaning “interreligious fudging,” says the Protestant bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg, Wolfgang Huber. A little more care should be exercised in the recently ubiquitous chatter about the “three Abrahamic religions”—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—or in the precipitous expansion of the Jewish-Christian dialogue into the JewishChristian-Muslim trialogue. Huber has had enough of this “escape into the foreign,” of the ostensibly progressive self-disgust that seeks to teach schoolchildren everything about Ramadan and the Garden Hut Festival, while no longer speaking of Advent and Christmas. Berlusconi’s supremacist grandiloquence is nonetheless offensive to the bishop, and the words guiding culture hardly pass over his lips, because “Reﬂection on the self need not be accompanied by a claim to supremacy.” But one senses a fresh desire for clarity and differentiation, as well as a desire for conﬂict when it is necessary. Even the Hamburg bishop Maria Jepsen, of all people, the incarnation of the Protestant will for peace and advancement, recently decried the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world: “In many Islamic countries, Christians are seen as second-class citizens, and we must say with more clarity than ever before that when you and your Moslems call for respect and equal treatment, you must also make an effort to end the persecution in your countries.” It is not easy to say what inﬂuence strict or even fanatical Islam exerts among Muslim immigrants in the Federal Republic. One often hears that in the “third generation” of young foreigners born here, integration is failing because they are retreating into a cultural ghetto. “Fundamentalism” and the satellite dish on the roof, bringing native-language television programs into the home, play into this claim. Head scarves are on the rise: in general, they are mostly worn by girls whose mothers did not wear them. This new religious fervor that has seized the whole Islamic world since the late 1970s did not pass into the domestic diaspora quietly. The Turkish community in Germany is much more of a “quiet little people” than are the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in England or the North Africans in France. Ultimately, though, there is still the impression that young Muslims in this country are not much more interested in religion than other youth are and that it is the old people who are assembling in the mosques, just as in the churches. The fundamental trend is not Islamization but secularization. And as for the ghetto, the “parallel society” that everyone is warning of is not so simple. For example, the Continuing Education and Meeting Center for Muslim Women in Cologne may look like a parallel-society institution at ﬁrst glance, an exclave and separate world. Men are not permitted here, at least not in the classes. Ayten Kılıçarslan, the current teacher, describes it as a free space for unobserved and unhindered coexistence, where clients and visitors can

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be “women in chadors or women in short-sleeved dresses.” But clearly the basic disposition of the center does not come across as neutral or worldly but pious. And why should it not? Here, tradition and emancipation do not stand in opposition to one another, contrary to general expectations. In this Cologne education center, Muslim girls and women can obtain their elementary or trade-school certiﬁcates. If they have not achieved this objective yet, that might have to do with their distrustful fathers’, husbands’, brothers’, or uncles’ plans to sabotage their attendance at German public schools. Resistance to the sex-segregated and Islam-oriented world of the education center is low. Does this milieu signify a capitulation to the religious dictates of the pasha ethos? Girls and women do learn something; they can be trained for a career, win independence and self-awareness. Ayten Kılıçarslan would prefer not to label herself as an “Islamic feminist.” For her, the term suggests agitation and polemics. But many of her colleagues have fewer problems with the concept of feminism, and they all believe in advocating for the interests of their gender. The women of the center value independence from any of the male-run mosque communities, and they are quite conscious of the patriarchal material often preached in these mosques. Ayten Kılıçarslan argues that this patriarchal bent is not a necessary or even a plausible consequence of her beliefs; she considers it a mistaken social and cultural development. “We have less of a problem with Islam than with Muslim men.” That statement sounds a little too grand to be true. No religion can be so cleanly separated from its historic and societal concretizations—certainly not a religion like Islam, which, according to its entire self-concept, pursues not only a faith doctrine and pious praxis but a way of life as well. Of course, these questions may not be left to the internal dynamics of Islamic communities. It goes without saying that legal offenses and anticonstitutional propaganda cannot be tolerated. No tradition or conviction releases citizens from the duty to obey laws. But what about that gray area, where we quietly suspect that someone’s acceptance of an open society’s rules of play is only lip service, that internal speech differs from external speech, that something spoken in Turkish differs from that which is spoken in German? For those of us who do not understand Turkish, doesn’t this suspicion sneak in? In the head-scarf debate, such righteous ruminations play a major role. One is not allowed to dislike the head scarf of a Muslim teacher in a German school merely for being a cultural irritation, an offensive impression. There are certainly no sufficient grounds to forbid such sentiments, although often enough, they are the real motive for the desire to prohibit. But behind the head scarf, is there not perhaps something else hiding, an image of women that we reject fundamentally and that is ultimately contrary to the Basic Law and geared toward an Islamic theocracy? This year, the former Federal Constitutional Court judge Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, one of the greatest teachers of constitutional law, rigorously

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decried the prohibition on head scarves. The German constitution is not secular; the neutrality of the state’s worldview in no way compels teachers to assume religious neutrality in their civil service. Until there is proof of an unreasonable disturbance of the peace in schools, a teacher should be able to assert his or her freedom of faith. Böckenförde, however, had more in mind than just constitutional dogmatism. Already during the dispute about the Dismissal of Radicals during the 1970s, he confronted the menace of thought control. He perceived a climate of suspicion in which a kind of constitutional-conformist worldview was demanded of the citizen as the only correct disposition. This approach doesn’t work, not among believers nor among leftists. When it comes to latent inner reservations about the stipulations of the Basic Law, Böckenförde makes an informative comparison with his own Catholic Church. Until the beginning of the 1960s, the Catholic doctrine of tolerance contradicted the Basic Law in principle; the church maintained that one must acknowledge nonbelievers and people with different beliefs only out of pragmatic considerations, for the sake of peace and equal rights. Under ideal relations, only the true religion, Catholicism, has a right to existence. This position stands in stark contradiction to the Basic Law’s concept of the freedom of belief and conscience, and no devout Catholic would have been able to become a civil servant if this doctrine were imputed to him personally. Of course, this interpretation of the Basic Law did not prevail. But the Catholic Church revised its opinion and, at the Second Vatican Council of 1965, recognized religious freedom. Doctrinal opinion followed the realities of life. Only in this way do religions become compatible with modernity, not through antifundamentalist schoolmasterism. According to Böckenförde, one can and must hope for the same from Islam, because “freedom is contagious.” 13 HANS-ULRICH WEHLER

MUSLIMS CANNOT BE INTEGRATED First printed as “Muslime sind nicht integrierbar” in die tageszeitung (September 10, 2002). Translated by David Gramling. Wehler (b. 1931), a prominent social historian and public intellectual in Germany, is a professor of history at the University of Bielefeld. This is a follow-up interview regarding Wehler’s speech at the 2002 Deutscher Historikertag, or German Historians’ Day.

taz [die tageszeitung]: Mr. Wehler, you celebrated your seventieth birthday on the 11th of September of last year. How was it when you found out about the terrorist attacks in the United States? Hans-Ulrich Wehler: I was in an isolated village on Crete where we had neither radio nor television. That evening my wife and I had a nice dinner. Not until the next day did we ﬁnd out by telephone about the attacks. After

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this, we found a television in a hotel to watch. At ﬁrst, I did not want to believe it. taz: Now, a year later, German historians are meeting for a major conference in their ﬁeld—and at the last moment, a panel discussion about September 11 was added. How could it be that your colleagues almost ignored this topic? Wehler: That is the provinciality of the German historians’ guild. They can easily come up with 10 experts on the Bavarian War of Succession. But when they look for just one good historian who can say something about the Near East—then it gets really difficult. In America, one would just get on the telephone with any good university’s history department and drum up a few people from Berkeley, Harvard, or Stanford. taz: What particular contributions can historians make to the debate concerning September 11? Wehler: They can put the whole discussion into historical perspective. Islam is the only world religion that is still overtly and quickly expanding. Soon it will have overtaken Christianity. It is a militant monotheism that cannot deny its origins in a world of bellicose nomadic Arab tribes. taz: Do you mean to say that we are indeed engaged in a “clash of cultures,” as the American political scientist Samuel Huntington believes? Wehler: I don’t understand the perspective of the multikulti dogooders who have tossed Huntington’s book into the netherworld. I doubt that the critics actually read the 550 pages. It is a quite modest analysis about how new lines of conﬂict arose at the end of the Cold War. You can’t just summarily dismiss that with a wave of your left hand—certainly not after September 11. taz: Doesn’t the Federal Republic, with its 2.4 million Turkish immigrants, prove that a peaceful coexistence can work? Wehler: This example shows precisely that it does not work. The Federal Republic doesn’t have a foreigner problem; it has a Turk problem. This Muslim diaspora is fundamentally incapable of integration. Since its founding, the Federal Republic has coped superbly with its now 10 percent immigrant population. But as one would expect of a complex society, there is a limit. taz: And how do you address this issue? Wehler: One must impose strict controls. All immigration countries have put on the emergency brakes after a phase of uncontrolled immigration; the Americans and the Australians even utilized expressly racist criteria. The American immigration law of 1922–23, which was in effect for forty years, includes the artiﬁcial concept of the “Caucasian,” denoting the “blond whites,” who could immigrate in higher quotas. taz: Are you making a proposal for such criteria here? Wehler: One should not accept explosive materials into the country voluntarily. I have two brilliant Turkish students here. But one must carefully distinguish between personal experiences and the necessity for strict controls.

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taz: Academic elites integrate without difficulty. Is the ability to integrate more a question of social status than of religion? Wehler: In the Federal Republic, one can hardly speak of a Turkish elite, except for the famous tourism entrepreneur Vural Öger and a few others. Turks grow up in a religion that establishes certain barriers to integration. The fundamentalist current has a shot at a majority—both here and in Turkey. taz: Can one stop this trend by strengthening Western-oriented forces through the prospect of European Union membership? Wehler: This argument borders on political idiocy. Europe is shaped by the Christian tradition, by Jewish-Roman-Greek antiquity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and scientiﬁc revolution. That all applies to the new member states in Eastern Europe as well. But it does not apply to Turkey. One cannot just ignore this cultural border in an act of willful selfdestruction. Furthermore, accepting Turkey would give Europeans such notorious neighbors as Syria and Iraq. taz: The U.S. government obviously wants to solve the Iraq problem with a war. If you see such a great danger in this kind of “clash of cultures,” would you advocate such an attack? Wehler: I have nothing against threats as a tool. But clearly a preventive war is being organized right now. I do not know of any preventive war in recent history that met its stated goal. taz: Which parallels are you thinking of? Wehler: In a moment of sobriety, the German grand admiral Tirpitz labeled World War I a German preventive war. The intention was to defuse the danger of an impending two-front war by humiliating Serbia and telling Russia to get lost. That failed fantastically. taz: Does that mean that you compare the U.S. policy on Iraq to the German war politics of summer 1914? Wehler: The concrete constellation is different, but the formal structure is the same. The idea is to defuse a situation by anticipating it—“prevenire,” as Friedrich the Great said. This senile calculus attempts to solve political problems with one grand military strike. The Americans should read Clausewitz: war is only a means to achieve political goals. And there are no more political goals in the Near East that can justify another Gulf War. taz: Many Americans compare Saddam Hussein with Adolf Hitler . . . Wehler: . . . And say, “What if there had been a preventive war against Hitler?” Clearly no one planned for that—the mood in the United States would have had to be appropriate for declaring war. In European countries, which had just fought World War I, there was a deep longing for peace. And Roosevelt himself needed two years after the outbreak of the war to bring the United States in on the side of the Allies. Heaven knows whether that would have happened without the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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taz: Europeans think the same today. But were these considerations correct in hindsight? Wehler: Given the horizon of the time, they were completely correct. From the perspective of May 1945, just about anything would have been justiﬁed in order to stop such crimes against humanity. But that was asking far too much from the parties involved between 1933 and 1939. Today, however, the players are by no means overburdened. All arguments to the contrary are clearly mistaken. taz: The federal chancellor sees this issue similarly and speaks of a “German way.” Does this threaten to become another special path for the Germans? Wehler: I ﬁnd the formulation atrocious. My generation fought for decades against the “special path.” The long path westward ended when the Germans ﬁnally felt comfortable in the West. For Schröder, it is just about the shabby exploitation of an election situation, not a real political possibility. Everyone knows there is only a European way. taz: But this European way is not the American way? Wehler: For the Europeans, there is no axis of evil. They have learned from their bloody history that pragmatic humility is a virtue. One can go into conﬂicts head-on, or one can quell them laterally. But one will never reach an eternal state of peace-loving happiness. We should defend this skeptical tradition.

14 FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

DECISION REGARDING ANIMAL SLAUGHTER AS A RELIGIOUS PRACTICE This decision, docket number 1BvR 2284/95 from January 18, 2002, was published on the court’s website www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de. Translated by Hilary Menges.

This complaint regarding the infringement of the constitution involves the granting of special authorization for religious slaughter—that is, the killing of warm-blooded animals without prior anesthetization. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the slaughter of animals for religious purposes in keeping with Jewish rituals was largely permitted. The appropriate regulation thereof recognized predominant exceptions to the primary ban on religious slaughter without anesthetization. After National Socialism came to power in Germany, more and more states moved to ban religious slaughter. Eventually the imperative to anesthetize warm-blooded animals prior to butchering was implemented throughout Germany according to the law of April 21, 1933. According to the ﬁndings of the Federal Constitutional Court, the law’s goal was to insult and violate the religious feeling and customs of the Jewish portion of society. Exceptions to the ban on religious slaughter were granted only in the case of emergency killings. After the end of World War II, religious slaughter was for the most part tac-

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itly tolerated, though state law did not expressly reauthorize it (for example, butchering in accordance with Islamic Sharia). Nationwide regulations regarding religiously motivated, unanesthetized slaughter were ﬁrst established with the enactment of the Slaughter Law, as part of the Animal Protection Law. Since the implementation of the ﬁrst Law to Amend the Animal Protection Law of August 12, 1986, the Animal Protection Law’s article 1 fundamentally bans the slaughter of warm-blooded animals without anesthetization. However, article 2.2 allows the possibility of granting special exceptions on religious grounds. [. . .] The plaintiff is a Turkish citizen and, according to his statement (which is not disputed in these proceedings), a strict Sunni Muslim. He has lived in the Federal Republic of Germany for 20 years and operates a butcher shop in Hessen, which he took over from his father in 1990. In order to provide for his Muslim customers, he was specially authorized to perform ritualistic religious slaughters without anesthetization until September 1995 (in accordance with article 2.2 of the Animal Protection Law). The butchering was carried out on his premises under veterinary supervision. In the period following, the plaintiff undertook additional applications for the granting of such authorizations. Since the June 15, 1995, decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, the requests have remained unsuccessful. [. . .] It is alleged that the plaintiff’s freedom to choose and pursue a career has been violated. Even though he is a Turkish citizen, he claims to have unlimited and unrestricted residency [in Germany]. In view of the duration of his residence in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as his de facto German roots and his professional activities as a butcher, he claims protection under article 2.1 of the Basic Law. In addition, he claims fundamental rights protection under article 12.1 of the Basic Law. The job of a Muslim butcher is an independent occupation, which requires certain qualiﬁcations that a normal butcher does not need to have. This occupation involves the quick and clean execution of the slaughter itself, so that the animal does not suffer unnecessarily. The job is, however, characterized much more by its religious elements, including the invocation of Allah. The ban on religious slaughter thus affects the plaintiff as a manifest ban on his profession and thereby objectively restricts his job choices. If the decisions in question were able to persist and he were perpetually denied special authorizations, he would have to search for a new occupation. Constitutional law could only justify such a far-reaching intervention if it served to defend against demonstrable or severe danger to the good of the community. This, however, is not the case. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany emphasizes the important meaning of animal welfare in Islam and explains that unanesthetized religious slaughter is stipulated as a mandatory component of Muslim religious practice. All signiﬁcant Islamic groups in Germany share this opinion. According to a re-

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port from the Al-Azhar University of Cairo, the consumption of animal ﬂesh not slaughtered in religious rituals is valid only in emergency situations. Such a situation, however, does not exist for Muslims in Germany. The principle of equal treatment with Jewish believers demands the authorization of religious slaughter for Muslims as well (in accordance with the Animal Protection Law). [. . .] The court decisions in question violate the fundamental rights of the plaintiff as deﬁned in article 2.1 in conjunction with articles 4.1 and 4.2 of the Basic Law. The authorities and the civil court have misjudged the necessity and possibility of a constitutional interpretation of article 4 of the Animal Protection Law. Therefore, applying the special-exceptions rule regarding bans on religious slaughter, they arrived at a disproportionate restriction of said fundamental right. This decision may not be appealed. Justices: Jaeger, Hömig, Bryde 15 BASSAM TIBI

BETWEEN THE WORLDS First published as “Zwischen den Welten” in Berliner Tagesspiegel (May 11, 2002). Translated by David Gramling. Tibi (b. 1944, Damascus), chair of international relations at the University of Göttingen, is a German political scientist of Syrian descent.

Multicultural pathos is not enough: Whoever wants to integrate Muslims into the German community of values must offer them an identity. Most observers tend not to interpret the newest anti-Jewish excesses of the Beurs in France as a combined effect of traditional anti-Semitism coupled with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s new radical approach to the Palestinian autonomous regions. Instead, these observers express the opinion that the heinous deeds of Islamic Arab immigrant children from North Africa result from integration failures. Speaking as a migrant myself, I am also of the opinion that, in the case of Germany, the integration of Muslim immigrants has not been successful. I understand immigration as steered migration. Current immigration, however, proceeds willy-nilly and without rules. [. . .] But what does integration mean, and why must it necessarily be considered a failure in Germany so far? Germany’s politicians have apparently not learned any lessons from the tragic events of September 11. Terror as a Problem of Diaspora The terror attacks of September 11 proved in a concrete way that security issues are closely connected to immigration, given that the attacks were organized in the German Islamic diaspora. Consequently, Western countries (primarily the United States but also European states) have taken necessary steps. The British

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interior minister for labor, David Blunkett, voiced the opinion that Islamic migrants must accept the values of British democracy as a precondition for their integration. Islamists within the British Muslim diaspora attacked Blunkett and associated him with “right-wing extremism.” But this recrimination seems to more ﬁttingly describe his Islamist opponents, who dismiss “democracy as faithlessness” in their London community newspaper. Since September 11, it has become clear that language acquisition alone is no indicator of successful integration. The organizer of the New York terror plots, the Egyptian Islamist Mohammed Atta, came from Hamburg and spoke ﬂuent German. These factors did not stop him from destroying the World Trade Center towers—in a certain sense the secular cathedrals of the Western world—and declaring war on Western civilization. This event demonstrates that integration belongs among the central instruments of nonmilitary struggle against terrorism. Certainly, integration may not be decreed by law, but it also cannot be achieved merely through participation in language courses, as German immigration law prescribes. Until recently, Islamic fundamentalists had created a zone of détente within the European Muslim diaspora. Now, only the integration of Muslim migrants offers an effective means to counter religious extremism. Integration, in contrast to assimilation, does not mean changing one’s own cultural identity. Instead, it offers migrants a kind of enrichment, for in the receiving country they take on a civic identity that dissolves the feeling of foreignness in favor of membership in a communal civil entity. In a democratic society, integration means ﬁtting oneself into a politicalcivil societal formation and developing a feeling of belonging to it. In the democratically designed Federal Republic, immigration for Muslim migrants means acquiring the identity of a German citizen. Whoever rejects this prospect is advocating the establishment of a parallel society and thus ignores the dangers of Balkanization. A passport does not contribute to integration if no identity is connected to it. In contrast to the U.S. passports of Syrians living in the United States, my German passport affords me no identity. Charles Maier, an academic of GermanJewish descent who teaches at Harvard, spoke of a “citizenship of the heart” at an event entitled “Reimagined Communities and Identities: Being German.” Could integration in Germany be modeled after that in the United States? It has consistently been my experience in the United States that the country offers an additional identity to people from my Islamic civilization that Germany does not provide. Here I am only a “Syrian with a German passport.” In Western Europe, there is a population of 15 million Muslims from the Mediterranean region, Asia, and Africa. Among this Muslim diaspora, there are about 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany (about 2.5 million Turks and Kurds, about half a million Arabs, and half a million from other parts of Islamic civilization). I believe that only a small portion is integrated. I myself, for example, demonstrate that naturalization does not mean integration.

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Bundestag representative Cem Özdemir is one of the few integrated Muslims in Germany. At the Harvard event mentioned above, he came as a German citizen and spoke in the name of Germany. The German university does not offer me this kind of membership in a common entity. But in what form should the integration of Muslims living in Germany proceed? “Being German” was supposed to have been redeﬁned after 1945; it was supposed to mean nothing more than belonging to a common democratic entity, in the sense of a community of values that could include migrants as well. Since then, German democrats have been speaking of the Westernization of German political culture. “Westernness” can be found on paper in Germany, for example in the ﬁrst 19 articles of the Basic Law, but it is not constitutive of the political culture of this country. We can only reach the goal of integration if both sides, Germans and migrants, exhibit a willingness to do so. Only when Germans and Muslims are willing to integrate—which until now has not been the case—can there be peaceful coexistence. However, this precondition places a demand on Muslims in Germany to harmonize Islamic values with those of Western Europe. [. . .]

Mosaic or Common Values? Multicultural communitarianism means that different cultural communities can exist next to one another, like pieces in a mosaic, without sharing common values. Against the backdrop of the September 11 tragedy, it has become clear that the multikulti-communitarianism and the “free space” that it promotes lead to parallel societies and consequent security risks. To clarify the urgency of this insight, we must revisit what happened on September 11. Was the attack purely a criminal act perpetrated by a group that is connected to Bin Laden through a global network? Or was it more than that? What does it have to do with immigration and integration? One thing is clear, particularly here in Germany: we cannot merely return to business as usual and push the terror attacks out of our minds. They were far more than a criminal act; they marked an epochal turn. Not only is it necessary to better understand the world of Islam, but also to attempt to integrate Muslims living in the West. Thus, we must Westernize the Islam practiced in Germany through the integration of its supporters, just as this country has been Westernized since 1945. [. . .] Because of their recent past, Germans are not in a position to promote integration based on their own identity. This inability is marketed as the “German virtue” of identitylessness. A society with a damaged identity is incapable of integration as long is it does not come to terms with its past. Migrants cannot share guilt for Nazi crimes with Germans, but they can share the responsibility for ensuring that nothing similar ever happens again. [. . .] On September 11 in New York and Washington, an attack on Western civilization took place that was organized in a diasporic culture. This act of terror was the militarized form of a value conﬂict. In the long term, the re-

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sponse must be a politics of integration through which Muslims, as European citizens with European values, abhor the perpetrators of September 11 like all Western citizens do. September 11 , as well as the coexistence of Germans and 10 million foreigners from all over the world, offers this country a historic chance to return to normalcy, to establish a democratic civic identity that binds Germans and foreigners into a common entity. [. . .] 16 FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

DECISION REGARDING THE WEARING OF HEAD SCARVES AMONG SCHOOLTEACHERS This decision, docket number 2BvF 1436/02 from September 24, 2003, was published on the court’s website www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de. Translated by Tes Howell. The plaintiff in this case is Fereshta Ludin, whose headmaster forbade her to wear a head scarf while teaching. Despite the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision in her favor, a lower court later upheld the school district’s right to ban Ms. Ludin from employment, and she retracted her claim in fall 2005.

The plaintiff desires a teaching position in the province of BadenWürttemberg. In her constitutional grievance, she appeals the decision handed down by the Administrative Court of the Greater School District of Stuttgart, which reviewed and rejected her employment status in elementary and middle schools on the basis of her declared intention to wear a head scarf. [. . .] The plaintiff, born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1972, has lived continuously in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1987 and obtained German citizenship in 1995. She is of the Muslim faith. After passing her ﬁrst state examination and completing her internship, she completed her second state examination for teaching positions in elementary and secondary schools with a concentration on middle-school German, English, civics, and economics. The greater Stuttgart school district rejected the plaintiff’s application for a teaching position in elementary and middle schools in the province of Baden-Württemberg on the basis of insufficient personal appropriateness. The reason provided for the rejection was that the plaintiff was not prepared to abstain from wearing a head scarf. It was further alleged that the head scarf is an expression of cultural segregation and thus not only a religious but also a political symbol. It is further alleged that the objective effect inherent in the head scarf, cultural disintegration, could not be reconciled with the imperative of state neutrality. In her appeal, the plaintiff claims that wearing a head scarf is not only an aspect of her personality but also an expression of her religious convictions. According to the prescriptions of Islam, wearing a head scarf is part and parcel of her Islamic identity. The decision barring her employment appears to conﬂict with the basic right of religious freedom ac-

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cording to article 4, clauses 1 and 2 of the Basic Law. Despite the responsibility of the state to remain neutral in questions of belief, it may not, according to the fulﬁllment of the education contract of article 7, clause 1, of the Basic Law, fail to consider religious worldview, and it must facilitate a balance between these conﬂicting interests. It has been suggested that the head scarf is not a religious symbol in the sense that a cruciﬁx is religious. Moreover, as the plaintiff is a beneﬁciary of basic rights, her entitlement to an individually and religiously motivated action is at issue. [According to the greater Stuttgart school district,] even if the plaintiff is not doing missionary work for her religious convictions, by wearing a head scarf while teaching, she effectively expresses her affiliation to Islam, and her students are not able to excuse themselves voluntarily. Therefore, she appears to be forcing students to negotiate with this profession of faith. Young people, whose personalities are not yet completely formed, are apparently open to inﬂuences of all kinds. From this perspective, only the objective effect of the head scarf ought to be considered. Particularly for female students of the Muslim faith, a severe normative pressure may ensue that would obstruct the school’s pedagogical duty to achieve the integration of Muslim pupils. [. . .] [According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior,] the case of the cruciﬁx is similar to the Muslim head scarf in that, in the context of universal compulsory schooling, as opposed to ﬂeeting encounters in daily life, one cannot escape constant confrontation with this religious symbol either. That the plaintiff is a beneﬁciary of basic rights does not alter the fact that the symbol she wears will inevitably be attributed to the state. However, it is important to consider that in wearing this religious symbol, she is exercising basic rights. [. . .] In judging whether a particular article of clothing or other external sign deploys religious content or expressions of worldview, the effect of the medium of expression is to be considered equally alongside its possible meanings. The head scarf, as opposed to the Christian cross, is not in itself a religious symbol. [. . .] Head scarves worn by Muslim women are understood as a code for vastly different statements and values. [. . .] [Research shows] that in consideration of this diversity of motivations, the meaning of the head scarf may not be reduced to a sign of the societal repression of women. Rather, the head scarf can be a voluntary means for young Muslim women to lead a self-determined life without breaking with their culture of origin. In this regard, it has not sufficiently been proven that the plaintiff, simply by wearing a head scarf, would hinder the fostering of an image of women among her Muslim students that is consonant with the worldviews of the Basic Law or its manifestation in their own lives. [. . .] As long as no legal circumstance exists in which it can be clearly demonstrated that it is the professional duty of elementary- and middle-school teachers to abstain from displaying items that affirm their religious membership in the school or in class, the assumption of the plaintiff’s insufficient

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appropriateness is not commensurable with article 33, clause 2 in conjunction with article 4, clauses 1 and 2, and article 33, clause 3, of the Basic Law. The decisions that led to this constitutional grievance thereby offend against the legal rights of the plaintiff, as they have been represented in these proceedings. The judgment of the Federal Administrative Court is hereby annulled, and the matter will be sent back to said court. [. . .] This decision was reached with ﬁve yeas and three nays. Assenting Justices: Hassemer, Sommer, Boss, Osterloh, Lübbe-Wolff Dissenting Justices: Mellinghoff, Jentsch, Di Fabio 17 ARNFRID SCHENK

ALLAH ON THE BLACKBOARD First published as “Allah an der Tafel” in Die Zeit ( June 9, 2004). Translated by David Gramling.

The 700,000 Muslim students in Germany will soon receive religious instruction. In-school trials, however, are slow in coming. It almost sounds familiar. “Pilgrims, pilgrims, you must travel, . . .” sing twelve elementary-school students, sitting around their teacher in a half circle. The melody is redolent of children’s birthday parties: “Little ring, little ring, you must travel.” But what kind of texts are the children chanting along to this melody? Their teacher, Ömer Aslangeçiner, laughs. Anyone who teaches Islamic religion in German has to improvise once in a while. And this revised children’s song does quite well in teaching these ﬁrst-graders at the Albert Schweitzer School in Lehrte near Hannover one of the ﬁve duties of every Muslim—the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. For the past few months, Islamic religious instruction has been offered in the German language at eight elementary schools in Lower Saxony. This inschool trial will run until 2007. If the Ministry of Culture and the Muslims are satisﬁed with it, statewide implementation will be considered. Two hours per week, Aslangeciner explains the world of Islam to his group at the Albert Schweitzer School. Most of the children were born in Germany. Their parents come generally from Turkey but also from Bosnia or Albania. Almost all of them speak German well. The teacher tells them about the prophet Muhammad, describes why Muslims fast in the month of Ramadan, and he takes them to the mosque once and explains the imam’s duties, shows them where he sits and how one can ﬁnd the direction toward Mecca. In many mosques, children tend to learn to segregate themselves The Ministry of Culture selected eight teachers and insisted that they not be strangers to the parents and school administration. Ömer Aslangeçiner has been living in Lehrte for 30 years and has taught remedial courses in her-

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itage languages for many years. “It was very important for us to know the teachers,” says Beate Fogber, the principal of the Albert Schweitzer School, “so that there would be no mistrust. We wanted to be sure that Islamist thinking would not be promoted.” Lower Saxony is joining North Rhine–Westphalia and Bavaria in closing this gap in the German school system. Some 700,000 students of the Muslim faith live in Germany. So far, they have not been able to take part in regular religious instruction under state supervision in the German language. Muslim organizations say there has been a lack of political will. State agencies say this inaction has to do with disunity among Muslims, and they demand a uniﬁed partner with whom they can negotiate. According to the Basic Law, all organizations of faith have the right to state-sponsored religious instruction. However, the precondition is that the religious community in question must be officially recognized. Muslim groups are expected to be organized, just as Christian churches are. Thus, religious education continues to be delegated to mosque organizations—with unpleasant consequences. It is estimated that there are 2,300 mosques in Germany. Three-fourths of them offer Koran classes, according to the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen. Approximately 70,000 Muslim youth attend these courses regularly. There is nothing about Koran classes per se that is objectionable. There, young Muslims learn faith practice, such as the ritual washing before prayer. What is problematic is the fare that is offered at many mosques in addition to the Koran classes: archconservative, somewhat radical ideas against Western ways of life are praised, and students are commanded not to enter into friendships with Christians. The instructional goal: segregation instead of integration. In addition, the hocas [religious teachers] come to Germany only for a few years, hardly speak German, and do not know the children’s world. So they are not in a position to promote dialogue, even if they wanted to do so. The Marburg Islam researcher Ursula Spuler-Stegemann does not believe that regular Islamic instruction would have the effect of dissolving Koran courses. But it can offer a reasonable alternative to the questionable teachings propagated in many mosques. In order for the 40,000 students of Muslim faith in Lower Saxony to have access to enlightened religious instruction, the Ministry of Culture had to bring a large number of Muslim groups to the table: the Central Council of Muslims, which despite its name, represents only a small number of Muslims; the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Foundation for Religion (Ditip), and a newly founded organization called the Schura of Lower Saxony. Almost 90 percent of [Germany’s] Muslims were represented in this way. A representative from Milli Görüs was at the table as well. [. . .] A similar in-school trial is up and running in Bavaria, but only in one elementary school. North Rhine–Westphalia is much further along. The high-

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est number of Muslims in Germany live here. Some 260,000 are in school. Since the 2000–01 school year, the state has been offering pupils religious studies in the German language. This year, the model project has expanded to 90 schools. Some 3,700 pupils are taking part. The curriculum was developed by the State Institute for Education in Soest, in collaboration with Muslim experts from Ankara to Cairo. This curriculum not only explores the basic questions of Islam but also issues of everyday life in Germany. The instruction is not devotionally oriented; it does not educate toward faith but instead informs students about it. Thus, it comes under the conditional title “Islamic instruction in German.” [. . .]

4,500 Teachers Have to Be Trained The case of Berlin demonstrates that some things can go awry in the attempt to establish Islamic religious instruction. Since the 2001–02 school year, the Islamic Federation of Berlin has been organizing Islam classes. After several legal proceedings, it was recognized as a religious community and thus gained exclusive rights to provide religious instruction in Berlin, without the School Department having any say in the matter. This recognition was a precipitous decision, because the federation does not represent the majority of Berlin’s Muslims by a long shot, and it is commonly regarded as closely related to Milli Görüs, despite its claims to the contrary. Teachers and principals still complain, however, that more and more Muslim parents want to prevent their children from participating in class trips, coeducational sports, and sex-education classes. Many students no longer exchange gifts at Christmas parties. Many principals fear a furtive Islamization is afoot. [. . .] If the various states do indeed attempt to implement Islam classes in the next few years, there is yet another problem. Where will the teachers come from? Religious education as a normal subject in the German language requires academically trained teachers. The jurist Martin Heckel, who has dealt with this topic extensively, estimates that 4,500 teachers will be needed. Thus far in Germany there has been no training, save for a few guest professorships. Just a short while ago, the University of Münster established a Center for Religious Studies, which will offer a teacher-training course for Islamic religious instruction starting in the upcoming winter semester. Training has also begun in Lower Saxony. There is a new continuing-education course for Islam teachers at the University of Osnabrück. These programs are being developed in collaboration with the universities of Cairo, Vienna, Tehran, and Ankara. Peter Graf, a professor of intercultural pedagogy, is directing the program. He has high hopes for a “religious-ethnic education for Muslims in the West.” Existing concepts of religious instruction cannot simply be imported toward this end. They must be appropriate for the European context. Thus, religious education will become a site of dialogue. Taking a look at Ömer Aslangeçiner’s class, one has the feeling that this

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exchange between the religions is actually functioning quite well. Right after the Haj and Ramadan on the curriculum come Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

18 Z A F E R S¸E N O C A K

BETWEEN THE SEX PISTOLS AND THE KORAN First printed as “Zwischen den Sex Pistols und dem Koran” in Die Welt ( July 20, 2005). Translated by Lucy Powell.

After each terrorist attack carried out by young Muslims, we experience the same ritual. The media gropes around in the dark, excitedly trying to pin down the motives of the perpetrators and asking questions about their potential danger to the various European countries where Muslims live. Religious leaders are hastily summoned together to emphasize the importance and necessity of a dialogue between the religions as if they were there to prevent a religious war. At panel discussions of this kind, the emphasis is always on communicating how peaceful the message of the religions is. Muslim functionaries and clerics try their best to allay the worries and fears of nonMuslims. These are the stopgap measures of a nonexistent Islamic public domain, like digging graves after a terrorist attack. These brutal attacks have nothing to do with Islam and cannot be condoned in any way, they intone in unison. Clear words that have no meaning. Because the things that have to happen are not happening. Muslims have to ask themselves why the killers come from within their own ranks. Where does the hate come from, a hate which stretches so far that it allows people not only to destroy other’s lives but also their own? What is needed is not so much a dialogue between religions as between Muslims. But where will this happen? And who will lead it? Islam has always been a community-based religion rather than a belief of the individual. Membership in the community of believers is existential for practicing Muslims. It is where Muslims receive support and familial warmth. The community is particularly attractive for all those with doubts and despairs about a modernity centered around individualism. Muslims are intensely exposed to group dynamics that starkly restrict the freedom of individuals and their development potential. In contrast to Christianity, which, to a great extent, has a psychotherapeutic function for the individual believer, Islam makes demands on society and social life. These demands are not, however, the result of extensive thought but of memorization and emulation of a passed-down tradition. This focus has created an ideology starved of creative energy, which is predestined to break out in violence and to set latent aggression in motion. There is such a deep rift for many

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Muslims between what they believe they are entitled to and what they actually experience that they ﬁnd themselves in a permanent schizophrenic state. Twenty years ago, I was working on a translation of the lyrical works of Yunus Emre, a thirteenth-century Anatolian mystic. How did I, a budding poet born in Turkey, raised in Germany, and writing in German, arrive at translating the poems of an Islamic mystic from the Middle Ages? Admittedly, the writings had aesthetic appeal. They are not only full of poetic power, they testify that Islamic literature does have individual voices, ones that describe the loneliness and doubts of lone wolves—a far cry from dogmatic convictions and group mechanics. Yunus Emre’s view of the other is very different from the view one ﬁnds in religiously motivated texts by Muslim scholars. The borders between belief and nonbelief and between the religions are porous; the perception of others is not clouded by personal rhetoric; much more, it is an alienated view of one’s own person. My love reaches out beyond my heart I know a way deeper inside Unbelieving is the one who strays from belief What an unbelief further inside still Don’t say I’m in me I’m not There is an I further inside me . . . Belief and Law do not affect me Which direction do I take further inside?

The translation of these poems was a linguistic challenge, absolutely fascinating from a literary point of view. But they had almost no relevance to the reality of my German life and thinking. Or did they? All around me, the no-future generation was running riot. Everyone who still saw a sense in political involvement found themselves in the arms of the 68 generation, which was hungry to establish itself. Yunus Emre anchored me in another time and world. It was as if someone from my childhood was guiding me through the translation, a childhood in which Islamic culture, as lived and conceived, played a huge role. How should one understand the general and yet amorphous term Islamic culture? A religion that determines the believer’s way of life down to the last detail, the ultimate meaning machine focusing solely on technical functions, ensuring that believers remain fully functional through constant observation. That at least was the claim. Reality, however, provoked people to disobey the strict rules, to question the Muslim way of life. Was there in this world of prayers and regulations such a thing as a room for the senses, a form of existence for the mind? If there were such a place, then it could be found in texts of the sort left behind by Yunus Emre, the Anatolian dervish. These texts did not stonewall my surroundings and the time in which I was living and which was so far away from that in which they were written. Far more they

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transferred smoothly into the world of others which had long become my own. Had I not been working on Emre’s oeuvre, there would have been a solid barrier between my inner world and the one in which I lived, and I would have fallen victim to the irreconcilable contradictions between the Sex Pistols and the Koran. My parents’ house on the one side, school and free time on the other; Turkish origins versus a life centered around Germany. For my creative work, indeed for my entire existence, I depended on the permeability of these borders. Every border separates and joins at the same time. It can be a fence but also a crossing. We have long lived in a world in which pain arises not from what separates but from what joins. The aesthetic agenda of the present is to ﬁnd a language to describe the pain felt today by the many people who are exposed to the most diverse cultural inﬂuences. Our perception of the world is selective, but we mentally reconstruct it to a whole. But what happens when this ordering system fails? When the individual fragments can no longer be accommodated into a personally structured form? When the hard break lines become festering interfaces, the pain unbearable, the wounds incurable? The collision of contradictory worlds necessitates a translating power whose aim is not the leveling of differences but the transfer of different interpretations. Every translation is an interpretation, shedding light on a term from different perspectives. When the luminosity wanes, much is left in the dark. And darkness breeds fear and aggression. It is understandable that after each terrorist attack carried out by young Muslims, the loud appeal for a liberal tolerant Islam is weirdly accompanied by a call for more state intervention and control. But in view of the vast philosophical and psychological dimensions of the conﬂict, these well-meaning objections seem to be the caricature-like gestures of a general helplessness. Is the God of the holy books really as nonviolent as we are repeatedly told these days? Is there not a raging, punishing God who demands accountability in all three monotheistic religions, who is at least as powerful as the merciful, forgiving one? Is there not a tendency in the culture of modernity, that traces back at least as far as the Renaissance, to place man in God’s position, in good as in evil? And what is the tense relationship between this hubris and the relativization of power and truth, which likewise has become a cornerstone of an open, pluralistic society? Questions that are mostly left by the wayside because we have prematurely opted to agree on the so-called common denominators such as love for one’s neighbor and esteem for human life. But there’s no longer any such thing as common denominators in the form of easy-to-eat chunks, just as there are no longer cultures that could be described as closed circles. Orient and Occident, Islam and Christianity, tradition and modernity meet at best in museums or anachronistic events. What shapes people today,

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what makes them behave as they do, how they behave is a mishmash, an amalgamation of the huge collection of exploded fragments of cultural entities that are not clearly geographically locatable. The Taliban are not only situated in the mountains of Afghanistan but also in the minds of people living in London, New York, and the rest. People today are suffering from a state of exhaustion provoked by diversity. This fatigue makes the call to unity dangerously attractive and a rigid modernity, which demands differentiation and individualization, ineffective. Halfheartedly formulated cosmopolitan ideals are no more likely to tackle the male rituals of religious fanatics than the newly strengthened nationalist voices. So, a return to order? But which one? Back to which time? No, we, the enlightened, cannot return. We could attempt to understand ourselves better. Ask ourselves the questions we put to others. Start an inner dialogue before we turn our words on other people.

6 PROMOTING DIVERSITY I N S T I T U T I O N S O F M U LT I C U LT U R A L I S M

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

A T E L E V I S I O N S T U D I O I N C O LO G N E , 1 9 7 0 s . At the center is Aysim Alpman, host of Ihre Heimat—Unsere Heimat (Your Homeland—Our Homeland), the WDR television station’s ﬁrst program to address foreigners living in Germany in their native languages. With coiffed hair and casual couture, the broadcasters pose before a backdrop of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. The staging suggests that television allows viewers to be simultaneously “here” and “there.”

early catalysts for immigration reform in the 1970s were the Deutsche Städtetag, or the German Council of Municipalities, and the German Caritas Alliance. These groups funded and analyzed statistical research about immigrants’ living conditions, legal disenfranchisement, and socioeconomic inequities. Publications by the Städtetag, like the 1973 pamphlet opening this chapter, were among the ﬁrst institutional attempts to advocate for guest workers as “fellow citizens” who had chosen Germany as their new homeland. Even before the 1973 moratorium on recruitment, the Städtetag took a strong researchsupported stance refuting widespread notions of disproportionately high criminality among immigrants. In 1978, the chancellor’s cabinet called for a new, permanent post in the federal government that would be responsible for promoting social integration among foreigners. Housed under the Ministry of Health and Social Order, this new office, with a staff of two, was dubbed the Office of the Federal Commissioner for the Promotion of Integration among Foreign Workers and Their Family Members. Its ﬁrst appointee was Heinz Kühn, former minister president of the province of North Rhine–Westphalia. Kühn published this chapter’s second text in 1979. Known widely as the Kühn Memorandum, the paper alerted the government to the urgent need to offer willing immigrants “unconditional and permanent integration” into West German society. It opposed all coercive and ﬁnancial incentives designed to persuade labor migrants to leave Germany, thus preempting the “willingness-to-return” policies of the Kohl administration. The Ecumenical Planning Committee theses of 1980, another early text in this chapter, exemplify a new stage in an emerging multicultural doctrine. The committee believed that Germans bore the responsibility for adapting to the nation’s immigrants, because guest workers had engaged in decades of unacknowledged integration already. Activist clerics and lay people alike envisioned the possibility of multiethnic collaboration and dialogue in an era of perceived mistrust. This principle of intercultural dialogue came to the fore in a most concrete way in a 1982 leaﬂet—“With Each Other, Not against Each Other”—circulated by the Berlin Senate’s commissioner of foreigner affairs, Barbara John. Commissioner John distributed two versions of this leaﬂet—one to MONG THE PRINCIPAL

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Berlin’s immigrant residents and one to nonmigrant residents—addressing the misunderstandings between the two groups. Heinz Kühn’s successor, Liselotte Funcke, sought to bring to the foreground the humanistic principles of art as a counterweight to the labormarket concepts that had dominated immigration policy in previous eras. In 1986, her office organized the exhibition The Other Country—Foreign Artists in the Federal Republic. Showcasing transnational artists became a standard corrective measure for the disenfranchisement that had characterized labor migration thus far. Such endeavors generated collaboration between the federal commissioner’s office and other institutions, including the European Council, the Federal Office for Political Education, Deutsche Welle Radio, and UNESCO. Funcke’s successor, Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen, enjoyed more ﬁnancial support from the various ministries and received more frequent invitations to participate in the shaping of policy at the cabinet level, although the consultancy role of her office did not become law until 1997. Upon her appointment, the office’s name changed to the slightly less cumbersome Office of the Commissioner for the Needs of Foreigners. Schmalz-Jacobsen’s piece in this chapter, “Where Are the Turkish Teachers and Doctors?” (2001) emphasizes that colorful multicultural celebrations should not obscure the persistent inequity in employment and professional opportunity between migrants and nonmigrants. In 1994, Deniz Göktürk published “The Naked and the Turks,” an essay on Radio Multikulti at Sender Freies Berlin. Founded in 1994, Radio Multikulti quickly became one of the foremost purveyors of world music and multicultural entertainment, though statistics showed that immigrant listeners tended to prefer Berlin’s Turkish music station FM Metropol. Göktürk’s essay contrasts the lively, hybrid social world in 1990s Berlin with the earnest purposefulness of SFB’s institutional programming. Another major exemplar in this “cultural turn” in immigrant advocacy was the Workshop of Cultures, founded in 1993 in Berlin’s Neukölln district. In an effort to popularize the idea of multicultural collaboration throughout and beyond the city of Berlin, the workshop began staging a yearly Carnival of Cultures in the city’s predominantly Turkish district of Kreuzberg. Competing with other carnival cities, Rotterdam and London among them, the Workshop of Cultures sought to display Berlin as a global hub of multiculturalism. Critics of the event noted the relative lack of Turkish participants, as compared to the predominance of Germans wearing exotic costumes and dancing to ethnic beats. The event’s organizers defended their project, stressing that the carnival did not aim to provide a radical platform but rather to inspire a celebratory occasion for citizens of diverse political positions. The transethnic activist network Kanak Attak emerged in the late 1990s as one of the most iconoclastic expressions of resistance to institutional mul-

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ticulturalism. Known for its stylized appropriation of consumer icons, Kanak Attak, whose manifesto appears in this chapter, agitated for an end to the socialist left’s celebratory staging of undifferentiated ethnic essences. “Against Between,” a manifesto by American German-studies scholar Leslie A. Adelson (2000), articulates a similar critique of binary readings of immigrant literature and calls for a new public debate about migrant subjectivity in German literature. The House of World Cultures, founded in 1998 in the desolate east end of West Berlin’s Tiergarten Park, was another major addition to the German multiculturalist landscape. Texts by Günther Coenen and Johannes Odenthal, both former presidents of the organization, chronicle the birth and development of the house, which seeks to bring world cultures to the Berlin stage. We conclude this chapter with a look back and a look forward. The ﬁrst of two closing texts is a retrospective tribute to the work of Barbara John, Berlin’s commissioner of foreigner affairs since the early 1980s. The ﬁnal text is a compilation of public responses to a pending plan to establish a German Museum of Migration.

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1 T H E G E R M A N C O U N C I L O F M U N I C I PA L I T I E S

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUPPORTING FOREIGN EMPLOYEES First published as Hinweise zur Hilfe für ausländische Arbeitnehmer (Cologne: Deutscher Städtetag, 1973), 1–5. Translated by David Gramling.

The increasing number of foreign workers in the Federal Republic generates a host of new problems and tasks for municipalities, especially in metropolitan areas. The German Council of Municipalities has therefore compiled some references for foreign employees in cooperation with experts from its member cities as well as from agencies, organizations, and alliances active in the ﬁeld. This compilation is organized according to the practical needs and legal foundations of concern to immigrants. Questions of integrating foreign workers (through housing and reuniting family members), assistance for children and youth, school, health, as well as counseling and information are at the center of the document’s design. We have intentionally refrained from macroeconomic or demographic-political questions. Instead, the point of departure for our considerations is the fact that foreign employees in the Federal Republic must be seen in the long run as fellow citizens. In many circumstances, they must be understood as people who view the Federal Republic as their chosen homeland. On this basis, they may claim certain rights and responsibilities during their residence. [. . .] Nonetheless, foreign employees were and continue to be underprepared for their residence in Germany and often come with false, overly optimistic expectations. Several added factors burden relations between them and Germans: unsatisfactory situations in the homeland leading to their departure; separation from family, friends, and neighbors; the often very palpable isolation in their new residence and workplaces; frustration with the realities of their new situation; the need to overcome enormous cultural and civilizational differences; the great difficulty of making themselves understood; the pressure for assimilation in the absence of regular opportunities to release pent-up aggression through conversations or in other legitimate ways; strained living conditions; and much more. These complicating factors often lead to nearly unbearable internal tensions among them, not infrequently resulting in sickness, accidents and depression. [. . .] There should be no question that if foreign employees are to live in our country, their rights as at least temporary citizens must be guaranteed. It is therefore appropriate that, in their particularly difficult situation, they should receive special assistance. Economic, social, and humanitarian factors demand a quick integration of foreign employees into society and the working world of the Federal Republic, to the extent that it is necessary for a limited residence. Dissociating them from the German population is damaging for both parties. [. . .]

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Widespread prejudices, such as the statistically debunked claim that foreign employees evince a higher rate of criminality, must be countered through consciousness-raising activities. The mass media are of paramount importance in this regard and must deliver substantive and responsible coverage. Because public political discourse and the current political situation form a feeding ground on which prejudices can be either nourished or uprooted, the media are the best basis for a mutual understanding among different nationalities. They are also the best defense against prejudice and discrimination in the interest of educating toward tolerance, political openness, and critical thinking, even among children and youth. 2 HEINZ KÜHN

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INTEGRATION OF FOREIGN WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Published in English translation (Bonn: Memorandum of the Federal Government Commissioner, 1979). Kühn (b. Cologne, 1912, d. 1992) was appointed in 1978 to the newly created post of “Federal Commissioner for the Promotion of Integration among Foreign Workers and Their Family Members,” known in common parlance as the “foreigner commissioner” or the “commissioner of foreigner affairs.”

The alarming situation concerning the future prospects for 1 million foreign children and adolescents in the Federal Republic calls for large-scale efforts in order to prevent major harm to individuals and society. Current problems, and others that will most certainly arise in the near future if rapid and radical change is not undertaken, are a challenge that must be addressed now; otherwise the problems threaten to become insurmountable and will present disastrous consequences. The measures taken thus far have obviously been inappropriately determined by the priority attached to labor market considerations. Less attention has been given to the equally important social and socio-political needs. Therefore, the friction-generating problems of foreign workers and their families require a new and corrective approach that would take far greater account of socio-political conditions and needs. It must be recognized that an irreversible development has taken place and that social responsibility for foreign workers and their children, most of whom were recruited some years ago and have now been living in this country for a considerable time, cannot be simply recalibrated according to the labor-market situation. The apparently large number of migrants who are willing to stay in the Federal Republic (comprised particularly of members of the second and third generations) must be offered unconditional and permanent integration. The vague notions of a “temporary” integration are incoherent and unrealistic, and the current situation is clear and intractable proof of its inade-

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quacy. The strategy of encouraging foreign workers to return to their home countries should not be overemphasized; this option can be reasonably successful only if it focuses on those who are seriously interested in returning. But this also requires that the foreign workers concerned be fully informed about alternative possibilities. On the basis of this analysis, the proposals put forward in this memorandum envisage a consistent integration policy with the following priorities: 1. Recognition of de facto immigration (while maintaining the ban on further recruitment); 2. A considerable increase in integration measures, in particular for children and adolescents, i.e. at the preschool, elementary school, and vocational training stage; 3. Abolition of all segregating measures, e.g. “nationality classes” in schools and similar concepts; 4. Acknowledging the right of young foreigners to unrestricted access to jobs and training opportunities; 5. Developing opportunities for young foreigners born and raised in the Federal Republic to opt for naturalization; 6. A general review of legislation regarding foreigners and naturalization procedures, in order to improve their legal situation and take greater account of the legitimate special interests of foreign workers and their families; 7. Improving their political rights by granting them the right to vote in local government elections after a certain period of residence; 8. Improving qualiﬁed social counseling. [. . .] The capacity of preschools to support parents in the education of their children is particularly important for foreign families, especially in terms of integration. Parents themselves are faced with considerable difficulties that, without appropriate assistance, make them unable to prepare their children for life in the Federal Republic. [. . .] Pilot projects have shown that an organized union for foreign staff would contribute to greater motivation among parents, as well as to improved scholastic achievement, and would not create any major initial difﬁculties. It would facilitate psychological access to foreign, and in particular to Turkish, families. Moreover, foreign teachers would have a special understanding for the language difficulties and the family background of the children. The situation for foreign children and adolescents at school is characterized by insufficient school attendance, an extremely low rate of success in upper-primary education, and a remarkable underrepresentation of foreign

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children in secondary schools. It has been estimated that 25% or more of foreign pupils do not or only irregularly comply with their obligation to go to school. [. . .] 3 E C U M E N I CA L P L A N N I N G C O M M I T T E E FO R FO R E I G N E R DAY

IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC WE LIVE IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY: THESES FROM SEPTEMBER 24, 1980, DAY OF THE FOREIGN FELLOW CITIZEN First published as “Wir leben in der Bundesrepublik in einer multikulturellen Gesellschaft: Thesen vom 24 September 1980 (Tag des ausländischen Mitbürgers)” in Deutschland—Einheit in kultureller Vielfalt, Jürgen Micksch, ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Otto Lembeck, 1991), 171–79. Translated by Tes Howell. The Foreigner Day Planning Committee included representatives from the Foreigner Bureau of the Protestant Church in Germany, the German Greek-Orthodox Church, and the German Episcopal Conference.

Different cultures, same rights: Toward a common future Even today, small cultural and linguistic minorities are still living in Germany, such as the Danes, Frisians, and the Sorbs. [. . .] At least 30 nationalities and linguistic communities have their own church congregations with hundreds of pastors from different countries throughout the world. Through the recruitment of foreign employees and the subsequent arrival or establishment of their families here, the coexistence of different cultures has taken on a new quality and role, particularly in the industrial centers. Within the conﬁnes of the European Community, citizens of other member states (Italians and soon also Greeks, Spanish, and Portuguese) have a right to live here without having to become German nationals. Furthermore, the signiﬁcant cultural inﬂuence of the United States is inestimable. A mutual integration is necessary for future coexistence Foreigner policy can no longer be merely a one-sided integration or assimilation policy. Mutual integration is necessary. Foreign fellow citizens have performed remarkable acts of adaptation. Now it is the task of Germans themselves to adjust to these new circumstances and conditions of multicultural collaboration. In this coexistence of cultures, the majority should respect the claims of the minority Foreign fellow citizens frequently form their own organizations and orient themselves increasingly on the basis of their own self-representations. Because they have few possibilities to voice opinions and participate collaboratively in society, they use their own interests as a foundation for new groups.

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They should be encouraged toward this end. There will often be tensions between the objectives of such self-representation and the interests of German organizations. To a certain extent, foreigners who have had the experience of not being accepted as fellow human beings tend to mistrust even positive offers of integration into this society. Foreigner organizations contribute actively to societal life and make it possible for foreigners to collaborate in its design. Foreign and German institutions should be supported and ﬁnancially assisted in comparable ways. In cultural centers, it is of primary concern that space be made available to facilitate the preservation of cultural traditions. In such centers, multicultural collaboration could be cultivated and supported in a particularly successful way.

Mutual isolation and ghettos do not promote a common future Even if there are understandable reasons for mutual isolation, the coexistence of immigrants and natives, for which many have worked so diligently, will not improve through segregation, nationally oriented preschool programs, boarding schools, or residential ghettos. Discussion and contact are necessary and should be encouraged on all levels. [. . .] The best places for learning about intercultural living and tolerance are kindergarten and school Kindergartens and schools are the places where experiences of different cultural traditions collide openly and directly. Here, one has the opportunity to learn different languages as mediators of culture. Intercultural instruction is a chance to acknowledge others and to be personally enriched as a result. Instruction in the native language should be integrated into educational instruction. Immigrants’ life experiences from their homelands and in the Federal Republic should be an integral part of school programs. The native language of immigrant children should be recognized as a ﬁrst foreign language. [. . .] Cultural programming should communicate differences but also commonalities among the respective cultural traditions Community-based cultural and leisure programming should concentrate more heavily on providing different groups with opportunities for selfrepresentation and promotion of important aspects of their respective homelands, in addition to interaction with natives. [. . .] Owing to the nationality-transcending character of faith, congregations have a special duty in the promotion of a multicultural society Congregations must not be content with accepting foreign parishes merely as “extensions of themselves.” Christian convictions should be reason enough to work together in all congregational spheres and to stimulate an

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understanding of cultural traditions that will resonate beyond the congregations. Parishes are in a good position to facilitate this collaboration through their worship offerings, common celebrations, kindergartens, discussion groups, work circles, free-time and educational opportunities, and other events. Again and again, the belief in Christ overcomes barriers between people.

New programs and communication structures in the media are necessary for a multicultural society The media play a crucial role in arousing and communicating understanding for other cultures. [. . .] Foreigner programs should attest to the actual situation in the countries of origin, not an “illusory world.” Cultural programming from these countries should be presented more frequently and translated for German-speaking contexts, in order to render unfamiliar behavior comprehensible. The coexistence among different cultures in a multicultural society is a new chance for the future of the Federal Republic [. . .] Coexistence with people from other cultures is a chance for an expansion of one’s own horizon. If it succeeds in leading to creative communication with other cultures, it will be an important contribution toward the realization of the common culture of a European Community and to the promotion of social harmony. As a prerequisite for such coexistence, we must grant equal political rights to ethnic and cultural minorities. The right to vote is part and parcel of this commitment. 4 BARBARA JOHN

WITH EACH OTHER, NOT AGAINST EACH OTHER First published as a pamphlet titled “Miteinander—nicht gegeneinander” by the commissioner of foreigner affairs of the Berlin Senate (November 1982). Translated by David Gramling. The “Living Together in Berlin” campaign was one of the ﬁrst government-sponsored advertising efforts to promote multiculturalism, depicting foreigners working in harmony alongside Germans on posters throughout West Berlin’s bus and subway system. Commissioner of Foreigner Affairs Barbara John is the subject of another article in this chapter, “The Woman from Kreuzberg.”

Dear fellow citizens, Those of you who live in districts like Kreuzberg, Schöneberg, Tiergarten, Neukölln, Wedding, Charlottenburg, or Spandau—districts where particularly high numbers of foreigners are living—may feel somewhat overwhelmed or disadvantaged.

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Feelings of this kind are entirely understandable. Sometimes they arise out of the dynamic of a ﬂeeting encounter, while at other times they are based in negative experiences. It is, however, a mistake to remember only the bad experiences and to see the good ones as merely a matter of course. Each of you can think of a number of positive encounters. Why do we constantly fail to acknowledge the kindnesses we encounter? We should be talking more about these issues in public arenas. If mutual understanding is not successful right off the bat, it is because we know too little about each other. Many of you come across Turkish citizens on a daily basis and have been doing so for years—on the way to work, on the street, when shopping, at home. I know from conversations with you that many behaviors of the Turkish population still remain foreign to you. This is often the case simply because we do not see or discover anything familiar in these ostensibly unusual images. Given the limited scope of this pamphlet, I will not be able to bring you closer to the Turkish culture. By way of a few examples, I would like to encourage you, however, to be more open when coming in contact with others. I know that it is precisely at such moments when great effort is necessary from both sides. But it is worth the trouble. Turkish citizens are simultaneously receiving a similar pamphlet. In it, I have explained why it bothers the German population when a familiar neighborhood becomes an almost foreign milieu within a short period of time. In the past few months, I have experienced great hospitality in Turkish families and have been consistently astounded by the openness of our conversations. My eyes have been opened time and again; I had seen things in a much different light before. I continue to discover how easy it is to build bridges when both sides wish to do so. The fact that there are people who have explicitly xenophobic intentions is shameful for us and painful for foreigners. We would all do well to take the time to bring stories of successful attempts at neighborliness into the public eye and to encourage one another by example. [. . .] In order to continue this dialogue about our successful stories of living together, it would be helpful if you would tell me about your experiences. With best wishes from your Commissioner of Foreigner Affairs, Barbara John

5 B E R L I N C O M M I S S I O N E R O F F O R E I G N E R A F FA I R S

WHAT IS GERMAN? First published in 1991 as “Was ist Deutsch?” as part of the Berlin Senate foreigner commissioner’s Living Together in Berlin poster campaign. Translated by David Gramling. These posters, often 2 meters

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by 3 meters in size, were common sights along Berlin subway walls, at bus shelters, and on beer coasters in the mid- and late 1990s.

What Is German? Fir trees? Travel dreams? Cool intellect? Cold heart? Pensiveness? Xenophobia? Openness? Shock? Baseball bat? Schinkenhäger liquor? Inferiority complexes? Minority protections? Craving recognition? Development aid? Love thy neighbor? Sideswipe? Starvation diet? Pub crawl? Rostock? Solingen? Forgetfulness? Perfectionism? Know-it-all? Airlift? Roasted chicken? Helpfulness? The news? Stolen cars? Steel helmet? Social welfare? Economic Miracle? Wheel of fortune? Berlinale? Milk-distribution center? Love for animals? Humanity? Sentimentality? Excitability? Autonomy? Volkswagen? Kitchen collectives? Germany for the Germans? Vanity? Love of children? Cowbells? Instant soup? Martial-arts groups? First World War? Second World War? The Wall? Applause from the audience? Democracy? Equal rights, but only for me? Equal responsibilities, but only for you? Laziness? Cleaning up? Anorexia nervosa? Soccer is our life? Poets and thinkers? Judges and executioners? Hospitality? Closing the borders? Making oneself look worse than one is? Always feeling guilty? Boozing up for courage? Undermining the intellect? Family ties? Gang warfare? Workaholism? Tax evasion? Withholding love? Muscle power? Inventiveness? Wannabe? Heil Hitler? Looking for scapegoats? Uncertainty? Having visions? Constant frustration? Moralistic sermonizers? Magnanimous toward one’s own mistakes? Never seeing other people’s merits? Taking cautious pleasure in the foreign? Watering the neighbor’s plants once in a while? Knowing hunger from when times were rough? Changing the channel during bad news reports? Pulling out the checkbook? Fire bombs? Love for the homeland? Cattiness? Kindergartens? Honesty? Getting rid of self-doubt with Schnapps? Feeling a little better afterward? Conscientious about responsibilities? Me? No pain, no gain? Traveling abroad? A summer house in Spain? Cars from Japan? Bellies? Intoxication? Warmheartedness? Beauty? Tolerance? DIN-standard? Nonconformity? In peak form? Feeling at home? Feeling foreign? Finding foreign cultures stimulating? Pracowici? Szwaby? Szkopy? Mangiakrauti? Crucco? Patates Alman? Getting worked up about anything different? Blind in the right eye? Making excuses by saying that the French and the Italians and the English and the Dutch and the Americans or everyone else are no better? White wedding? Always seeing black? Going along with every fashion? Loving the law on mandatory business hours? Technical Inspection Agency Control? Spring rolls? Stick-in-the-mud? Carefree? Go-getter? Sticking to your guns? Foreigners and Germans together? Ossis against Wessis? Wessis against Ossis? Federal Constitutional Court? BKA? Free Body Culture? MTV? Community assistance? Envy? Class? Nivea? Closing time? Striving for something higher? Sticking to one’s prejudices? Grabbing? Don’t

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want to hear it? Others ﬁrst? Sticking it to others? Lothar Matthäus? Anthony Yeboah? Roy Black? Roberto Blanco? Being idle instead of doing something? Counting beans? Tormenting children? Turning on the tube? Squeaky wheels? Going wild at your local hangout? Making a clean sweep? Sitting with others at a table? Planning on a happy future? Fear of the future? Digging a grave for others? Marching with torches? Beer mugs? Detachedness? Humor? Being in a good mood? Having a better education? Never having enough? Closing off? Giving the bird? Brass music? Feeling great? Acting up? Bureaucracy? Environmental degradation? Data protection? Wanting everything? Controlling everything? The fatherland is the kingdom of heaven? We don’t need anyone? We do ﬁne on our own? A stick of butter? Garden gnome? Keeping with your own? Going beyond yourself? An emigration country? An immigration country? Sauerkraut? Political sullenness? Disturbing the peace? Squeaky-clean man? Millers always want to wander? Turning against your neighbor? Panic stories? A matter of honor? Uniforms? If you don’t want to be my brother, then I’ll bust in your skull? Settling your accounts? Dig in? Not asking questions? Being a role model? Being there for someone? Riding the train without a ticket? Skipping work? Thumping the law books? Putting in some effort? Not letting up? German shepherds? Being critical? Being self-critical? Lottery tickets? More appearance than reality? Federal Railway? Road rage? A little coffee? A little beer? Gretchen? Having principles? Having a constitution? Phoning the constitutional court? We are the best? Striking below the belt? Outgrowing yourself? Alertness? Dedication? Tasks? Living beyond one’s means? Living Together in Berlin. The Commissioner for Foreigner Affairs of the Berlin Senate, Senate Administration for Social Issues, 65 Potsdamer Street, 10785 Berlin.

6 DENIZ GÖKTÜRK

THE NAKED AND THE TURKS First published as “Muselmanisch depressiv: Die Nackten und die Türken im Berliner Tiergarten” in die tageszeitung (September 3, 1994). Translated by Tes Howell. This article was inspired by a planning meeting at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt regarding programming at Radio Multikulti.

berlin, summer of 1994. Extended families are grilling in the Tiergarten in temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius. Oblivious to the perennial debate on whether open ﬂames in public parks are permitted and ecologically responsible, everyone is having a good time here: the smoke is climbing, the meat sizzling, the tea steeping, the children playing—people are sitting and talking. The hastily assembled (and barely noticed) wire bins with handwritten signs “Ashes only/Yalnız Kül” even lend a hint of multilingual legitimacy to the hustle and bustle. Territorial borders are invisible here in this nationally

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prescribed multicultural blend of togetherness. The nudists keep a respectful distance from the Turks and vice versa. Only the sociologists, stalking around with their cameras, occasionally pop into the scene. Is it a coincidence that the Berlin Turks have chosen the Tiergarten for their gatherings? Green is, after all, the color of the fundamentalists—and “for the country,” symbolically speaking, means something like “closer to God.” Rumor has it, by the way, that extra grills are included in the Tiergarten renovation plan. [. . .] Meanwhile, nearby in the House of World Cultures—in the center (if not the epicenter) of this “Legalize Grilling Party”—a perspiring group of experts is discussing what can be done to help foreigners acculturate and increase their presence in the media. Some report that the newly established Radio Multikulti, which took over broadcasting for foreign citizens at Sender Freies Berlin, or Radio Free Berlin, will embrace anything but AngloAmerican pop. Can world music satisfy the techno-Turks? The experts begin to trust and open up to each other: foreigners are people, too. They should not always appear in the media as a problem but as people who are normal like anyone else. Indeed, more and more TV programs are set in Turkey or have Turks playing roles in a German setting, often as cheerful snack-stand operators. After all, television is supposed to mirror reality. Media representatives at the meeting, themselves spirited advocates for disadvantaged foreigners, do not ask whether any of these foreigners actually want this cultural programming. For the most part, those on the inside already know what those on the outside need, without having to ask them. Several point out that the ﬁction of homogeneous cultural identity and unambiguous group affiliation is quite outdated these days. Unexpectedly, I see myself attacked from the politically correct corner: “You and Aras Ören—you don’t have the same experiences on the street as normal guest workers. You aren’t really Turks anymore.” It is common knowledge that origin, milieu, and education shape the habitus of every person. The German radio editor, incidentally, does not have the same experiences as the German construction worker. But how has it come to pass that I represent the same experiences as the (absent) writer Aras Ören, from whom a generation and a gender separate me? And according to which characteristics might the “normal” guest worker be distinguished? Does he resemble his television stereotype? Does he have to speak broken German and go to a mosque? Does his wife wear a head scarf? Does he buy all his supplies at the Aldi supermarket? Are his children allowed to attend college? Is there such a thing as properly and improperly alienated Turks? For the most part, disadvantaged Germans and their tastes are just as foreign to German intellectuals as the foreigners are. It is much preferable to hound the contemptible German from a safe distance. Unpleasant people and situations confront us in the city all the time, and it is sometimes difficult enough to tolerate one another. As a result, we move in our own circles,

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with our own preferences and manners, which, in and of itself, is not really objectionable. Cultural programming is also made primarily for the likeminded, although the media like to present themselves as the educators of the people. Still, we should grant others the differentiated individuality that we claim for ourselves. Instead of seeking out chimerical masses on the street, we could ﬁrst try to cooperate with our own colleagues of different backgrounds, with whom a relevant dialogue would be easy to begin. The condescendingly didactic imperative of foreigner-speciﬁc cultural activities is still prevalent; indeed, it has become doctrine. A rhetoric of consternation ﬂourishes on both sides. Foreign youths avail themselves of this fashionable parlance and commit themselves to self-pity “between the cultures.” Some youths even declare “My best friend is a foreigner,” instead of standing up for their own personal history, their own characteristics and strengths. What other choice does one have with all this communally encouraged togetherness afoot: Weeks of the Foreign Citizen, intercultural writing workshops, ikebana, and painting-against-racism events? Even graffiti and hip-hop, once expressions of American subculture, have become instrumentalized as workshop topics. Meanwhile, Catholics are demanding Islamic religious instruction in German schools. Instead of dismantling barriers, all these efforts appear to be establishing borders and arming reactionaries with traditional national symbols. Recently, young German Turkish women have started donning the crescent and star. Processes of cultural encounter and integration do not submit to cultural political prescription, certainly not to control from above. Despite all this activity, there is little cause for depression: while the experts are still discussing inside, the food outside has already been eaten.

7 RAINER BRAUN

GOOD RECEPTION: RADIO MULTIKULTI BERLIN First published as “Gut angekommen” in Frankfurter Rundschau (September 24, 1996). Translated by David Gramling.

With a growing audience and a great deal of attention from media colleagues at home and abroad, there are not many radio stations in this republic for whom reputation and positive resonance among listeners has been as unanimous as with Sender Freies Berlin 4. Baptized on the Spree two years ago, Radio Multikulti has since become one of the prominent players in the bellicose market of Berlin radio. The latest media analyses in June of this year showed Radio Multikulti with only a 0.7 percent market share, but that is only counting the Germanspeaking listeners. This group makes up merely a small minority of its three-

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year marketing plan. “Sixty percent of our listeners did not learn German as their ﬁrst language,” reports station chief Friedrich Voss, who is clearly “very happy” with the balance sheet after two years. Indeed, the station’s approximately 40 employees (12 full-time) have achieved astounding results. The public has accepted Radio Multikulti— with its dual character as a target broadcaster in 18 languages and as a roundthe-clock German-language station. Among Berliners with Turkish passports, this specialty station is ranked ﬁfth out of two dozen channels in the capital. Its distinct musical character should not be underestimated in this regard: unlike most radio stations, its disc jockeys do not play the expected mélange of Anglo-American rock and pop in whatever permutation. Instead, they clearly favor world-music selections from Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. These innovations in the radio sector have won the staff the CIVIS prize as well as recognition from UNESCO as “Germany’s Contribution to the World Decade for Cultural Development.” The model character of this Berlin radio station has found no parallels throughout Europe or the ARD. Original plans to expand the promising project throughout the federal territory have been put on hold until 2001, partially for ﬁnancial reasons. This is the case because, even in Berlin, such a program owes its 3 million–mark budget to a 2 million–mark contribution from the Media Institute of Berlin-Brandenburg and another 500,000 marks from the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs. Radio Multikulti also functions in cooperation with the House of World Cultures, where its Container-Domicile is housed, as well as with the Goethe-Instituts, the ARD Institutes, BBC World, and Radio France International. Looking to next year, Friedrich Voss has planned the introduction of a Portuguese program, an expansion of service promotions and of the worldmusic offerings. His plan is to “hold course on the current budget” in the hope that Radio Multikulti might soon broadcast on the old FRB 2 frequency 98.2. Because reception on the current frequency is too weak, the potential listenership of around 500,000 in the inner-city districts of Kreuzberg, Schöneberg, and Mitte has not been exhausted. [. . .] The budget for 1997 has been secured, and thereafter, it should become self-sustaining. New pledges for funding have surfaced, and now it is just a matter of the hows and what nexts. . . . 8 W O R K S H O P O F C U LT U R E S

WHY A CARNIVAL OF CULTURES IN BERLIN? First published as “Warum ein Karneval der Kulturen in Berlin?” in 1998 on the Karneval der Kulturen website: www.karneval-berlin.de. Translated by Tes Howell. Since 1993, the Berlin/Neukölln Workshop

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of Cultures has sponsored an annual carnival to promote the new world capital of Berlin as a “workshop of integration.”

The project Carnival of Cultures developed against the backdrop of Berlin’s growing internationality, a consequence of the intensiﬁed immigration of people from all over the world. Today, the cosmopolitan city of Berlin is marked by ethnic and cultural heterogeneity. This process is taking place at a time when Berlin must struggle with the all-too-familiar consequences of German uniﬁcation and redeﬁne its role as the capital. A variety of social, economic, and cultural conﬂicts are emerging, noticeably beleaguering the atmosphere of the city. Berlin has become a focal point of international interest, as well as a symbol for the path toward a uniﬁed Europe. Signs of emerging nationalism and racism are being precisely and fastidiously noted on the seismograph, as are clear efforts to promote a society built on acceptance and tolerance. Given this situation, there are voices that seek an easing of circumstances through the “assimilation” of all that is foreign. Yet this position just does not add up; the native population does not take the burgeoning creative force of immigrant groups into consideration, nor does it succeed in understanding new cultural inﬂuences. As the city with the highest number of foreigners in Germany (about 440,000), Berlin plays the role of a “workshop of integration.” Fears of foreign inﬁltration can be alleviated only by a cultural praxis of diversity, by integration—and precisely not assimilation—and peaceful coexistence, established through mutual respect and tolerance. Berlin must understand its internationality as an opportunity and actively shape its role as a mediator between differing mentalities. The Workshop of Cultures, the sponsoring organization for the Carnival of Cultures that was established in 1993 in Berlin’s Neukölln district, is a place of dialogue and encounter between people of different nationalities, cultures, and religions. The workshop sees itself as a center of reciprocal cultural transfer; it wants to promote the artistic potential of immigrants living in Berlin and make them visible, audible, and accessible. This objective gave rise to the idea for the Carnival of Cultures. There were repeated attempts to organize a carnival in Berlin, which were unsuccessful because they sought to import existing carnival traditions from Germany or abroad and did not want to fully consider the available potential in Berlin. The carnival is well suited to be a traditional model for creating a framework of integration and action for different cultural initiatives, thereby reconstituting the “carnivalesque” elements inherent to all cultures and expressing them in an energetic procession. The carnival is not a one-dimensional event but rather an aesthetic spectacle that encourages the participants to engage in cultural performances in the various areas of creative design. In doing so, it is based on cultural prac-

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tices that all cultures engage in. The costuming and masking of the participants, the setting of special rhythms and choreographies, the gloriously colorful processions in groups on the street: these are traditional customs that one ﬁnds even in cultures without a speciﬁc carnival tradition. Carnival is a breaking-out from restrictive conditions. Carnival symbolizes pride and the joy of self-production and self-representation within the social and cultural context of a group. Carnival promotes and stimulates popular art and cultures, and increasingly those of its participants, at the highest levels. [. . .] The Berlin Carnival of Cultures joins the tradition of more recent carnival cultures in Europe, but it is unique on a global scale because of the diversity of participating nationalities and subcultures. The professed goal is to make the carnival a festival for all Berliners—for the people living here who come from 184 nations and for native Germans as well. Even in the ﬁrst year of the Berlin carnival, there were more active participants than at the tenth Rotterdam Carnival. The Carnival of Cultures in Berlin is open to all; it can be supported by people of any cultural character as an integral part of an urban, pluralistic culture to which they feel they belong. It can be used as a platform to express consciously one’s own cultural identity. Immigrant groups see the carnival as an opportunity to display a presence, to make themselves unable to be ignored and to allow Berlin to experience its multiculturality with more depth and consciousness. [. . .]

9 ANONYMOUS

WE ARE STILL OUR OWN BEST FOREIGNERS First published as “Unsere besten Ausländer sind immer noch wir selbst” in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( June 2, 1998). Translated by Tes Howell.

This weekend, in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, where, at least on the back streets, the prophet Mohammed ﬁnds more believers than the Christian Savior, the third annual Carnival of Cultures took place. As a street procession and performance, the event gives the people of this city an opportunity to show each other the treasures of their music, their temperament, and their approach to life. Koreans displayed how to make whiplike headwear appendages twirl by spinning one’s head rhythmically. Mexicans displayed how one can wear Mexican hats while singing. Belly dancers belly danced. As the belly dancers and other ensembles marched by, one could discern the nationalizing, vitalizing effect of a multicultural ethos in a metropolitan city heavily populated by immigrants. Yet the best and the majority of the belly dancers were secondary-school teachers from Swabia, and the Brazilian

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street samba bands were also roughly 99 percent German—far more representatives, that is, than the nation can claim in Kreuzberg on a day without a multicultural festival. Other attractions included healers and venerably coutured fakirs with turbans, accompanied by the drumming of Far Eastern martial-arts clubs. One thing was proven this weekend: we are still our own best foreigners, by far. The processing ensembles and happily swaying spectators proved it. Berlin’s Istanbul, the former postal district SO 36—where every second building has a döner kebab stand and every third a mosque, where the twisted dagger causes havoc every day (according to the assertions of a large Hamburg paper)—became German again for a few hours on this day of cultures. Germanness ruled in its most German form—namely, in the one that avows multiculturalism. However, those whose culture and heritage are not part of the Carnival of Cultures, the city’s Turks, were rarely seen on this Sunday, in the audience and in the festival procession. Perplexed bearded men and veiled women watched from shaded windows. They must have felt how small their world is—the island of Kreuzberg in the great sea of multiculturalism, where the Germans get along so nicely. 10 K A N A K AT TA K

MANIFESTO Printed in English on the organization’s website, www.kanak.attak.de, in November 1998. Translation modiﬁed by David Gramling. This document is the mission statement for Kanak Attak, a transethnic activist network that formed in the mid-1990s. Several contributors to this volume, including Feridun Zaimoglu and Mark Terkessidis, rank among its membership.

Kanak Attak is a community of different people from diverse backgrounds who share a commitment to eradicate racism from German society. Kanak Attak is not interested in questions about your passport or heritage. In fact, it challenges such questions in the ﬁrst place. Kanak Attak challenges the conservative and liberal orthodoxy that good “race relations” are simply a matter of tighter immigration control. Our common position consists of an attack against the “Kanakization” of speciﬁc groups of people through racist ascriptions, denying people their social, legal, and political rights. Kanak Attak is therefore antinationalist and antiracist, rejecting every single form of identity politics supported by ethnic absolutist thinking. Simply put, we reject everyone and everything that exploits, dominates, and humiliates people. The ﬁeld of Kanak Attak’s interventions includes critiques of the political and economic circumstances that allow racism to fester, the culture industries that perpetuate the commodiﬁcation of racism, as well as confrontations with everyday racism, discrimination, and violence in Germany. We support the fundamental human rights of all people yet at the

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same time are critical of notions of “equality” that mean the subordination of difference under one hegemonic culture. We seek to challenge this dominance of a hegemonic culture that ignores racial inequality—whether it is understood as “global postmodernism” or a dull Teutonism.

The End of Dialogue Culture Although Kanak Attak is a predominantly migrant movement, it should not be seen as the “cool voice” of the ghetto. That’s how they would like it, the commercial vultures of the culture industries, which are searching for “authentic” and “exotic” human experiences to sell to those living in the gray mainstream of everyday German society. Here the ﬁgure of the young, angry migrant ﬁts perfectly—the person who endorses the “out of the ghetto” mythology that assures complacent liberals that German society is meritocratic after all. That notion in turn is used with great commercial success by the German music and ﬁlm industries to falsify a “German Dream.” Kanak Attak also distances itself from a deﬁnition of the “political” that naively suggests that all that is needed is “dialogue” and the “peaceful cohabitation” between Kanaks and the majority of this society via the Day of the Foreign Fellow Citizen and displays of folk culture and humanistic campaigns. When the weather is good and the conscience is bad, liberal Germans decorate their cars with stickers with messages such as “Foreigners, never leave us alone with the Germans!” Kanak Attak is not a friend of such multiculturalism. There are not many supporters of this concept left, a concept that never got beyond the status of local policy experiments before mainstream talk turned to the failure of the multicultural society. Thus, it was inevitable that demands for integration and assimilation would resurface. In this atmosphere, it was not German society that was examined but the migrants themselves! We were told that migrants lack tolerance. Those who do not want to “adapt” (read “assimilate”) to the open society have no business in enlightened Germany. Yet tolerance is being claimed from a dominant position that does not have to examine its own complicity with subordination; existing relations of domination are being suppressed. This logic suggests that to talk openly about racism and to challenge ethnocentrism and nationalism will only cause more trouble and violence. It was capable of generating prejudice among the majority of Germans. Yet the only racists are the extremists, or so we are told. We reject all of this. Racism has to be challenged in all its forms—from individual discrimination to violent attacks. [. . .] Against Contemporary Certainties Racism articulates itself at present mainly in a culturalist form. Just as in other European countries, Islam serves as a space of projection for different kinds of racisms. This is why we think we have to ﬁght against all barriers to

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the recognition of Islam as an equal religious community. For us, Islam is no homogenous ideology. One must distinguish everyday religious practice from organized political Islam. Nevertheless, present-day anti-Islamism is one of the key parts of the neoracist consensus within German society. German politicians invoke false and pseudofeminist positions to defend spurious “universal” rights. This bias can be seen in the discourse about head scarves. At this point, even reactionary politicians display sympathy for oppressed women, as long as they can pin the blame on Islam. Another racist form of argumentation that we have to attack is the idea that the “mixture of people” must somehow be regulated and controlled. This nonsense has spread too far. It hits people through the Foreigner Act in the same way that a bar bouncer regulates the “right mixture” of people inside. Well-intentioned people often point out the so-called pressure brought about by uncontrolled immigration. But migration is not the problem. The problem is those who can only think and live in ways that promote bland homogeneity. Even the tolerant and enlightened are looking for a new club if necessary, or a new part of town. Others hope for help from the Nazi parties or take the law into their own hands. We demand not only the extension of civil rights and other privileges to all groups but question the ostensibly self-evident regulation of “inside” and “outside” and the absurdly dehumanizing living conditions that racism promotes. Punktum e basta.

Represent! Represent! Kanak Attak offers a platform for Kanaks from different social areas who are sick of the facile hopping between cultures that postmodernists recommend. Kanak Attak wants to disrupt the ascription of ethnic identities and roles, the “we” and “them.” And because Kanak Attak is based on attitude and not on heritage, origin, roots, or papers, nonmigrants and Germans of the second and even third generations are part of it too. But a word of caution here as well! The existing hierarchy of social life and the subject positions it imposes cannot be merely overlooked. Not all constructions are the same. So our project is caught up in the whirlwind of contradictions concerning the relation between representation, difference and the ascription of ethnic identities. Nevertheless, we are working toward a new attitude for migrants of all generations—one that we want to bring to the stage, independently and without compromise. Whoever believes that we celebrate a potpourri of ghetto hiphop and other clichés will be surprised. We sample, change, and adapt different political and cultural movements that operate from oppositional positions. We go back to a mixture of theory, politics, and cultural practice. This song is ours. Now’s the time! Kanak Attak!

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11 JOHANNES ODENTHAL

HEIMAT ART: NEW URBAN CULTURES First published as “Heimat Kunst—neue urbane Kulturen” in the Heimat Kunst brochure (Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 1999). Translated by Tes Howell. Odenthal is the director of the Program on Music, Dance, and Theater in Berlin’s House of World Cultures and project director of Heimat Art.

Krisda Duangphung of Fulda has just become the new “Mister Germany.” Bavarian composer Sandeep Baghwati is one of Germany’s contemporary music innovators. Since 1996, Ismael Ivo has been managing the dance theater at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar. Rui Horta and Amanda Miller, representing Germany, won national prizes at the choreographers’ competition in Paris-Bagnolet. The new pop star Tarkan is one of the most internationally popular singers from Germany. And the rappers Sabrina Setlur and Aziza A. are deﬁning the German hip-hop scene. How do we imagine the German cultural landscape of the twenty-ﬁrst century? Will the discourses on asylum, minorities, and integration dominate, or will German society develop the potential for an open cultural migration? The cultural scene in Germany will have to redeﬁne itself amid xenophobia, monocultural national identities (which are now experiencing a renaissance in Eastern Europe), and the migration societies of modern metropolises in Western Europe. However, the debate about intercultural dialogue accomplished far more in the 1970s and 1980s than it does today. With German reuniﬁcation and the new national self-preoccupation, the Federal Republic has reverted to a pre-1970s consciousness. The project Heimat Art is responding to these questions and this societal situation. Events taking place in 10 cities this spring and summer demonstrate the cultural diversity in Germany. Heimat Art is dedicated to the thesis that the development of new artistic languages in Germany must be radically intercultural, ﬁnding its impulses in the encounter, the collision, or the ruptures between different cultures. The question is not only “who are ‘the new Germans,’ ” but also “how can Germany represent itself artistically in the coming decades?” The concept and self-image of national ﬁne arts and cultural policy are gradually being transformed by the consequences of migration and globalization through a dynamic of open dialogue. Cultural identity is no longer static, nor is it the consensus of a majority society pursuing integration; it is rather the exchange between equally legitimate individual and collaborative concepts that merge and dissociate. Culture no longer attributes this concept of cultural diversity to ethnic groups. Cultural identity is a dynamic resigniﬁcation process of art and society, an experimental ﬁeld in motion. [. . .] If we follow Vilém Flusser, the great migration theorist, a polemical dialogue arises between the natives and the “homeless” that leads to po-

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groms, a change of homeland, or the liberation of natives from ties to their homeland. Homeland is a kind of unconscious entanglement in habits; migration means suffering the loss of homeland but also the immersion in an extremely constructive situation that, according to Flusser, is always the prerequisite for survival in migration. Heimat Art is a project of artist-migrants who take responsibility for the sometimes painful, sometimes exceedingly seductive search for a new open identity, beyond national bond, that surrenders to the existential experiment of a dialogue beyond the well-trodden path. 12 GÜNTHER COENEN

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE HOUSE OF WORLD CULTURES First published as “Die ersten Jahre des Hauses der Kulturen der Welt” in Zehn Jahre Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 1999), 7–9. Translated by David Gramling. Coenen was the ﬁrst general secretary of the House of World Cultures from 1989 to 1992, before becoming the director of the Goethe-Institut in Athens.

[. . .] The Congress Hall had been a mixed-use building for years, and its image as an event venue had been all but lost. The hall was thought of as cold in atmosphere, technologically underequipped, and unable to be renovated, because it was protected under historical-preservation statutes. Bus 69 occasionally drove by the hall, often without any passengers, and usually the bus failed to drive all the way up to the main entrance and drove right by instead. Work began at the House of World Cultures on January 3, 1989, though the planning stages for its founding had begun in September of the previous year. The new team assembled in the open, empty space. Offices, tables, chairs, typewriters, and telephones were not yet available. It was cold and gray outside, and the long-established Congress Hall administrative staff had barricaded itself in the only available office space. Counting on the premature demise of this new experiment, the previous tenants were ready to do their part to precipitate its downfall as soon as possible. These conditions and other factors turned the initial challenge into a matter of insistent assertion. A fantastically engaged, young, creative, and highly intelligent team accepted and rose to this challenge, as did an unexpectedly engaged and numerous audience. Looking back, it should be noted that among the conceptual underpinnings of the house was the fact that a new consciousness of the meaning of cultural differentiation had been achieved during the 1980s. Bonn and Berlin reacted to the founding of the House of World Cultures in a politically appropriate way, given the postmodern challenges of the regionalization of cultural identities, and the house thus found worldwide recognition. Audi-

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ence reactions showed that more and more people were crossing the horizon of their own culture and wished to be stimulated by other traditions. Artistic engagement, emotionality, and sensuality had been generally pushed out of Western art to make room for the minimalist and conceptual turns, but these former essentials could be rediscovered through foreign art. In the early days, many critics feared that the work of the House of World Cultures might devolve into a kind of “cuddling” up to foreign cultures and would adhere to the various concepts and programs of the multicultural society. Very quickly, the staff of the house recognized that intentions were not a sufficient justiﬁcation for programming. There could not be a Third World Bonus if we were to fulﬁll our commitment to fostering respect for foreign production. Those who came to the house had to measure up just as well as domestic artists. [. . .] Already back in 1987, the Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and federal chancellor Helmut Kohl had agreed that in the fall of 1990, the federal government would sponsor and plan a Festival of India. Delayed by the confusions of reuniﬁcation, the festival was ultimately planned for 1991–92, and the house became involved in this effort. Considering its ﬁnancial and physical dimensions, this festival was the most wide-ranging cultural-exchange program that the federal government had ever engaged in. [. . .] By the end of the festival, in which 350,000 people participated, the House of World Cultures had made a name for itself both in Berlin and throughout the republic, boldly claiming a new network of partners engaged in foreign cultural and political topics. The 1990 business report of the House of World Cultures delivered an unequivocal assessment. “The tasks of the institution will increase in importance in the foreign and domestic realm, in Berlin as well as in the rest of the republic. Its engagement with foreign mentalities and foreign cultures will increasingly be a factor in the internal and external peace of this republic.” It seems that the realities of this claim have not changed; neither has the necessity of maintaining and strengthening this institution.

13 LESLIE A. ADELSON

AGAINST BETWEEN: A MANIFESTO Published in English in Unpacking Europe, Salah Hassan and Iftikhar Dadi, eds. (Rotterdam: NAi, 2001), 244–55. Adelson, professor of German studies at Cornell University, delivered this manifesto at Berlin’s House of World Cultures in 2000.

[. . .] In May 2000, the president of Germany [ Johannes Rau] gave a landmark speech in Berlin’s House of World Cultures, calling for a radical reor-

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ganization of thought in all arenas of social and political life.1 This call was issued in response to the changing face of the German nation, even before the summer’s furious debates about renewed right-wing extremism. President Rau most likely did not have literature in mind when he said this, but emergent literatures certainly are one important site of cultural reorientation. More than a mere repository of treasured or controversial works of art, a nation’s culture is also an activity, a creative engagement with a rapidly changing present. It actively seeks to negotiate changing values and attitudes toward a changing world.2 This labor of culture is currently being undertaken, in ways that have yet to be grasped, by authors usually presumed to be outside German culture, even if they have somehow managed to reside on German territory or acquire German citizenship. “Between two worlds” is the place customarily reserved for these authors and their texts on the cultural map of our time, but the trope of “betweenness” often functions literally like a reservation designed to contain, restrain, and impede new knowledge, not enable it. This then is my manifesto against between.3 The notion that Turks in Germany are suspended on a bridge “between two worlds” carries with it a number of misperceptions that thwart understanding, even as they claim to promote it. 1. The “dialogue of cultures” that Johannes Rau and other public ﬁgures call for may be useful, even necessary, in the sociopolitical realm, but it fails completely, oddly enough, in the imaginative realm of social production that is often taken to represent culture. Whoever mines literary texts of the 1990s and beyond for evidence of mutually exclusive collective identities in communicative dialogue with one another is not reading this literature for its most signiﬁcant innovations. This is especially true for literature written in German by authors whose cultural imagination has been profoundly inﬂuenced by many years of living, working, studying, and dreaming in the Federal Republic of Germany. 2. Despite wide recognition that political science and literary interpretation rely on different terms, media, and analytical procedures, the growing 1. Johannes Rau, “Berliner Rede/Ohne Angst und Träumereien: Gemeinsam in Deutschland leben,” Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), May 12, 2000, n.p. See www.bundespraesident.de/reden/ rau/de/00_0512.htm. The German verb umdenken connotes something conceptually akin to shifting gears or changing direction: “Wir müssen in allen Bereichen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens und des politischen und staatlichen Handelns umdenken.” 2. See Agnes Heller’s concept of the “present-present age” as elaborated in A Theory of History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), 44. Leslie A. Adelson discusses the concept in Making Bodies, Making History: Feminism and German Identity (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 24. 3. This manifesto was written as a pointed intervention in a particular ﬁeld of political and scholarly rhetoric in Germany at a particular historical juncture in the development of contemporary German studies on an international scale. The trope of “betweenness” may well be useful in other contexts, but such contexts are not the author’s present concern.

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and diverse ﬁeld of Turco-German literature may well be the only sector in literary studies today in which an entrenched sociological positivism continues to hold sway. This positivist approach presumes that literature reﬂects empirical truths about migrants’ lives and that authors’ biographies explain their texts so well that reading the texts themselves is virtually superﬂuous. This saves readers and critics a good deal of time. Meanwhile, the literary elephant in the room goes unremarked. 3. The sociological thrust of this positivism is an epistemological holdover from the late 1970s and 1980s, when an emergent “guest-worker” literature focused on the economic exploitation of and xenophobic disdain for the underprivileged. These tropes still circulate in the reception of migrants’ literature today, especially when it is written by someone presumed to represent the culture of Turkey. Aras Ören and Güney Dal are best known for their literary reﬂections on the “guest-worker” experience, for example, and they both continue to write in Turkish despite their long-time residence in Germany. But few people know that Ören explicitly conceived several of his novels from the 1980s as being auf der Suche nach der gegenwärtigen Zeit (“in search of the present”)—that is, as a pseudo-Proustian series of literary reﬂections on the modernist legacy for an as-yet-uncharted but shared Turco-German present. Even fewer people know that the narrator of Güney Dal’s tale of an industrial strike and a mutant migrant in the mid-1970s characterized foreign laborers as ein[en] Teil lebendiger Erinnerung, a piece of “living memory” of Germans’ own class history.4 If the sociological tensions of this earlier period cannot be reduced to an absolute cultural divide between things German and things Turkish, they are even less useful for assessing the signiﬁcance of a literature that has grown only more diverse since the two postwar German states were united in 1990 and Cold War divisions began to yield to the new Europe. 4. The imaginary bridge “between two worlds” is designed to keep discrete worlds apart as much as it pretends to bring them together. Migrants are at best imagined as suspended on this bridge in perpetuity; critics do not seem to have enough imagination to picture them actually crossing the bridge and landing anywhere new. This has to do, in turn, with the national contours that are ascribed to these ostensible “worlds” linked by a bridge of dubious stability. In this model, the Federal Republic of Germany may change and the Republic of Turkey may change (though this is usually dismissed in Germany as unlikely), but what is not allowed to change is the no-

4. See Leslie A. Adelson, “Coordinates of Orientation: An Introduction,” in Zafer Senocak, Atlas of a Tropical Germany, trans. and ed. Leslie A. Adelson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), xxiv; see also Zafer Senocak and Bülent Tulay, “Germany—Home for Turks?” in Atlas of a Tropical Germany, 1–9. For the German original of this second essay (“Deutschland—Heimat für Türken?”), see Zafer Senocak, Atlas des tropischen Deutschland: Essays (Berlin: Babel, 1992), 9–19.

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tion that Turks and Germans are separated by an absolute cultural divide. Where does this leave Turco-German writers in Germany? It is absurd to assume today that they always and necessarily and only represent the national culture of Turkey. The Turkish diaspora and its lines of affiliation cannot be traced or contained by the borders of the Turkish republic, certainly not by these alone. Beyond the Cold War, German culture is already forever changed, and Turco-German literature is part and parcel of this cultural transformation. 5. Zafer Senocak has called for “something like a negative hermeneutic” that could perhaps heal “the wounds of communication” inﬂicted by a public obsession, right and left, with Self and Other.5 Such a negative hermeneutic, again in Senocak’s words, “critically interrogates what is presumed to be understood.”6 In this sense we do not need more understanding of different cultures if understanding only ﬁxes them as utterly different cultures. Instead of reifying different cultures as fundamentally foreign, we need to understand culture itself differently.7 Cultural contact today is not an “intercultural encounter” that takes place between German culture and something outside it but something happening within German culture between the German past and the German present. Turco-German literature has been making forays into this unfamiliar territory for some time now, but the imaginative complexity of this cultural endeavor has gone largely unrecognized to date. 6. In this context, the spatial conﬁguration of cultural labor also needs to be understood in a radically different way. Creative writing and critical thought certainly take reference to concrete places in the world, where people and nations have loved, lost, struggled, and died. These places haunt human imagination, but the imagined spaces of cultural labor cannot be mapped or measured with surveyors’ tools. The discursive model that repeatedly situates Turks and other migrants “between two worlds” relies too schematically and too rigidly on territorial concepts of “home” [Heimat]. Even the notion that language becomes a “home” for those in exile or diaspora presupposes that a territorial home is the place of authenticity, from which language as home can only distinguish itself in sorrow or celebration. Searching for traces of “home” in contemporary cultural production is

5. For English-language commentary on this idea, see the following texts in Atlas of a Tropical Germany: Adelson, “Coordinates of Orientation,” xxix; Senocak, “The Poet and the Deserters: Salman Rushdie Between the Fronts,” 42; “Which Myth Writes Me?” 82; and “Beyond the Language of the Land,” 68. The phrase “so etwas wie eine negative Hermeneutik” appears in Senocak, “Der Dichter und die Deserteure,” in War Hitler Araber? IrreFührungen an den Rand Europas (Berlin: Babel, 1994), 28; “Wunden der Verständigung” appears in Senocak, “Jenseits der Landessprache,” Sirene 9.15/16 (1996): 173. 6. Senocak, “Which Myth Writes Me?” 82. 7. See Adelson, “Coordinates of Orientation,” xxxv.

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therefore a misguided venture. Creative thought is not bounded by geographical or political borders. The Turco-German literary texts that demand the most of their readers do not reﬂect Orte des Denkens [“sites of thought”] in any predictably national or even ethnic sense. Instead they are Orte des Umdenkens [“sites of reorientation”]—that is to say, imaginative sites where cultural orientation is being radically rethought. 7. In a series of aphorisms called “Beyond the Language of the Land,” Zafer Senocak writes, “I am not in between, for I have lost my sense of direction.”8 Here, the military language of embattled camps—familiar to readers of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations—alternates with the disorienting language of lyrical reﬂection: “Songs and salvos alternate.” 9 This disorientation that arises when familiar categories are left behind becomes the very ground on which critical readers reorient themselves anew. Lest I be misunderstood, this is not a celebration of violent circumstances that deprive people of the homes, lives, and relations that matter most to them. A postmodern embrace of “nomadic” fantasies is not what I propose. What I do have in mind is an epistemological reorientation to which migrants’ literature contributes at a crucial juncture in an uncharted German present. It is surely no coincidence that two of the most complex writers in this ﬁeld, Zafer Senocak and Yoko Tawada, cite the great wordsmith Paul Celan (1920–70) as one of their literary muses. For the Japanese-born Tawada, the “between” of Celan’s German-language poetry does not mark a border [Grenze] between two distinct worlds but a threshold [Schwelle], a site where consciousness of something new ﬂashes into view. She describes a poem by Celan as Zwischenraum, “a transitional space.” This is not the bridge “between two worlds” on which Turks are so often thought to be suspended. For, as Tawada elaborates, “Der Zwischenraum ist kein geschlossenes Zimmer, sondern er ist der Raum unter einem Tor. / Ich ﬁng an, Celans Gedichte wie Tore zu betrachten und nicht etwa wie Häuser, in denen die Bedeutung wie ein Besitz aufbewahrt wird.” For Tawada reading Celan, the word is a site of opening, a threshold that beckons.10 Turco-German literature too is a threshold that beckons, not a tired bridge “between two worlds.” Entering this threshold

8. For the German, see Zafer Senocak, “Jenseits der Landessprache,” Sirene 9.15/16 (1996): 172. (The essay also appears in Zungenentfernung, an essay collection published in 2001.) For the English translation, see Senocak, Atlas of a Tropical Germany, 67. 9. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). For the German, see Senocak, “Jenseits der Landessprache,” 171; the English appears on p. 66 of Atlas of a Tropical Germany. 10. Yoko Tawada, “Das Tor des Übersetzers oder Celan liest Japanisch,” Talisman (Tübingen: Konkursbuch, 1996), 129–30. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are my own. Here, I propose, “The space of transition is not a closed room but rather the space under a gate./I began to regard Celan’s poems as gates and not, say, as houses in which meaning is stored like possessions.”

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space is an imaginative challenge that has yet to be widely met, and much critical work remains to be done. [. . .]

14 JULIA NAUMANN

MULTIKULTI—OR WHAT? First published as “Multikulti—oder was?” in die tageszeitung ( June 9, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell.

A carnival does not create equal-opportunity living in a multicultural city Organizer Anett Szabó expresses it succinctly: “When the Kurd is dancing, the Korean is not.” Approximately 184 nationalities exist in the capital. The largest group is the Turks; the smallest are comprised of single persons from Antigua, Bahrain, and Brunei. There are hardly any points of contact. This disengaged coexistence breaks down once a year, or rather it is supposed to. But the Carnival of Cultures does not transform Berlin into a city of peaceful cooperation. The event may provide for convergences and confrontations, but it has no political platform, which is the most important vehicle for advocating equal rights for different ethnic groups. According to advertisements, the carnival, which will take place this weekend for the ﬁfth time, is supposed to connect people from the “whole world in a unique festival.” One hundred thirteen groups from 70 countries will ﬁle through Kreuzberg on Pentecost Sunday. In gloriously colorful costumes, they will show the crowd their decorated ﬂoats and dance to exotic beats. What began as a small procession in 1996 with “just” 50,000 spectators has become the city’s “multikulti mega-event.” Has the carnival really inﬂuenced how people live together? Isn’t it actually the case that a multikulti show is being staged, even though “multikulti” is more about paying lip service to diversity than a political and social reality? Aren’t the Turkish vegetable merchant, the Polish maid, and the Vietnamese cigarette vendor just being presented like dancing bears? Szabó dismisses that as “completely absurd.” “When we were accused of throwing foreigners into costumes and exhibiting them,” recounts Szabó, “I went to the participants.” They just had a good laugh. According to them, the carnival will not radically change integration politics, but it does provide “an impetus for thought.” “I believe in sustainability,” says the 35-year-old Szabó. The participants (4,200 this year) prepare all year for this special day. Very few groups recruit people from just one country of origin; most do so from many different countries. Consequently, a group with Polish and German participants, for example, will perform Brazilian dances. Around half of the dancers are German. [. . .] Many of the participants live in binational marriages. The majority have

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been in Germany for some time and have secure residence status. “Architects, cooks, students, and secretaries are there, and all age groups are represented,” lists Szabó. However, only a few socially marginalized groups, such as war refugees living in government residence halls, are represented. Moreover, the Vietnamese (over 8,000 of whom are living in Berlin) are not there this year. But an increasing number of Turkish groups, which had been skeptical of the carnival in its ﬁrst years, are now making up the difference. At ﬁrst, few Turks stood on the roadside and cheered for the ﬂoats, though the procession went through Kreuzberg. “There is no carnival in Turkey,” explains Turgay Ayadini, a paralegal and musician who organizes one of four stages at the street festival, the Salon Oriental. The women with scantily covered breasts would have scared away many Turks, he says. It was reportedly difficult to get Turkish musicians to come, because they wanted a high honorarium. Meanwhile, the Turks have become more tolerant, observes Ayadini. The four-day street festival is now well attended by Turks. “That is indeed a success!” Süleyman Balcı also sees it this way. He is a social worker and organizes a ﬂoat on which Turkish and Arab youth, whom he calls “intolerant,” take part. The carnival, he suggests, is an effective learning experience for the youth. In this respect, the Carnival of Cultures does perhaps truly have a multikulti effect, if one understands multikulti as cooperation among different cultures and not just in an ethnic sense. For the Green Party mayor of Kreuzberg, Franz Schulz, the carnival promotes “coexistence and cultural diversity.” However, Schulz does not want to circulate among the people. “I will watch the procession from a privileged view at city hall. The parade will pass by us.” There are parallels here with the carnival in Rio, where the processions are seen as the domain of the poor, and the rich sit on multilevel platforms and watch the spectacle: no encounters occur between the two.

15 CORNELIA SCHMALZ-JACOBSEN

WHERE ARE THE TURKISH TEACHERS AND DOCTORS? First published as “Wo sind die türkischen Lehrer und Ärzte?” in Die Zeit (May 26, 2001). Translated by David Gramling. Schmalz-Jacobsen, a member of the Free Democratic Party, served on the Süssmuth Commission on Immigration and was the federal commissioner of foreigner affairs from 1991 to 1998.

The 40 years of immigration history in Germany are full of contradictions. Asylum seekers and refugees have been generously accepted in great numbers, millions of late resettlers with considerable family relocation needs have found a new home, and foreigners with lengthy legal residence in federal territory have approximately the same rights as Germans.

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The result, nonetheless, is a contrary and agitated immigration country with frustrated immigrants, signaling a lack of normalcy and openness to the fact of migration. Efforts toward integration on both sides have been formidable, but the symptoms of segregation, even in the second and third generations, may not be overlooked. The idea that integration is a mandatory task of the state has not yet been made official policy. Migrants are the blind spots in most school textbooks, and not just there. They hardly come up. Thirty percent of children and youth in our elementary-school classes come from a migration background, and this ﬁgure is higher in thickly settled regions. But it appears that no one has taken notice of this—neither in teacher education nor in higher education. The number of foreign dropouts is twice that of German youth. Only recently has there been some consensus that language competency is the ticket to academic and professional success. But a federal study about language acquisition among migrants according to objective criteria is still lacking. Scientiﬁcally rigorous data on the non-German domestic population is also astoundingly meager, despite the 7.3 million foreigners and the 2.5 million resettlers who have come to us in the past ten years. Even before the recent revision of the citizenship law [in 1999], there were 100,000 foreigners in Germany who could have become naturalized without difficulty but did not do so. The severely limited parameters for dual citizenship cannot be the sole reason for this notoriously low rate of naturalization. Why the hesitation? The question cannot be posed to the immigrants only. We should pose it to ourselves too, the society doing the accepting. An interesting anecdote: in one Berlin district, government officials solicited and encouraged 18-year-old foreigners to pursue naturalization—with great success, because the young people felt “wanted.” Subsequently, greater Berlin has become the place in Germany with the most naturalization applications. Until Chancellor Schröder’s hotly debated Green Card initiative in March 2000, foreigners were described as a threat in most areas of political debate— in all the parties. They were seen as a majority element from which society needed protection. Media, especially electronic media, are playing a significant role in the paradigm shift that politics and economics are now demanding. In the satellite age, most programs can be viewed throughout Europe, and the immigration population also takes in programming from their countries of origin. The days of “guest-worker shows” are gone for good. State radio has reduced them bit by bit. They were switched over to less attractive time slots or have been discontinued altogether. Only Sender Freies Berlin’s Radio Multikulti and [Cologne’s] WDR, with its all-day Funkhaus Europa, offer interesting alternatives. Otherwise: silence. A purposeful strategy to respond to the diversity of the

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listeners and its expectations—not to mention its market potential—is nowhere in sight. Immigrants pay radio and television taxes, yet they are not represented anywhere in the corresponding institutions, with the exception of West German Radio. The current troupe of television entertainers and commentators does not reﬂect our immigration society. More must be done to contribute to integration and to raise acceptance. Recently, an American asked me, “Where are all your Turkish teachers and doctors?” He was surprised by the “colorful” scene on the streets of our big cities and the simultaneous absence of immigrants in many aspects of daily life. His question is justiﬁed. Indeed, where are they in the offices of public agencies, in the police force, in the social-services bureaus, as teachers in kindergartens, on editorial boards, at banks, and at the post office? [. . .] 16 ECKHARD MICHELS

GERMAN AS A WORLD LANGUAGE First published as “Weltsprache Deutsch” in Die Zeit (August 9, 2001). Translated by David Gramling.

With a festschrift, a major exhibition in Berlin, and—not to forget—a special postage stamp, one of the great German cultural institutions is about to celebrate its birthday. Fifty years ago, in Munich, on August 9, 1951, the “Goethe-Institut Inc., for the Continuing Education of Foreign German Teachers” was founded. However, the date is a little bit fudged. The prehistory of this highly praised establishment reaches back much further. Back in the 1930s, Franz Thierfelder called the ﬁrst Goethe-Institut into being. Thierfelder, born in Deutschbora in Saxony in 1896, a doctor of German philology and economics and an accomplished journalist to boot, had been the general secretary of the Deutsche Akademie, or German Academy, in Munich since 1928. The ﬁrst Goethe-Institut was then founded in 1932 as a department of this academy. In contrast to the 75-year-old German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), it seems appropriate to reduce the GoetheInstitut’s history to the past 50 years. In 1945, the Americans summarily dissolved the German Academy, as well as the Institut—perhaps a bit rashly but not entirely without reason. [. . .] The “Academy for the Scientiﬁc Investigation and Promotion of Germanness, a.k.a. the German Academy,” as the official title read, was established in 1923 by professors at the University of Munich, primarily by the ecclesiastical historian Georg Pfeilschifter, the geopolitical scientist Karl Haushofer, and the historian Hermann Oncken. It was ﬁrst located on Odeonplatz, then, after 1932, in the Maximilianeum. The goal was to reinvigorate Germans’ cultural self-awareness after losing the world war. At the

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same time, the academy was supposed to promote German culture in the international arena.

No Classes for the Untermensch This dual task formed the basis for the character of this haughtily named organization. Its “research department” billed itself as a society of scholars seeking to make Germans more familiar with their cultural heritage. Meanwhile, its “practical department,” in contrast, did cultural work abroad. In order to secure the necessary clout for the new establishment, a 100-person senate was designed based on the 40 “immortals” of the Paris-based Academie Française, including distinguished, politically conservative, and exclusively male representatives of culture, science, economics, politics, and the military. At its official founding on May 5, 1925, the academy’s lofty goal was to become the central organization of nongovernmental foreign cultural politics. This vision was quickly shattered, however, and language promotion remained the only cultural-political arena of its work that was not already being undertaken by other organizations such as the German Foreign Institute, which possessed far greater connections at the Reich’s ministries than did the new academy. Thierfelder was the ﬁrst to recognize the opportunity to give the organization a deﬁnitive proﬁle based on continuing-education courses for foreign German teachers by establishing a special institute and language schools abroad. In 1931, the academy began to receive subsidies from the Bureau of the Exterior. [. . .] [In November of 1941], Hitler raised the organization per “Führer’s decree” to the level of a Body of Public Right. The academy was thus officially delegated the task of safeguarding the German language domestically, overseeing orthographic streamlining, and advising other agencies on the composition of official texts. More important still, the academy would continue to promote the German language abroad. [. . .] After November 1941, the academy was swimming in money. In 1939, the Bureau of the Exterior had thrown 80,000 reichsmarks into the academy’s approximately 550,000-mark annual budget. The rest was raised through business donations. In 1944, however, the budget amounted to 9 million reichsmarks; now more than 85 percent of the money came from the state. The German Academy’s budget was almost 20 times that of the revered Prussian Academy of Sciences, the greatest among the traditional German scientiﬁc academies. The ﬁnancial problems were over, but now there was a lack of qualiﬁed staff, because the army had been drafting the lecturers since the end of 1941. Against its will, the academy appointed more and more women for language instruction abroad in order to reach the goal that Siebert had announced in a speech at the time of the “Führer’s decree:” “We intend to help the German language assume its proper place as a world language. Whoever wishes to

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take a place at great Germany’s table must afford the German language at least as much signiﬁcance in negotiations of a diplomatic, scientiﬁc, cultural, and societal nature as he affords his own.” At the outbreak of the war, the German Academy administered more than 46 language schools with perhaps 70 teachers in 15 mostly European countries. Approximately 8,000 students had signed up. The institute’s interests were particularly geared to the Balkans, a region the Reich had sought to economically permeate since the end of the 1920s. Four years later, thanks to ﬁnancial bequests from the Reich’s budget, the German Academy consisted of 105 lectorships—primarily in the Balkans and occupied France. These were supported by hundreds of locally recruited teaching assistants, who operated 170 smaller branches of the academy in the occupied, allied, or neutral states. In 1942, when the Third Reich found itself at the zenith of its military power, language courses posted their all-time-high enrollments, with approximately 64,000 students. However, the academy was only allowed to promote the German language among those subjected peoples who, according to contemporary racial categories, were found to be worthy of taking part in the culture of the “master humans.” Thus, there was no institute in occupied Poland, the invaded regions of the Soviet Union or in the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.” [. . .] The Goethe-Institut of the German Academy continued its training courses for foreign Germanists in Munich until summer 1944. In addition, it published teaching materials for German instruction, fulﬁlling one of the special directives of the regime. It published a language primer for VolkGermans in the army and foreign-language volunteers in the Waffen-SS that focused primarily on military vocabulary. As the author declared to his academy colleagues, an appendix would include “the Germany Song, the Horst Wessel Song, the Flag Song, the duties of the German soldier, and the strong and irregular verbs.” In addition, the primer for the Waffen-SS would be supplemented by two language lessons on the topics “family” and “honor.” [. . .] In December of 1945, the Americans demanded the dissolution of the academy, despite futile attempts by Thierfelder, who had been made commissarial general secretary. This move, however, did not prevent the directors of the newly refounded Goethe-Institut, in the 1950s, from associating themselves with the work of their predecessors. The old institute had, from a purely “disciplinary” point of view, done pioneering work in the new ﬁeld of “German as a foreign language.” Thus, the old academy’s assessment criteria from 1935 were reimplemented verbatim for new courses at home and abroad after 1953. In this initial phase, teachers resorted to the instructional text Spoken German, published by the academy in 1939. However, some minor corrections were necessary for the new edition, so that language stu-

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dents would not come to know Munich as the “capital of the movement.” [. . .] Encouraged by new cultural initiatives at the Bureau of the Exterior, the organization reopened in March 1951 in Bonn. Its directors sought to establish as close ties as possible with the work of the German Academy. The dream of “German as a world language,” which Thierfelder had suggested in his 1938 book of the same name, was certainly dispelled. However, new venues for German came into view in the young states of the Near and Middle East, which were gaining emancipation from their French and British colonial masters. German should, as the story goes, at least claim a spot among the ﬁrst ﬁve languages of the world. Continuity with the German Academy was also important for a completely different reason. The institut could be interpreted more or less as the rightful heir of the old academy. This was a condition for accessing the predecessor organization’s reserve savings of some 140,000 German marks, which after 1945, had been administered by the Bavarian state. [. . .]

The Business with Goethe From this perspective, it appeared only appropriate to include minor or uncompromised members of the old academy from the outset. Consequently, three more of the eight signatories of the August 9, 1951, founders’ declaration, in addition to Thierfelder, had been active in the predecessor organizations. These former academy members included Fehn Kurt Magnus, who would remain chairperson of the Goethe-Institut until his death in 1962. In his particular role as a director of the Reich’s radio company until 1933, Magnus had been a senator of the German Academy but was deposed amid the growing conservatism of the academy’s directorship during the Nazi regime because of his democratic past. Dora Schultz, the one woman among the founders, had worked for the academy as a German teacher since the 1930s. [. . .] The Bureau of the Exterior, from which Thierfelder and Magnus sought subsidies, made it clear from the outset that ﬁnancial support would be possible only if the Institut established some distance from the academy, at least in name. They consequently decided to revert to the former subdepartment Goethe-Institut—a label everyone could live with. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, by the way, had not served as the namesake for the predecessor institutes only because of his fame as a German poet. Even then, in 1932, ﬁnancial considerations played a role. Thierfelder, always cognizant of the empty coffers of the German Academy, made a deal with the Frankfurt Goethe Society: the new department within the academy would permanently bear the name of the poet, if on its behalf the society would donate a third of the proceeds it collected during the 1932 Goethe Year in Bavaria. Thierfelder was hoping for 4,000 reichsmarks, and the endeavor was

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successful. And thus, the poet from Frankfurt became the worldwide patron saint of German teachers—in good times and in bad.

17 C E N T R A L W E L FA R E O F F I C E F O R J E W S I N G E R M A N Y

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMMIGRANTS First published in a bilingual Russian-German pamphlet as “Empfehlungen für Zuwanderer” (Berlin: Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany, 2001). Translated by David Gramling.

With your decision to leave the former Soviet Union and choose Germany as your immigration country, you ﬁnd yourself in a new living situation that may appear foreign to you. In order to facilitate integration, here are a few suggestions. The entrance permit with which you came into Germany represents an invitation neither from German authorities nor from the Jewish Congregation. It only means an authorization of your application to enter Germany. Responsibility for the decision to emigrate is still in your hands. Naturally, life in a new country is often riddled with doubts. You feel sadness about what you have lost and a longing for your homeland. At the same time, all your hopes are tied to a new life in the West. There is professional help for this kind of crisis; most feel abandoned and alone and seek out social connections with their countrymen and -women. However, the key to integration lies in learning the German language. Successfully graduating from a German course facilitates your adjustment in a still-foreign world. Your knowledge of German can be broadened by reading books, newspapers, and magazines, as well as through television and radio. The most intensive opportunity for learning may be found in the practical application of language knowledge in daily communication. In addition, there are many free or inexpensive options for leisure and education: public libraries, courses at junior colleges, lectures, and readings at cultural centers. You should take advantage of these opportunities in order to be able to communicate in the foreign language as soon as possible. Older immigrants should also take absolutely every opportunity to learn the German language. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ﬁnd a place to work. Imagination, initiative, and reorienting oneself to performing services of a different skill set often lead to the desired success. Be aware of employment postings in newspaper inserts, on television, and on the radio. Be careful in ﬁlling out your applications. Employment is an important precondition for an eventual naturalization. The housing market in the Federal Republic of Germany is overburdened, and patience is required for locating an affordable apartment. Wait-

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ing periods of one to two years are not uncommon. It is recommended that you take the initiative and do not wait for a referral from the Social and Housing Bureaus. Consumer goods in Germany are not scarce, because the market—the demand side, that is—determines the supply. You can think over your potential purchases without worry, because most items are widely available. You should also be aware of available donations and secondhand stores for clothing, furniture, and electric items. Be careful when entering into contracts! In particular, you should think very carefully when obtaining credit, buying goods on layaway, and when signing insurance contracts. You are responsible for your written agreements. Your local consumer consultant offers advice on contract agreements and can give you advice on the real worth of various goods. However, personal liability insurance is recommended. Take advantage of the cultural events at the Jewish Community Center. The congregations are available to you for private events (bar and bat mitzvahs, birthdays, and weddings). You may develop your Jewish life through volunteer work such as working on the congregation newspaper, working on the development and restructuring of youth and senior centers, visiting the sick, working in Jewish charity organizations, and/or forming artistic and musical interest groups. You can also enrich Jewish life in Germany and strengthen your own Jewish identity by active participation in worship services and in cultural events in the congregation. Because this brochure cannot answer all of your important questions, we recommend that you turn with conﬁdence to the congregation responsible for your place of residence.

18 WOLFGANG MACKIEWICZ

GERMAN IS NECESSARY Published in Deutschland (March 2001), a publication of the Societäts-Verlag and the Press and Information Office of the German federal government. Mackiewicz authored this text as president of the European Language Council.

Language and integration: how important is it for immigrants to learn German? The Federal Republic of Germany is characterized by regional variety—a variety mirrored in its wide range of customs, behavior patterns, and dialects. We therefore possess several identities and affinities: regional ones, national ones, and, increasingly, European ones. The notion that a language is the expression of one particular culture thus requires further qualiﬁcation. Lan-

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guage is principally a means of communication and is capable of being dreadfully abused—as demonstrated by our own history or by a glance at the contemporary gutter press. It is, of course, true that language is the key to understanding the culture, the way of life, and the hopes and dreams of those who live in a particular country, and for that reason, it is important that those coming here from elsewhere already speak German or else soon learn it. [. . .] When one reﬂects on certain developments taking place in Germany and in other European countries, it is apparent that we are in the midst of an irreversible—and positive—evolution toward an increasingly multicultural society. First of all, European integration is clearly progressing apace. The political will is there, and we can expect that mobility within the EU—including the present candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe—will increase considerably over the next decade. This means that even more attention must be paid to language acquisition, for lack of language skills continues to be one of the greatest barriers to mobility. The introduction of the Green Card for certain professions here provides further food for thought. If the Federal Republic has to rely on specialists from other parts of the world to maintain its economic position, it is our duty to integrate these people: after all, they are coming here at our invitation and for a limited time only. This can only mean that we must increase both the opportunities for and the attraction of learning the German language. We must show much more tolerance toward those who do not have a complete mastery of the language, and we must get used to the fact that communication in the workplace—and in the public sphere—will initially take place in English. I am not arguing that English should become our lingua franca but simply that it be used as a necessary ﬁrst step on the road to universal multilingualism. There also remains the question of the educational needs of the children of recent immigrants to this country. Even the most ardent advocate of linguistic and cultural variety should not overlook the fact that the social integration of immigrants of the second generation depends on their mastering the German language. Adopting the language of their new home is not equivalent to abandoning their cultural origins. And multiculturalism does not mean cultivating one’s own native language at all costs. We can be sure that in the future, mastery of multiple languages will be a decisive economic factor, both for individuals and for our society as a whole. 19 SAFTER ÇINAR

BERLIN AFTER PISA First published in the series “Berlin nach Pisa” in die tageszeitung (April 9, 2002). Translated by David Gramling. In summer 2000, the Organization for Economic Collaboration and Development con-

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ducted a comparative study of education systems called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Approximately 180,000 15-year-old pupils from 32 participating countries were tested for reading literacy, mathematical literacy, scientiﬁc literacy, and crosscurricular competencies. In all four areas, German pupils scored far below average. The integration of children from underprivileged and less-educated families into the school system was particularly weak. Children from migrant families in Germany scored lower than in any other European country. Çınar, 56, is a spokesperson for the Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg.

Equal opportunity cannot be the last word in the German education system. Much to the contrary, children from poor and immigrant families experience extreme hardship. In Berlin, they primarily attend kindergartens and elementary schools in the inner city. There, the main complaint among teachers is that the students lack German skills and other linguistic capacities, and that they show low social competence due to a correspondingly insufficient level of pedagogy. The consequence: many German parents, along with those from the non-German middle class, avoid those schools; social segregation in these districts persists, and the conditions at institutions of learning are becoming increasingly severe. What to do with these kindergartens and schools in the inner cities? How can they offer all children equal chances? [. . .] The PISA results should not be surprising. The school system in the Federal Republic is based on social selection to a greater extent than in any other industrialized country. This state of affairs is widely acknowledged and widely supported as well. And since the 1980s, it has primarily affected children from migration backgrounds. This disparity has been visible for a long time now. In recent years, children and youth with dark hair and skin color have been the ones who attend the vocational and special schools in the city. This is less a result of their ethnic heritage than of their social heritage, for most of these children are from working-class families. The countries with the best results in the PISA study are either tried-andtrue immigration countries, like Canada, or states with a similar migration percentage to ours, like Sweden, that nonetheless deal with their minorities in a very different way—in the kindergarten as well as in schools. The federal German education system, however, offers children of migration backgrounds no equal opportunities. It has failed in its integration efforts. It is certainly true that problematic factors arise from the immigrants themselves: concentrated residential districts, spouses moving from the homeland, and media habits. But one’s choice of residence, spouse, and television programs is a free one, according to the Basic Law; and putting these basic rights in question is counterproductive. [. . .] Throughout the educational system, the fact must be accepted that the promotion of the mother language and culture is not a liability but a relief measure for children, because it relies on the competences that they already have and alleviates parents’ fears of alienation, thus promoting integration. [. . .]

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Of course, migrants must make efforts to develop linguistic and social competence, particularly for their children’s sake. But the political sphere must establish the necessary framework. It has missed this opportunity, even in the new Immigration Act. [. . .] 20 MECHTHILD KÜPPER

THE WOMAN FROM KREUZBERG First published as “Die Kreuzbergerin” in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (May 25, 2003). Translated by Tes Howell.

Barbara John is the longest-serving commissioner of foreigner affairs in Germany. Now she has to go. German foreigner policy appears to be women’s work, at least considering the evidence in the public sphere. Politicians occupy the private side with legal moves and regulations. Early in her tenure as the foreigner liaison in Berlin, it sufficed, says Barbara John (CDU), just to say “yes” all the time when the then-senator Heinrich Lummer (CDU) said “no”—for example, when discussing Turkish guest workers’ desire to bring their families to Germany. Her ﬁrst “yes” was the most decisive. She pushed through an “open ofﬁce” to deal with public inquiries, a bureau in which officials would talk with foreigners instead of about them. She did not want to sit somewhere in the administration and develop policy. Profound insights about how immigrants feel and what they need—homeland—originated in John’s large dingy office on Potsdamer Street. A trust developed, even a warmth, between the newly arrived and the long established. All could learn from Barbara John not to fear those foreigners who, contrary to their own plans, settled here permanently. She calls this approach “being rooted in reality.” The tall woman with the blond shock of hair and the emphatically inconspicuous clothes directs her department with grinding pragmatism. She also shows heartfelt devotion and commands the language of calm conviction and clarity. Since September 11, she has warned against “Islamophobia.” Responding to accusations that she is naïvely engaging with fundamentalists, she says, “I do not negotiate with terrorists; I am talking about practical problems.” Berlin journalists call John after every catastrophe in the world, for she knows how they can tap into the immigrants’ opinions. She has built an infrastructure in Berlin of projects, self-help groups, and organizations that facilitate interaction between the majority society and its minorities. On October 3, 2001, the ﬁrst Day of German Unity after the terrorist attacks in America, she invited people to a Day of Open Mosques. When a Palestinian father brought his children armed with fake explosives to the demonstration, she visited a Palestinian orga-

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nization the following Sunday. Whoever was interested in the sentiments and opinions of Iraqi exiles during the Iraq war went to Barbara John for names of organizations where they could be found. According to John, the lengthy coexistence of foreigners and Germans has “created commonalities” that go far beyond shopping at the Turkish vegetable stand. Barbara John has transformed a sentence by Odo Marquard into her practical axiom: “Matters of principle are powerful, sometimes violent; life is fragile.” Her self-restraint on practical questions over the years has given the Catholic John a quiet self-assurance that is stunning: she argues that no religion has held out against secularism in Western culture. Why should Islam be able to do it? Berliners have beneﬁted from John’s view that they are always more willing to integrate and become better than they normally are. She referred to Moses Mendelssohn, to Friedrich II, and to the long tradition of foreigners in Prussia; she did not talk about conﬂicts between majority and minority, nor did she use the language of alarmism. Everyone was expected, she would say coolly upon such occasions, not to bash in the heads of others—and with such statements, she struck the civil-social tone that characterizes her. Her successor, who comes from the “antiracism” school of thought, will face difﬁculties. Barbara John is the exception to the rule that politicians in Berlin are unloved. She does not see herself as a politician in the narrow sense but rather as an administration employee. For years she has been the longestserving German foreigner liaison. She was appointed in 1981 by Richard von Weizsäcker and “discovered” the department, which today has 28 employees; she continued on under his successors Eberhard Diepgen (CDU), Walter Momper (SPD), then again Diepgen and ﬁnally Klaus Wowereit (SPD). At the end of her term, she was rejected by a PDS senator when she offered to continue working as an unsalaried official. Senator Klaus Böger (SPD) reacted quickly. He allowed John to establish an office in his administration, and now she is back to where her career began: she coordinates efforts throughout Berlin to teach German to all children as early and as well as possible. Before she became the commissioner of foreigner affairs, John was a teacher of German as a Foreign Language; she even wrote a textbook. She will be able to do this again, now that the essential role of mastering the language has been proven irrefutable. John credits her concentration on the secularist elements of coexistence for her popularity beyond the circle of her “clients.” No one needs to feel overwhelmed or threatened by demands for “best practices,” as they are now called, or for the self-evident minimum standards of civilization. When the devastating test scores of the ﬁrst graders’ language tests were presented, she did not speak of the tragic results. She said, “We don’t have to perform miracles.” Only the children can learn the language; we can only try to help them.

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One rarely heard the voice of Barbara John in the often ideologically driven discussions about whether Germany was or was not an immigration country, or in the debates about the Red-Green coalition’s planned immigration law. She continued to work and was her own—highly professional— spokeswoman. She accessed EU funds, attended academic conferences (to which she is often invited for her expertise) and participated in seminars to hear whether the academy had ﬁnally found a formula for conveying the most important element in a migration policy: that immigration is also an advantage for the recipient society. Meanwhile, she is an honorary professor at Humboldt University. One could interpret Barbara John’s career in two different ways: One could complain that a woman with so much experience in domestic policies still does not play a larger role. But one could also learn from her example that someone so unpretentious, persistent, straightlaced, trail-blazing, and self-reﬂexive must prevail—in the long term. For now, as she is sent into retirement from her post as commissioner of foreigner affairs, Barbara John has “won.” There is a new discussion, “rooted in reality,” about how Germany can better reconcile its own interests with those of its immigrants. According to John, we are “an immigration country with a job market and educational system that are hostile to immigrants.” The unskilled workers that Germany admits must have access to the overregulated job market. Earlier, she says, we understood ourselves as a “nonimmigration country with immigrants.” In between these two poles are the 20 years of her service—and her tenacious patience. Length of service can indeed be a political virtue. Barbara John grew up in Kreuzberg, on Manteuffel Street. The area was always poverty-stricken but now sometimes epitomizes the brighter side of a multicultural city. Whoever sees her climb out of her little car, her back seat full of banana crates for the move from one office to another, begins to understand: she belongs to a disappearing type of West Berliner, who built a democratic community with the famous postwar virtues of persistence and modesty. Barbara John has never ﬁt in with the subsidy champions. But even they have learned to respect her. 21 VOICES IN SUPPORT OF THE MIGRATION MUSEUM Published on the website of the proposed Migration Museum—www.migrationsmuseum.de—in 2003. Translated by David Gramling. CEM ÖZDEMIR First Bundestag member of Turkish descent, German member of the European Parliament

When I visited the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island near Manhattan a few years ago, I tried to imagine how it would be to walk through a compar-

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able museum in Germany with my parents. A museum with modern museum pedagogy, in which school classes with students of different backgrounds would crowd and jostle through. But a museum that would not be limited to documenting the living conditions in a so-called guest-worker settlement at the beginning of the 1960s, one that also would show Germans the extent to which our common land has changed for the beneﬁt of all and will continue to change, despite all of the problems that are undeniably present. DUARTE BRANCO Chair of the Association of Portuguese Businesses in Germany

The problematic of migration has existed in Germany for a long time, and nonetheless, ordinary citizens have hardly any means to engage with this topic in a manageable and contemplative way. Even communication about this societal phenomenon with children and adolescents has been rather difﬁcult thus far—and usually, from a pedagogical perspective, it has been too theoretically laden and inﬂuenced by value judgments that are either dismissive or uncritically affirmative. For these reasons, it is an exceptionally welcome development that there is now a solution—a solution that demonstrates that migration can be apprehended not merely as a threat but as an enrichment. A migration museum can accomplish this task. Communicating an open attitude to the teenage generation appears very important. Germany, as a member of the European Union and an active agent in the age of globalization, cannot forgo the opportunity to prepare its next generation for today’s world of international exchange. [. . .] HEIKE MARÍA MARTÍNEZ FIGUEIRIDO Federal Association of Spanish Social and Cultural Organizations

Finally, the history of the “guest worker” in the Federal Republic will soon become visible. Consequently, a piece of the “hidden” history of the postwar period of the Federal Republic will come to light and assert its meaning for that context. This is an important step on the path to a common future. Admitting to migrants that their history is a part of the history of the Federal Republic communicates a bit of recognition—beyond mere museum exhibitioning. Recognition of their contribution must be one of the most important political goals for nearly all autonomous organizations, for it also means that they ﬁnally belong, that they have ﬁnally arrived after 50 years.

7 AN IMMIGRATION COUNTRY? T H E L I M I T S O F C U LT U R E

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Kemal Kurt’s snapshot captures a German woman beholding an urban culture that is no longer just her own. The Turkish spelling of culture both appropriates and undermines the dominance of a German Kultur to which immigrants are expected to assimilate. The poster advertises a Begegnungsfest—one of the many street festivals and open-air events designed to facilitate encounters between different cultures.

K Ü LT Ü R I N B E R L I N - S C H Ö N E B E R G , 1 9 8 6 .

HIS CHAPTER CONSIDERS how immigration has reshaped the basic idea of Germany as a nation-state since 1961. The texts included here pose and reformulate inquiries about Germany’s self-concept on the global stage: Is Germany an immigration country or an ethno-national community? As Theo Sommer points out, West Germans in 1985 were only slightly less than unanimous in their opposition to further immigration. Because individual states, not the federal government, were responsible for granting and regulating residency for foreign nationals, many West German cities considered imposing “one-in one-out” quotas for Turks and other guest-worker residents. Immigration had, however, become a feature of the West German selfconcept by the late 1970s, appearing prominently on party platforms and candidate agendas for the ﬁrst time. The current chapter opens with a 1985 editorial in which center-left journalist Theo Sommer cautions against a relaxed-border policy between Germany and Turkey. Sommer’s gradualist position is cautious in its expectations about the fragile balance of xenophobia and tolerance undergirding West German society. Political theorist Dieter Oberndörfer’s 1987 essay “The Open Republic” poses this immigration question in terms of the founding concepts of the West German state. His question, whether West Germany is a constitutional republic or a nationstate, presaged the German guiding-culture debates of the early 2000s. Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Thomas Schmidt’s 1991 piece, “When the West Becomes Irresistible,” takes a different tack than Sommer’s and Oberndörfer’s articles do—framing their analysis in terms of transnational migration trends and global wealth distribution. For Cohn-Bendit and Schmid, Germany is subject to the global distribution of labor in late capitalism; national policies must heed, rather than dictate, migration phenomena. Heiner Geissler’s essay “Germany: An Immigration Country?” also from 1991, evokes a visionary multiculturalism that rejects national identity in favor of constitutional patriotism. Klaus Bade, in contrast, calls attention to social issues in post-Wall Germany that pose new challenges to Geissler’s constitutional vision. A dialogue between Claus Leggewie and Daniel CohnBendit, “Multiculture: Just a Motto for Church Congresses?” confronts the practical task of disseminating multicultural concepts in everyday life. As two veteran political activists on the center left, Cohn-Bendit and Leggewie agree that the multicultural message has been a failure and that much more

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political work lies ahead before Germany can think of itself as an open and diverse society. The 1995 Spiegel article “Return to Charlottengrad” surveys Berlin’s burgeoning Russian immigrant communities, suggesting that the new capital has become as much an eastern city as a western one. Since the fall of the Soviet Bloc, commercial and cultural traffic with Poland, Moscow, and the Czech Republic has been booming, and Berlin has developed into a major tourist destination for Russian consumers. “Charlottengrad” is a nickname for the affluent West Berlin neighborhood Charlottenburg, a name revived from the years just after the Russian Revolution, when tens of thousands of Russian intellectuals sought refuge in Berlin. This article tracks the westward migration of a generation of middle-class Soviet Jews and Spätaussiedler, or “late resettlers,” who set off for Berlin in the early 1990s. Günther Beckstein, Bavarian minister of the interior since 1993, was a member of the triumvirate of negotiators during the Immigration Act compromise of June 2004, along with Otto Schily and Peter Müller. His 1999 article “An Approach to the Guiding Culture” claims that multiculturalism prevents citizens from engaging with each other in substantive ways and promotes a general predilection toward mutual disregard. Beckstein insists that Germany take a more active role in the integration of its foreigners by compelling them to adopt the German language and the basic political values of their host country. This idea found its most controversial articulation when Bundestag member Friedrich Merz—borrowing a phrase from Islamic scholar Bassam Tibi—advocated a “freedom-based German guiding culture,” or Leitkultur for short. According to Merz, the Basic Law espouses certain values to which immigrants must assent, including gender equity and a willingness to speak German. Merz’s concept of Leitkultur rapidly became the bête noire of millennial integration politics, earning the distinction of “most disliked neologism of 2000” from the PONS dictionary company. The ﬁnal texts in this chapter debate the concept from various perspectives. Gustav Seibt chronicles German legislators’ failed attempts to posit a unifying culture in the decades after National Socialism. For Seibt, even 50 years after the Third Reich, the idea of guiding values remains dangerous and impracticable. For Mark Terkessidis, in “German Guiding Culture: The Game of Origins,” Merz’s concept entirely disregards the socioeconomic and educational circumstances of Germany’s immigrants. For Moshe Zimmermann, the proponents of guiding culture exhibit a forgetfulness about Germans’ uses and abuses of “culture” in the Third Reich. Despite the short shelf-life of the guiding-culture idea in legislative politics, its central tenets of linguistic and political acculturation were absorbed into the 2005 Immigration Act. The chapter closes with speculative glances into the future of this new and belated immigration country.

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1 THEO SOMMER

BREACH OF CONTRACT OR BREACH OF THE DAM? First published as “Vertragsbruch oder aber Dammbruch?” in Die Zeit ( July 19, 1985). Translated by Tes Howell. On July 9, 1985, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl paid a state visit to Ankara at the invitation of the Turkish prime minister, Turgut Özal, to discuss “greater mobility” for Turkish workers in West Germany. Sommer wrote this editorial during his tenure as editor in chief of Die Zeit.

Bonn and the Menacing Flood of Turkish Immigrants Fear of foreign inﬁltration, of a country losing its national identity? These fears have always existed, and not just in the minds of German Blut und Boden visionaries. “Why,” lamented Benjamin Franklin in 1751, “should we endure these country bumpkins swarming into our settlements from the Rhineland, converging in a cluster, introducing their language and customs while excluding ours? Why should Pennsylvania, established by the English, become a colony of strangers who will soon become so numerous that they will Germanize us instead of us Anglicizing them?” Franklin—philosopher, statesman, composer of streetwise aphorisms and discoverer of the lightning rod—was not a racist nor a barbarian but a man of the Enlightenment. An instinct (immutably ingrained in humans) is revealed in his lamentation: people prefer to be around their own kind, and whenever they allow friends into their inner circle, the newcomers had better conform to the language, the culture, and the value system of that group. The fears that Franklin felt about the Rhineland farmers were repeated in each subsequent immigration wave: ﬁrst the Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans and more recently, the Hispanics and Paciﬁc Islanders, Spanish-speaking immigrants, and Asians of various descent. These are the same fears that we West Germans are experiencing when we think about the 4.3 million foreigners who live in the Federal Republic and West Berlin—especially the 1.4 million Turks. Every survey yields similar results: 80 percent of German citizens ﬁnd that there are too many foreigners in this country, and 85 percent want restrictions on further immigration. Germans do not enjoy such consensus on any other topic. This unity spans the party spectrum, from CSU followers to the Greens. People are simply troubled by the idea that we are taking in a greater share of foreigners than we can cope with psychologically and economically. Helmut Schmidt, as chancellor, was the ﬁrst to warn us “that we cannot handle a further wave of foreigners into our country. It is counterproductive to accept people here who can obtain a higher standard of living through unemployment beneﬁts and social welfare than if they were to work 45 hours a week in their own country.” Heinz Kühn, former SPD minister president in North Rhine–Westphalia, declared even more emphatically, “whenever the number of foreigners surpasses the 10 percent threshold, any given people becomes rebellious.”

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For now, we are quite a bit below the Kühnian rebellion threshold: foreigners comprise 7.1 percent of the resident population, and recent statistics demonstrate a downward trend. The threshold has been reached in 19 large German cities, and in some, it has been signiﬁcantly superseded: 24 percent in Frankfurt, 18 percent in Stuttgart, 17 percent in Munich, 12.5 percent in Berlin. The prospect of a new stream of Turks pouring into the Federal Republic after December 1, 1986, weighs heavily on the German government and people. At that point, the tolerance level, the rebellion threshold, would be surpassed. The Association Agreement, an agreement the European Community negotiated with Ankara in 1964, allows for the possibility of a new Turkish invasion. It stipulates that after December 1, 1986, Turks will receive the same labor mobility in EC territory that all citizens of full member states already enjoy. No one knows how many will actually take advantage of this policy. Meanwhile, the official number of those willing to migrate is 1.2 million, although this ﬁgure is difficult to verify. One thing is certain, though: there are officially 3.5 million unemployed in Turkey, along with millions of underemployed individuals in Anatolian villages. Many of those people will want to try their luck beyond their borders. And their dream destination will be, as before, Germany: 90 percent of all Turks who leave their homeland come to us. It is no wonder then that the government is frantically trying to prevent a breach in the dam. Minister of the Interior Zimmermann, Foreign Secretary Genscher, and last week Chancellor Kohl all had just one goal in their discussions in Ankara: to persuade the Turks not to make use of their labormobility rights. The government’s spokesman, Ost, bluntly explained, “An increased number of workers from Turkey in Germany is not tolerable from a labor-market perspective, not to mention social and integration factors.” There it was again: Helmut Schmidt’s old refrain. But what can we do? The federal government is hiding behind legal arguments. According to the government, the Ankara Agreement merely stipulates an obligation to “be guided” by the notion of freedom of movement. The freedom of movement applies only to workers, not their family members, and before the Memorandum of Understanding can become operative, there must ﬁrst be a joint resolution in the EC Association Council. This process is undigniﬁed legal mumbo jumbo. There is only one remedy, of which many will disapprove but to which there is no alternative: business according to good Levantine practices. That is, Ankara ought to completely forgo the right of labor mobility or establish a long transition period until it takes effect; in return, Bonn ought to increase its aid to Turkey, and not just for military spending but in areas that would directly beneﬁt the country’s economic development. Such a plan must be possible. Of course, our productivity is not unlimited,

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and if West German industry avoids investing in Turkey, then the Federal Republic cannot change much with loan guarantees. For this reason, the government must make it crystal clear in the coming negotiations (scheduled for the fall) that if there is no alternative, Bonn would favor a breach of contract over a breach in the dam. Crystal clear—exactly. No one in 1964 could have foreseen the current situation. Bonn is therefore completely justiﬁed in taking recourse to two principles that underlie all transactions between individuals and between states. The ﬁrst one can be found in clausula rebus sic stantibus—the unspoken assumption behind all contracts, that things remain as they are. The second one is in the formula ultra posse nemo obligatur: no one is obligated to do more than he can achieve. We are not obliged to risk our livelihood for anyone. The only issue is this: our productivity. Not the substance of our people, which a 7 percent proportion of foreigners does not yet jeopardize; there cannot yet be talk of “ethnomorphosis” or a “change of national allegiance.” Nor is there a danger that permanent ghettos will form in our big cities—the history of all immigrations teaches us that ghettos dissolve as soon as the process of differentiation and social advancement begins among the immigrants; class ultimately becomes more important than race. Of equally little importance is the concern that undigestible groups could burden our collective body. For the process scholars call “acculturation,” cultural conformity, is above all a question of time: a matter of two or three generations. The Turks might show themselves to be more resistant to the inﬂuences of their new environment than other peoples; conformity, assimilation, and integration might be slower for them, but in the end acculturation will occur. Turks in Germany ﬁrst become German Turks and then ﬁnally Turkish Germans. They are already beginning to walk in the footsteps of the Szymanskis and the Cartellieris. Is Germany therefore a melting pot? The concept of a melting pot comes from America, but today Americans hesitate to use it; the ethnic groups are too large and no longer allow themselves to be “melted” so easily. The alternative is the multicultural society, a patchwork carpet, which some in this country envision as a model for the Federal Republic: no longer integration through absorption but rather integration through the coexistence of coequal groups in a people of peoples. The Amish (the descendants of those rustic Rhinelanders who once angered Benjamin Franklin) have found their place in America. One may doubt that this multicultural example can be realized within the modest dimensions of our small country. One thing is certain: if the dam that has held back the Anatolian poor breaks in a year and a half, the ﬂood of millions will wash away the beginnings of both models—integration in a melting pot and coexistence within the patchwork mosaic—without a trace.

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2 DIETER OBERNDÖRFER

THE OPEN REPUBLIC First published as “Die offene Republik” in Die Zeit (November 13, 1987). Translated by David Gramling. Oberndörfer, director of the Seminar for Political Science at the University of Freiburg, was born in 1929.

[. . .] The collapse of 1945 ended the dream of political unity among all people of German linguistic and ethnic heritage. This unity was realized only during seven years, from 1938 to 1945, and even then not completely. The remaining shell of Germany was divided up. In the free sector, the new republic was not effectively accomplished—understandable for the situation of that time. The Federal Republic was founded as a republic for “Germans.” The Basic Law of the new republic relied on a folkish-national substratum. According to its own self-concept, the new republic was merely a provisional political reorganization under which “Germans” could live in peace. The Basic Law allowed this “new order” only “for a transitional period.” The reuniﬁcation “of the German people”—a politically explosive postulate in view of Austria, the South Tyrolians, and German minorities outside of the state territory of 1937—became a constitutional mandate: “The whole German people is called upon to achieve Germany’s unity and liberty in free selfdeﬁnition.” [. . .] The tension established in the Basic Law between cosmopolitical norms and the folkish tradition of the nation-state has thus far not been resolved. Its political explosiveness for the legitimacy of the Federal Republic’s political order was hardly recognized or was merely pushed out of its consciousness. Ethnic nationalism has remained alive to this day in the political culture of the Federal Republic. Its approach to immigration and the right of asylum demonstrates this fact very clearly. The work of several million guest workers singularly catalyzed the expansion of the German economy after internal migration ceased with the building of the Wall, and despite structural unemployment, the productivity of the German economy is still dependent on the effect of that work. In many areas, a need for additional skilled foreign-labor power is even increasing. The Federal Republic thus became a country of immigration long ago. Still, the official version stands: “The Federal Republic is not an immigration country.” As many guest workers ought to go back to their homelands as possible. Their label has been suggestive since the beginning. One expects of guests that they show gratitude and say goodbye politely after a certain period of time. Thus far, there has been no politically inﬂuential lobby for facilitating the naturalization process for foreigners or, as in the United States, for the possibility of acquiring citizenship through immigration quotas or service in the armed forces. Surely, the basic reason for this state of affairs,

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next to political fears about employment, is the fear of a threat to one’s own ethnic-cultural substance. [. . .] Leaving nationalism behind ﬁrst demands a radical rejection of the premises of its ideological justiﬁcation and full engagement in a republican constitutional praxis. The scratch test for a new republican constitutional praxis must take the form of a liberal policy on naturalization and asylum. It was not the conceptual bases of National Socialism that gave form to racialist delusion but rather ethnic nationalism. The revolutionary power of this nationalism ensured German loyalty for the National Socialist dictatorship until the end. The (millions of) senseless human casualties amid the collective delusion of nationalism (in both European world wars) would only make sense if they led to insight into the humanity of all peoples and overcame, not simply through theoretical but also practiced humaneness, the nationalism that separates human beings into peoples. [. . .] Republics orient their politics to the future, to the goal of the political unity of all people, through which the latent or constant state of global civil war is overcome. Only on the long path toward this goal do republics gain their historic worth and legitimacy. [. . .] 3 DANIEL COHN-BENDIT AND THOMAS SCHMID

WHEN THE WEST BECOMES IRRESISTIBLE First published as “Wenn der Westen unwiderstehlich wird” in Die Zeit (November 22, 1991). Translated by Tes Howell. Cohn-Bendit (b. 1945, Montauban, France) was expelled from France for revolutionary activities in 1968. In 1989, he established the Office for Multicultural Affairs in Frankfurt under the newly elected Red-Green coalition municipal government. He is currently cochairman of the faction of the Greens/Free European Alliance of the European Parliament. With Schmidt, he published Heimat Babylon: The Challenge of the Multicultural Society (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1993).

The multicultural society must be recognized as reality There are some successes that become problematic when they materialize. At present, this is the situation in the Western world. During the decades of bloc confrontation, the problem had its roots in the superiority, attractiveness, and irresistibility of the West’s social and economic model, which has consistently promoted freedom, open borders, and the dream of prosperity. One day an emergency occurred: the alternative, socialism, abandoned the race, leaving the philosophy of the West to beam brighter than ever before. But the victory may not last as long, nor be as sweet, as anticipated. Worldwide, people are seeking to collect on the Western promise of happiness—hence the West’s precarious situation. It is clear that it has not been able to make good on its promise. Because people have only one life at their disposal, they are no longer willing to wait for the arrival of this prosperity. In places where the wealth does not want to go, more and more people are

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willing to go to it: they migrate to those wealthy countries in the West. This mobility (voluntary or imposed), which has been growing since the beginning of the modern age, will continue to increase in the future. It would be a fatal mistake to overinterpret this fact ideologically in one direction or another: the multicultural society should neither become a surrogate vision for the disoriented Left, nor should its undeniable problems be used to create horror scenarios about a society robbed of its identity. Modern societies do not allow themselves to be transformed back into closed ones. If things go well, Western societies will be able to deal in a reasonably civil manner with the new turmoil arising from the end of bloc confrontation and the triumphal march of Western civilization. It is irresponsible to nurture the illusion that the problem of migration movements could be curbed by protectionist measures. One cannot ﬁght a system of closed borders for decades just to return to it when things get serious. One cannot push for an open-borders Europe and suddenly seek to shield Western Europe from the rest of the world. And above all, one may not use popular discontent over an unsettling reality as an opportunity to propagate simplistic conceptions of the world—conceptions with which one could indeed win elections but certainly not solve problems. Modern societies are constantly formed and re-formed through condemnations—they disintegrate and destroy traditions, they tend toward imbalance, and they make it difficult for the individual to construct a clearly outlined identity. Consequently, they promote the ephemeral urge to ﬁnd simple solutions and scapegoats. It is no longer an option to represent migration (an unavoidable consequence of the modern age) as a cause of all evil and as something that could be stopped with decisive national measures. It would be no less irresponsible to distort the multicultural society into a modern Garden of Eden of harmonious multiplicity and—in an act of reverse xenophobia—to seek to expel the beloved German along with the foreigner. A kind of indignation about xenophobia, which proposes a policy of unrestricted open borders as an antidote, contains something hypocritical and dangerous. For, if history teaches anything, it is this: dealing civilly with the foreigner is not innate to any society. Much evidence suggests that reservation toward the foreign is germane to the anthropological constants of this type of contact. And the modern age, with its increasing mobility, has made this problem more ubiquitous than ever. [. . .] States and nations like to act as though they were sovereign. Regardless of the fact that unrestricted nation-state sovereignty is undesirable (consider, for example, the federated Europe of the future), it has been an illusion for a long time. Current and future migration movements have such deep-seated motivations that no state, regardless of the measures taken, will be in a position to halt them. A country as rich as Germany has no other choice than to accept the fact that it is already and will remain an immigration country. Now

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the issue is how to deal with this reality. And on this point it is important to take an aggressive stance in the development of an immigration policy. [. . .] We therefore propose an open discussion on changing the present system. Because the Federal Republic of Germany has been unable to see itself as an immigration country thus far, there is no alternative to asylum for the many who want to come to Germany for warrantable reasons. In the long run, the exaggerated use of this exceptionalist loophole will lead to a situation in which the basic institution of asylum will be weakened and decried ad absurdum. We argue for a restricted use of asylum procedures; it should be applied sparingly in obvious cases of political, religious, race, and/or gender-based persecution, thereby affirming its actual meaning. We would consequently gain some ground on the problem of immigration without the hysteria and demagogy that is currently raging. [. . .] 4 HEINER GEISSLER

GERMANY: AN IMMIGRATION COUNTRY? First published as “Deutschland—ein Einwanderungsland?” in Einwanderbares Deutschland: Oder Vertreibung aus dem Wohlstands-Paradies? Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Liselotte Funcke, and Heiner Geissler, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Horizonte, 1991), 9–23. Translated by Tes Howell. Geissler (b. 1930) was a member of the Bundestag and chair of the CDU/CSU faction from 1991 to 1998.

[. . .] What consequences will the single European market bring? German businesses will be forced in signiﬁcantly greater measure than before to establish production and distribution sites within the EU and Germany. Whoever wants to be economically successful in the “EU abroad” must know the language and culture, the lifestyle and mentality of these countries. Not only managers and engineers but also skilled workers and employees will have to think and work European. Increasing numbers of educated and motivated young people will recognize professional opportunities in France, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Portugal, Poland, and Hungary as a stimulus, chance, and challenge, and they will want to use these opportunities and excel in them. There are already 1.4 million foreigners from the EU states living with us. [. . .] In a Europe characterized by manifest freedom of movement, one can be born and grow up in Germany, study in Great Britain, work later in Germany or France, and spend one’s “active old age” in Italy. In Germany, the neighbor will be Belgian; the work colleague, Turkish; the daughter-in-law, Danish; and the union comrade, Spanish or Hungarian. A Europeanization, and even an internationalization, of our lives is already taking place today. An abundance of European products—food and drink, literature, music and art (as we have had for centuries), science and research, fashion, design—will become a mass experience of everyday life. These are the characteristics of an already existing and growing multicultural society. [. . .]

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The vast majority of foreigners in the Federal Republic were either born here or have lived here for over 10 years. And despite this fact we have the lowest naturalization quota of all comparable European countries. Only around 14,000 foreigners are naturalized annually, but in 1988 alone, for example, 73,000 children of foreign parents were born in our country. Barbara John, the commissioner of foreigner affairs of the Berlin Senate, pointed out in 1989 that someday we will have to speak about twenty-ﬁfth-generation foreigners if the policy on naturalization remains the same. I know that some in our country ﬁnd it unbearable to live with people who come from another culture, have another native language and a philosophy of life different from the Germans’. For my part, it is intolerable that millions of fellow citizens have fewer rights in our country. Stuttgart’s mayor Rommel compares our society with the old Sparta, its Spartans and Helots, a threeclass society composed of citizens with greater and lesser rights.

Constitutional Patriotism as a Concept for the Future The laws that regulate who is or may be German are questionable and contradictory enough. An ethnic German from Kazakhstan, who has only trace amounts of German blood in his veins and whose ancestors left Germany at the time of Catherine the Great, passes for a German here. I state emphatically: I have no objections to this. But the second-generation Iranian living in Germany, who works as a senior physician at a hospital in Rüsselsheim and speaks Hessian like Heinz Schenk has the greatest difficulties getting a German passport. [. . .] The economic prosperity of the Federal Republic and its strong position in Europe and the world are not the result of German national character. It is rather the combined effects of a constitution guaranteeing unhindered development of personhood and the welfare-state concept of a social market economy that have produced a symbiosis superior to that in all other political systems. [. . .]

5 KLAUS BADE

GERMANY AND IMMIGRATION First printed as “Deutschland und die Einwanderung” in Das Manifest der 60: Deutschland und die Einwanderung (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994), 13–15. Translated by Tes Howell. A migration historian, Bade is the director of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at the University of Osnabrück and chair of the Federal Council on Migration.

[. . .] Global migration and refugee movements are individual and societal answers to political, economic, and ecological crisis situations. In the face of this challenge, even a country with Germany’s economic strength can affect

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very little on its own. Pan-European solutions are needed. As Europe’s mostsought-after immigration destination, a particular responsibility for the development and implementation of appropriate concepts is ascribed to Germany. Yet, as a precondition for this, Germany must overcome the problems within its own borders and not delegate them to Europe. The more unresolved national problems are tabled into Europe’s future, the more difficult the road to that future will be. [. . .] The uniﬁed Germany of the 1990s is confronting a new integration situation that is unfolding with more complexity and less clarity than its predecessor, which involved only the integration of refugees and the persecuted during the mid-1950s and the subsequent path of the “guest-worker question” in the West. The new integration situation comprises various groups of foreign as well as indigenous “foreigners.” In Germany, since the late 1970s, there has been a paradoxical immigration situation without an immigration country and without an immigration agreement. De jure foreigners and de facto immigrants are living here as indigenous foreigners, the majority of whom are from third-generation families from the previous “guest-worker population.” [. . .] Along with these issues, there are German-German integration questions and experiences of alienation as well. The identity problems of many settlers from the former GDR have still not been overcome. In the East, the one-sided reformation by the West gives many people the feeling of having become foreign in their own country. This inner alienation has further exacerbated encounters with immigrant foreigners, encounters with which East Germany has had little experience anyway. Given the ambiguity of the new integration situation, many people perceive immigration as a threat, thus providing a new, dangerous theme to right-radical agitators. Social anxieties and helplessness have given rise to xenophobic scapegoat theories. [. . .] Comprehensive legal and political answers to the challenges presented by migration and its effects are still lacking. It took more than a decade to make it to the lowest common denominator of all official government statements, the transpartisan lie that “The Federal Republic is not an immigration country.” This claim stiﬂed one of the most important and, if neglected, most dangerous areas of societal formation. [. . .] Any new taboo or political nonrecognition, every defensive repression or neglect of these politically explosive topics, each new ﬂight from the responsibility to negotiate because of fear of registered voters would be tantamount to reckless self-endangerment. Migration and its effects will accompany Germany and Europe far into the future: from internal immigration in the European market and its margins to continental and intercontinental immigration pressures on the East-West and South-North axis. [. . .]

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6 DANIEL COHN-BENDIT AND CLAUS LEGGEWIE

MULTICULTURE: JUST A MOTTO FOR CHURCH CONGRESSES? First published as “Multikultur—nur ein Kirchentagsmotto?” in die tageszeitung ( January 8, 1994). Translated by David Gramling. Leggewie (b. 1950) is professor of political science at the University of Gießen and director of the Center for Media and Interactivity.

[. . .] taz[die tageszeitung]: You yourselves have said that the concept of the multicultural society gives rise to conservative emotions. There must be a particularly German reason for this phenomenon. CL [Claus Leggewie]: I trace that back to the particular situation in which we found ourselves around 1989. First, can we really empirically claim that Germans have especially great difficulty accepting their condition, their metamorphosis? One cannot make this claim about the 1960s and 1970s. I believe that, based on its actions, Germany was a foreigner-friendly country in those days. [. . .] In 1982, a rightist conservative turn was proclaimed in foreigner and asylum politics. In contentious situations such as 1989, Germany quite easily tends to develop an almost laughable nationalism that is not actually germane to its culturally and regionally differentiated structure. [. . .] DCB [Daniel Cohn-Bendit]: Now, for the ﬁrst time in the history of the Federal Republic, we are experiencing a real societal conﬂict about immigration—for the past three or four years. Not only must the laws be held responsible for this inexcusable procrastination but the Left as well. Have not leftist sociologists completely ignored the immigration problem? Neither the student movement nor other representatives of the Left have really taken heed of the topic. The student movement knew about the living conditions of migrant farmers on the Mekong plains a whole lot better than they knew about the living conditions of Anatolian peasants working at the Opel factory in Rüsselsheim. [. . .] taz: The established parties on the left of the spectrum (Green, AL, PDS) have a single focus: making an immigration law that determines rules for residency and can be marketed as a cure-all for racism. [. . .] Can Islam be won over to secular forms of multiculturalism? DCB: Islam, what is Islam anyway? Ten years ago, during the Olympic Games in Sarajevo, no “Muslim problem” crossed any journalist’s mind, because Muslims were naturally embedded in former Yugoslavian everyday life. “The” Islam did not exist, just as “the” Catholicism or “the” Christianity did not exist. It is true that, under the conditions of a multicultural society with religious freedom, we clearly must oppose a fundamentalistically inﬂected political Islam. [. . .] Yet the simple equation that Christianity means modern, enlightened spirit and Islam means backward, authoritarian ideals does not add up.

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CL: Aside from the Algerian and Iranian examples, there is nothing particular to Islam that would preclude peaceful coexistence with secular cultures and religions. Unfortunately, most of the standard interpreters of the Koran, the mullahs, see it differently. The reason I make an appeal for Islam in the West is that Islam needs an intellectual basis in order to construct an alternative to this extreme rightist xenophobic Islamism. Apparently, this basis can only be found in the West—the effect of a strange, world-historical development. [. . .] taz: In a multicultural society, democracy and human rights are inalienable. A look at Germany and the rest of the world does not exactly hold out hope for this ideal. DCB: Whoever says the cards are stacked against us has a strong argument. Nothing is certain. But I fear the traditional form of leftist politics that always cowers in a defeatist position. The question is, to what extent can we get the idea of multicultural societies across, so that they are perceived as normal? We will need to supplement universal human rights with a formulation of the universal forms of negotiation within developing multicultural societies. At the end of this process, there will have to be a U.N. convention where the necessary framework for immigration will be articulated. If we do not understand this issue as a political project—much less as a moral one, as it has been understood thus far—it will not allow us progress. [. . .]

7 RETURN TO CHARLOTTENGRAD First published as “Rückkehr nach Charlottengrad” in Der Spiegel (August 28, 1995). Translated by David Gramling.

The party begins after midnight. The tiny, nameless, unlicensed bar is ﬁlling up quickly. Almost all of the young regulars greet Vassja the bartender with a short “Privyet.” The guests speak Russian, Czech, Polish, or French. German is found only on the menu board. Silver tinsel hangs from the buckling paneled ceiling of the street-level space in a prewar East Berlin building. Someone has stuck barbed wire into the wall around a pink-colored poster of a Russian model. A worn-out sofa set and a pair of chrome chairs appear to have come from the salvage pile, ﬁtting for the squatter milieu. Vassja Linezki, 26, raised in a Moscow academic family, came to the German capital in 1990 with a backpack full of books. He was one of the ﬁrst Russian squatters in Berlin. Since then, two dilapidated tenements have come into Russian hands. These youth from Kiev, Saint Petersburg, and Odessa earn their money through occasional work as bicycle messengers.

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On Sundays, Russian reigns supreme in the thermal baths at Berlin’s Europa-Center near the Memorial Church. Aging regulars sit sweating on marble benches in the Roman-Russian steam baths. Golden armbands, formidable earrings, and necklaces with Orthodox crosses shimmer in the steam. Tattoos from prison terms ornament many of the men’s legs—on the left leg a call girl, on the right the Statue of Liberty. [. . .] The Russians are here indeed. No other European metropolis has attracted so many Russian immigrants since the collapse of the East Bloc as the German capital has. And no other immigration group dazzles as brightly as the emigrant scene from the Commonwealth of Independent States. Strange birds and honest artisans, ambitious artists, clever intellectuals, shrewd businesspeople, and big-time proﬁteers are pushing their way toward Berlin. Approximately 70,000 to 100,000 former Soviet citizens are currently living in the city, much more than in Paris or London. No one knows the exact ﬁgures. The official statistics are missing about 10,000 “Russian Germans” from Kazakhstan or Siberia; they are counted as Germans and therefore not as immigrants. Furthermore, the number of those who came to East Berlin by marriage during the GDR era is also not known. And no government agency dares to guess how many people have come illegally to Germany or how many sought asylum in vain and are now living underground here. [. . .] The Jewish Congregation, two-thirds of whose 10,000 members are from the Commonwealth of Independent States, organizes social and cultural events. On the Berlin Radio Multikulti station, a Moscow journalist moderates a daily 20-minute program in his mother language. Lately the Spree Channel has been regularly offering Russian television programming on the cable network. German Berlin, mesmerized by the illustrious metropolis of the 1920s, clearly longs for a renaissance of the Russkij Berlin of the Weimar Republic. At that time, more than 300,000 Russians contributed to Berlin’s role as the cultural center of Europe. [. . .] Between 1918 and 1924, 2,200 books were produced by 86 Russian publishers in Berlin, more than in Petrograd or Moscow. The last actress from this era still living is Vera Lourié. This elderly lady rents the four large rooms of her prewar Wilmersdorf apartment to Russian students. She herself lives surrounded by old photos in the living room. She has been putting her memoirs down on paper for years; now she is looking for a publisher for her life story, which begins in Saint Petersburg in 1901. After her ﬂight to the Spree in 1921, the young Lourié came in contact with all the greats. She celebrated at raging atelier parties with painters Iwan Puni and El Lissitzky and philosophized with authors like Boris Pasternak, Ilja Ehrenburg, and Viktor Shklovsky. Lourié’s close friend, the eccentric author Andrej Bely, identiﬁed the mood in 1924 in “Charlottengrad,” the area

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around the Kurfürstendamm, in this two-line formulation: “Night! Tauentzien! Cocaine! This is Berlin!” Russians like Bely were amazed by the stoicism of the Berliners. Setting off in a broad swath through the city, the author contemplated how he could best provoke the German passersby. Headstands or absurd conversation snippets—all for naught. “Nothing surprises the Berliners,” he noted. “The sobriety of everyday Berlin overcomes all of the craziness.” Just as in the 1920s, the Berliners take in the new neighbors from far-off Russia with relatively little difficulty and, with a mix of resignation and laissez-faire, watch as their city becomes increasingly Eastern. The Russians arriving are not the poorest of the poor. They are people from the middle classes who still have some energy left and just want to live a better life in the West, learn more effectively, and earn more money. [. . .] Business has been the magic word for Russians since the days when the Wall was falling and duty-free commerce with the Soviet troops stationed in the GDR promised lucrative gains. Doctors closed their practices, scientists moved over to the booming import-export sector. And the saleswoman at an electronics shop remembers that “making a quick buck among the middlemen” became a kind of national sport for young people. She herself left her job as a dental hygienist and worked the ﬂeamarket stalls outside the barracks in Brandenburg’s Wünsdorf for 15 marks per hour. Those who are not attracted here by business prospects come with a lust for adventure. Money is clearly the last thing on Vassja’s mind. Pure curiosity beams from his green eyes. As a Moscow philosophy student, he had wanted to get away for a long time, out of his “stuffy cage,” to get to know Western Europe. But where would he go? When Russian television reported on the squatter houses on East Berlin’s Mainzer Street in 1990, the travel destination became clear. “Free apartments, music, and people who might understand us,” is how Vassja and three friends imagined the new life in the West—and, with tourist visas in their back pockets, that’s how it went. Among all of the various reasons for leaving their homeland, Jewish ancestry unites most of the Russian migrants. Whereas 60 years ago being identiﬁed as a Jew in Germany meant a death sentence, these days such a notation in one’s passport promises a more stable, or at least a more pleasant, life than was the case in the fragmented, openly anti-Semitic Soviet Union. [. . .] Many Jews are becoming acquainted with Judaism only after immigrating. For the well-off, the Hanukkah party at the chic Hotel InterContinental Berlin is the society high point in December. Regular attendance at one of the ﬁve synagogues remains the exception. Most are like Vassja, who had no connection to the Jewish religion in

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Moscow. “I went to a Soviet school and naturally took part in the Pioneers,” he says. He heard about the legal provisions for quota refugees only after he came to Berlin and happily laid claim to them. [. . .] Up to 1990, the number of Russians in Berlin remained relatively low. In West Berlin after the war, almost all traces of the ﬁrst Russian emigration had been eradicated. The Allies strictly controlled further entry; as late as 1975, only 174 former Soviet citizens were reported. [. . .] More than 26,000 Russian guests booked hotel rooms in Berlin last year, most of them for an extended week of shopping. Particularly popular is the traditional Shopping Center of the West (Kaufhaus des Westens): “The Russians came promptly on the ﬁrst day of the clearance sale with their translators and bought us out with cash,” recounts a saleswoman from the furs department. Boutiques and jewelers around the Kurfürstendamm have long since adjusted to the new clientele and hired Russian-speaking personnel. Even at the Friedrich Street Mercedes-Benz dealership, it is a Russian selling the cars. Ninety percent of the customers come from Moscow or Kiev; money is no object. Payment in full. A young Russian in shorts and a Lacoste shirt nods to the woman accompanying him as he decides on a Diesel C 220 model. The price is 62,000 marks. The young woman pulls a pack full of large bills out of her shoulder bag and disappears into the backroom to make the exchange. A bit later, a man from Almaty in Kazakhstan purchases an S-Class Mercedes for more than 200,000 marks. It is not just the Berliners but also the Russian migrants who settled in Berlin that are bothered by these climbers with a penchant for grandiosity. They fear that they are giving resident Russians a bad name and note with concern that as time goes on, more and more criminal business owners show up among the nouveau riche. Almost every shop owner and restauranteur of Russian heritage has already had a visit from the Maﬁa toughs. Even in Vassja’s squatter bar, two footmen have already stopped by. Those guys quickly got the picture that nothing is there for them. The neighborhood toughs push their demands with extreme brutality. Since 1991, the police have tallied 11 homicides, more than any other foreign minority in Berlin. For Raschel Dimant from Riga, age 51, 1994 was a sad year. “Many relatives and acquaintances of mine lost their lives,” weeps this woman, who has secured the title Madame Dimant in the merchant scene at the ﬂeamarket on the 17th of June Boulevard. Concerns began to arise when her brother-in-law, Berlin’s most prominent Russian icon merchant and antiquarian, was shot in his Ku’damm gallery by an armed robber. Madame Dimant also knew Berlin’s last victim, a 27-year-

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old salesman murdered in March. The murderer shot this White Russian with 10 bullets. On the day of the burial at the Russian Orthodox cemetery, various luxury limousines parked on Tegel’s Wittestrasse. The mourners, clad in black, made their way through a sea of white ﬂowers, as singers accompanied the ceremony. For Bishop Feofan, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany, such funerals are not an unfamiliar spectacle. Burials of members of the 2,000-member Berlin parish resemble those in “Italian Maﬁa ﬁlms,” says the holy man. Feodan refrains from critiquing the life choices of the victims: according to him, all are God’s children in death. Nonbelievers are less calm about these things. Without being asked, Vassja apologizes for the fact “that these kinds of people are abusing German hospitality.” Vassja, who does not regard the lack of warm water in his building “as a mark of indignity,” is looking for a job to escape his existence as a sporadic landscaper for the Social Bureau. Soon he will take up his philosophy studies again, which he had broken off in Moscow. “But before that, I have to establish a legal company for the bar,” he resolves. Vassja has indeed arrived in Germany. 8 GÜNTHER BECKSTEIN

AN APPROACH TO THE GUIDING CULTURE First published as “Annäherung an die Leitkultur” in ifa:Zeitschrift für KulturAustausch (March 1999). Translated by David Gramling. Beckstein (b. 1943, Hersbruck) has served as Bavarian interior minister since 1993. He was one of the primary negotiators in the Immigration Law compromise of June 2004.

Our foreign fellow citizens have made formidable contributions to the economic and cultural development of Germany. Therefore, I want to state clearly that I consider foreigners to be an enrichment. A constructive coexistence expands the horizon on both sides, promotes understanding for other cultures and ways of living, and ultimately contributes to more tolerance. Germany has impressively proven in the past decades that it is a foreigner-friendly country. We must not, however, overlook the fact that the Federal Republic has taken ﬁrst place in Europe with its approximately 9 percent foreigner population. [. . .] In many urban residential areas, the foreigner population has become disproportionately high in recent times. An article in the Berlin Morgenpost made me quite pensive: German residents of the Berlin district of Moabit are complaining of increasing tensions with the Turkish-Arab majority population as well as about their children being terrorized, and even speak of an

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outright displacement pressure. The interests of the indigenous population are constantly negated, says the declaration, which was also underwritten by integrated foreigners in Germany. In schools as well, the problem is clear in a somewhat dramatic form. In many trade-school classes, the foreigner rate is near 80 percent, and the pupils have very little command of German. At a workshop in Munich, the Berlin commissioner of foreigner affairs reported on two schools in Berlin that, in the wake of ghetto formation, had not one student who speaks German as his or her mother language. These speciﬁc problems strengthen my conviction that we must hand down a clear rejection of multicultural ideologies. With the concept “multicultural,” a link is usually made to the notion that different foreign cultures have equal rights alongside German culture and that, endowed with the dictum of protection and support, they will be recognized as a piece of our national culture. This approach amounts to the formation of an official “state of many peoples,” which neglects the concerns of the German majority population in an unacceptable way. The consequence would ultimately be to relinquish the nation as a community of laws and common destiny, a loss of identity and the feeling of belonging together, a vague “living next to” rather than the necessary “living with,” and the development of segregated parallel societies. Thus, I can only agree with former federal chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who labeled it as regressive to establish a so-called multicultural society in Germany. A crucial precondition for a burgeoning and peaceful coexistence is that we achieve real integration of our foreign fellow citizens. Real integration demands, ﬁrst of all, major accomplishments from individuals. The acquisition of the German language is a ﬁrst crucial step. In addition, foreign fellow citizens must devote themselves to our state and its societal and constitutional order and value system with no ifs, ands, or buts. Respecting our political, social, and cultural conditions is essential. [. . .] All those willing to integrate are called to comprehensively use the integration offerings at the federal, provincial, municipal, and nonproﬁt levels and those of numerous social institutions. It must be our common goal to develop these offerings even more on all levels and to shape them as attractively as possible. To this end, the integration paper presented by the CDU/CSU faction in the German Bundestag includes an abundance of important solutions. It is my opinion that the following aspects should be strongly kept in mind. The educational level of foreign youth needs constant improvement. This is the best way to counteract disproportional unemployment. Learning more and better German is the nuts and bolts of integration. We must therefore constantly increase foreigners’ willingness to make extensive use of the numerous offerings available.

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We must exhaust all measures to counteract ghetto formation, which is counterproductive to integration. Approaches include, for example, subsidized housing allocations. Ultimately, the goal is to not exceed a certain percentage of foreigners in educational instruction. This ideal in no way derives from xenophobic or furtive motives. We must be concerned that in an elementary-school class with more than 60 percent foreign children, the guiding image of integration is simply no longer present. Real integration is, incidentally, only possible if the number of people to integrate is limited. No society can accept other cultures limitlessly. The integrative power of our people must not be overtaxed. The key concept for Germany’s integration contribution is to be found in the ﬁeld of psychology and is called Zustimmung, or agreement. Only when German society has the feeling that it is not overwhelmed or even endangered can integration politics really be successful. Where acceptance and integrative capacity wane, social volatility and xenophobia arise. We are coming up against the limits of our acceptance capacity. Curbing integration through effective national, as well as European, measures is thus the imperative of the hour. The creation of an immigration law with a quota regulation is the wrong way. An additional quota would further increase the already high number of people who are immigrating as asylum seekers and refugees to join their families or on other lawful grounds. Extending migration would not only massively exacerbate the problem of unemployment among unskilled workers but would also lead to broad shortages in the socialwelfare system. Only a cautious, compassionate, and responsibility-conscious procedure, which takes the interests of the indigenous population just as seriously as those of foreigners willing to integrate, can guarantee the peaceful coexistence of people of different cultural spheres in our country in the long run. I will continue to speak for such a politics, informed by mutual tolerance and respect, with great insistence. 9 ANDREA BÖHM

HARMONY OF CULTURES? First published as “Harmonie der Kulturen?” in Die Zeit (March 9, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. Böhm (b. 1961) is a U.S.-based correspondent for various German newspapers.

An immigration country needs conﬂict: the second part of the debate on the limits of tolerance The concept of tolerance is like a Christmas tree decorated with too much tinsel. It must be undecorated. The more appeals or alliances for tolerance

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that appear in our midst these days, the greater the demand for intimacy and familiarity with the foreign will be. However, tolerance comes from enduring something, not from liking something. That idea sounds fatalistic, but it actually creates the ﬁrst precondition for pragmatism. For if one frees the concept of tolerance from the harmony imperative, space is created for conﬂict. In turn, conﬂict, according to the social philosopher Michael Walzer, is the precondition for tolerance as everyday praxis and not just as individual virtue. Without identifying conﬂict and acting upon it, no immigration society can come to understand how much difference it is willing and able to endure. In this abstract sense, it sounds like a harmless bit of uninspiring discourse and ethical exercise, a little political group therapy. Only the concrete questions lead to the sensitive spots—for example, to the discussion on “foreigners” and criminality. For some time now, the Hannover-based criminologist Christian Pfeiffer has been presenting the results of his institute’s youth-violence study at conferences and panel discussions. According to the study, the increase in violent crimes is actually lower than the political statistics on criminality suggest; second, it is primarily attributable to young male migrants and resettlers. Pfeiffer names three factors as reasons: poor educational instruction, social disadvantages in the family, and an imported “macho culture,” primarily among Turkish immigrants, which expresses itself in the intrafamily violence of fathers against wives and children—and continues on from there. “Daughters,” says Pfeiffer, “run the risk of assuming the mother’s victim role, while the sons become perpetrators outside the four walls of the home.” According to him, what plays out in many such Turkish families is “not tolerable.” This situation is a powder keg, not because the validity of the study is dubious. Some critics say Pfeiffer is feeding munitions to the Right. But what would be the alternative? To avoid a long-overdue conﬂict? Pfeiffer is appealing to the “Turkish community” in Germany to deal critically with the problem. In doing so, he is risking impertinence.

Leftists have been acting like social workers in their dealings with foreigners Such appeals to a minority “community” always entail arbitrariness, given the deﬁning power of the majority. For example, the software designer or the law student have absolutely nothing in common with the 14-year-old repeat offender—other than their parents’ country of origin. Yet violent youth offenders, and not law students, shape the image of Turkish migrants in our society. For minorities, it is always a tightrope act to discuss their own grievances. This was observable in the United States in the early 1990s among AfricanAmericans who engaged in an excruciating discussion of black youth violence in the cities. The primarily white media followed the process benevolently. They in no way felt compelled to ask, however, whether it is tolerable

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that every Afro-American between the age of 13 and 45 must live under general suspicion of being dangerous, because of the media’s ﬁxation on young black gang members. The key principle for constructive conﬂict is that both parties be on an even playing ﬁeld. Of greatest importance is official affirmation—that is, citizenship. Hardly any country of immigration has refused this option so adamantly as Germany has. Now, the new citizenship law will gradually correct this grievance. An open critical dialogue about violent tendencies among migrant youth remains, however, as long as their belonging in this society is in question. In the meantime, 14-year-old “Mehmet,” who was born in Munich and acquired a mile-long rap sheet there, should not be deported—unless one seeks to make an ethnic problem out of a social and political one. So no one ought to be surprised when the stereotype of the combative foreigner leads to daily reports of assaulted foreigners. This type of ethnicization of conﬂicts is providing a disguised legitimation for hunting down the “other,” even at the highest political levels, among residents of the new federal states, who never learned how to interact with foreigners. At a recent group discussion about tolerance, a Brandenburg state attorney offered an articulation of the concept: “One may ﬁnd the other abominable, but one is not permitted to beat him up.” Above all, one must perceive him as an acting subject. Excluded from this new era of conﬂict will be one German institution that appears very sympathetic at ﬁrst glance: the social service agencies. For decades, left-liberal pedagogues and social workers exercised sovereignty over the discussion on foreigners. The ethnologist Werner Schiffauer called this state of affairs “gentle assimilation.” While conservatives uncompromisingly demanded adaptation, left liberals attended to foreigners through care and support mechanisms. The Commissioner of Foreigner Affairs office is a typical result of this way of thinking—interceding on behalf of an aphasic minority that is stuck on the political sidelines. These government agencies will no longer have a right to existence if independent lobbying groups from among the “supported” people themselves come to the fore. All the more reason that mediators are helpful. They could, for instance, attend to a problem that has been smoldering between some Muslim congregations and Der Spiegel for some time now. The former reacted in disgust to a reprinted painting of the prophet Mohammed in a cover story on the topic of morals, because there is a ban on images in Islam. Since then, protests have been raining down upon the editorial staff. A capacity for conﬂict would be well exercised in this case. There are mutual allegations of intolerance: Muslims perceive a lack of respect for their religious rules, Der Spiegel perceives a threat to pluralism from the religious proscriptions of individual groups. Furthermore, there is clearly a need for compromise on a few ground rules, the abuse of which will not be tolerated: for example, the

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habit among some Turkish-language media of publishing the telephone numbers and addresses of their least-favored journalists. Muslim believers are no longer looking only for niches in Germany where they can rest unmolested. They are now struggling for a stake in societal power and political inﬂuence. In principle, the state’s tolerance limit is clear: the constitution comes before religion and the social order linked to it. Behind this principle lie countless ambiguous cases of conﬂict. The latest example involves the Islamic Federation of Berlin. The organization is under the control of Islamic fundamentalists and is under surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Nonetheless, it has succeeded in presenting itself as “integrated” enough that the courts recognize its status as a religious community and grant it the right to shape Islamic religious instruction at Berlin schools. Some Germans as well as Turks applaud this recognition as a long-overdue step toward the integration of Muslim pupils, whereas others are angered by all the starry-eyed good faith. Whoever believes that these conﬂicts are battled along ethnic lines is mistaken. It is primarily secular immigrants who are ﬁrst affected by the politicization of Islam and engage in the conﬂict about the limits of tolerance. For many, the desire for a multicultural society has been a thing of the past since they read Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations a few years ago. But behind the laborious normalcy of an immigration society, there is no way back. In the instance of the Islamic Federation, two scenarios for the future may be played out. Either the organization will soon become a fundamentalist catchall for the losers of an ethnic underclass—a kind of Nation of Islam in Germany—or the CDU will discover that Muslims with a good education, entrepreneurial spirit, patriarchal family ideals, and the deep religiosity one encounters among Islamists signal an attractive voting group.

10 JOHANNES RAU

WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT ILLUSIONS: LIVING TOGETHER IN GERMANY Translation courtesy of the German Embassy in Australia: www.germanembassy.org.au. Rau (1931–2006) was federal president of Germany from 1999 to 2004. He delivered this speech on May 12, 2000, at the House of World Cultures in Berlin.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Thirty percent of all children in German schools come from immigrant or recently naturalized families. At some schools the proportion is 60 percent or more. In 1997 and 1998, more people from other countries left Germany

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than arrived. Almost 50 percent of all asylum seekers within the European Union apply for asylum in Germany. Of those that seek asylum here in Germany, around 4 percent are granted asylum. Turks alone have established more than 50,000 companies in Germany and created 200,000 jobs. The German economy will in the future not have enough qualiﬁed personnel. These are six widely differing statements on reality in Germany—and yet they are all part of a broader picture. Immigration, refugee contingents, limitations on establishment of residence, immigrants, integration, Green Cards, asylum, deportation, repatriation—these key words have for years repeatedly returned to mold political discussion. Many individual problems and many detailed issues also form the stuff of private conversations—and also often lead to wordless confrontation. More than 7 million foreigners live in Germany. They have in the past years changed our society. But we do not give enough consideration to what this means for life in our country. And we do not act in line with this changed reality. How we live with one another is one of the most important topics of all when we think about the future of our society. We must come to grips with this topic, because it concerns everyone in our country, even if some people have not yet noticed, because in some respects, it goes to the very heart of our constitutional order and our constitutional reality, because waiting does not solve problems but aggravates them, and lastly because it comes down to whether we can join forces to provide a good future for everyone. Everybody knows that immigration gives rise to strong emotions in many people—good emotions as well as less admirable ones. Precisely for this reason we must talk as openly as possible about it—and as calmly and realistically as possible. Often there is too much that remains unspoken. Often we lead illusionary debates rather than tackling the broader and more fundamental topic of harmonious coexistence. We must overcome uncertainty and fear, which can lead to xenophobia, hatred, and violence. We must overcome a blind xenophilia, which denies that there are problems or conﬂicts when people of differing origins live together. [. . .] We do not need any artiﬁcial debates on whether Germany is an immigration country or an in-migration country. We must not continue to pluck isolated issues from the discussion: today Islamic religion classes in schools, tomorrow Green Cards, then work permits for seasonal workers, or the treatment of refugees from civil wars. [. . .] It is not difficult to act in a xenophile manner in well-off areas. It is harder in places that are being changed more and more, where a “local” can no longer read the shop signs, where families from all over the world live together in the same building, where the odors of various cuisines mingle in the corridors, where foreign music is played loudly, where we encounter totally different styles of living and religious customs. Life together becomes

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difficult when long-established Germans no longer feel at home, when they feel like foreigners in their own country. It is one thing to enjoy multicultural radio programs in air-conditioned cars. It is another to sit on the underground or the bus and be surrounded by people whose language one cannot understand. I can understand parents who are concerned about the educational future of their children in schools with a high percentage of foreign pupils. I have come across it myself. I can also understand that people are worried by the above-average crime rates among young foreigners and ethnic German immigrants from Eastern Europe. I can understand how girls and young women are not the only ones afraid of being harassed or intimidated by gangs of young foreigners. Anyone who does not take such fears and concerns seriously is talking past their audience, making them ask “what do they know?” Where fears and concerns are justiﬁed, an attempt must be made to ﬁnd a remedy. We must explain and be able to explain why there is no alternative, at least no better one. For example, people get worked up about asylum seekers who sit around all day in the center of town, thus creating the impression that they are happy to do nothing and be supported by the taxpayers. Far too few of them know that asylum seekers are legally prohibited from working during their ﬁrst three months here and that employment offices thereafter continue to turn them away. People who know this may wonder what the point of such a rule is. But they won’t accuse asylum seekers of not wanting to work. I am deeply committed to a worldwide dialogue between cultures and religions. This is an important topic. I have, however, never viewed it as a substitute for tackling the everyday problems that arise from the coexistence of different cultures in our own country. We cannot simply talk about harmonious coexistence in the abstract; we have to look at it in a practical context. Xenophobia is present in our society; foreigners sometimes meet with hostility. There is violence, even murder. But more dangerous still than individual acts of violence is the social climate that shrouds xenophobia in hidden or even open sympathy. There is an aggressive intolerance of foreigners, which is encouraged when the majority does not speak out against it. Anyone who does not speak out abets. We are all called upon. Politicians, policemen, the judiciary, and teachers all have a special responsibility to counteract hostile tendencies. To do this requires civil courage and support. [. . .] When right-wing extremists proudly speak of “national liberated zones,” the alarm is sounded for the rule of law and democracy, and all true patriots are given a reason to hang their heads in shame. There are reasons and explanations for racism and racist violence, but nothing can justify them. Anyone who uses violence must be punished—the quicker, the better. [. . .] It is encouraging that the number of students of Turkish descent at our universities has doubled during the last 10 years. However, the number of for-

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eign pupils at middle schools is three times greater than that of their German peers, and the reverse is the case at high schools. Forty percent of nonGerman youths with a graduation certiﬁcate from a middle school do not ﬁnd an apprenticeship. We need education concepts that acknowledge that pupils from German families with a Western Christian background are no longer the normal case everywhere. This must be given greater attention in basic training and continuing education for teachers. I would like to say a few words of encouragement to you all. Take part in our society—in your own districts and in schools, in trade unions or in sport clubs. Only if as many as possible play an active role in society can we make full use of the riches that can become available to us when people from different cultures live together. [. . .] I would like to see a diverse and vibrant Germany—peaceful and cosmopolitan. Working toward this is worth every effort. What matters is not the origins of the individual but, rather, that we create a prosperous future together. 11 HANS-HERBERT HOLZUMER

FALSE DREAMS OF A BRILLIANT NEW BEGINNING First published as “Der falsche Traum vom glanzvollen Neustart” in Süddeutsche Zeitung ( June 10, 2000). Translated by David Gramling.

Jewish immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States can make it to Germany with relative ease. But they do not ﬁnd any work. The professor had nothing but the highest opinion of Germany. During his three-month guest professorship, the Lithuanian became acquainted with a place that interested him greatly. The working conditions at the German university were superb, and he enjoyed the collegial climate. Then, back at home in Vilnius, he heard that he could return to this beautiful, hospitable country as a “quota refugee.” One could even say he was courted at the German consulate. He followed this renewed invitation. But this time it was quite different. Germany reared its bureaucratic head: the egalitarian treatment he had previously enjoyed as a professor and scientist was nowhere in sight. Instead, his path followed the “Procedural Stipulation of February 15, 1991, pursuant to the Law on Measures for Refugees Accepted in the Context of Humanitarian Assistance Actions,” according to information provided by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. This path led him to the Zirndorf refugee camp, then into a dormitory on Schleissheimer Street in Munich, then into a humble subsidized apartment, which the city of Munich pays for. Since the expiration of his six-month “integration-assistance” package, the professor has been a social-welfare recipient. He received a free German

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course and a continuing-education credit. Since then, he has been prohibited from taking part in government-sponsored career-development initiatives, in accordance with the Social Welfare Law Code (SGB III). His academic qualiﬁcations from the Soviet Union have no value here. Nor can he ﬁnd a job adequate for his education level. In contrast to “late resettlers” from the former Soviet Union, he is not entitled to a German passport. He kept his previous identiﬁcation papers, despite the fact that he can no longer return to his home country. The moratorium on recruitment continues to prevent foreign workers from taking away German jobs. The loopholes that the new Recruitment Moratorium Exception Statute is supposed to open will not be of any use to him, because he is not an IT expert with a six-ﬁgure earning potential. Maybe he should just ﬁnd something to clean. The professor’s fate is anything but unusual. Many Jews from the former Soviet republics have come to Germany, especially those from states that are Muslim dominated in the post-Soviet era. “Lifelong discrimination, the impression that everyone is leaving, above-average educational qualiﬁcations, and the expectation of a good, fresh start in Germany, are among their most common motivations,” summarizes Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Israeli Cultural Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria and vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “Most emigrant Jews had good careers in the Soviet Union and were relatively privileged.” Therefore, their shock is all the greater. According to Knobloch, “Upon their arrival in Germany, the internationally renowned surgeon and the celebrated actress become social-welfare recipients, occupants of mass housing projects.”

Romantic Expectations The questionable aspect of these cases is the fact that the immigrants are not refugees in the classical sense, refugees for whom a certain amount of hardship is expected upon starting anew in Germany. These so-called quota refugees were often out and out recruited. A realistic image of the country has not been provided at Germany’s embassies and consulates. Consequently, most immigrants cannot reasonably imagine their future situation after immigration. Their expectations of life in Germany have been romanticized, says Charlottte Knobloch. How can this be the case? The quota policy was based on talks between the former chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Heinz Galinski, and the former federal chancellor Helmut Kohl, which led to an accord on January 9, 1991. According to the Interior Ministry, the contents are “not available to third parties.” Unofficially, it is said that the quota consists of an annual 80,000 people over a period of 20 years. Since then, German consular officials in Eastern Europe have been trying to ﬁll this quota. How many have followed the call and how many are still to come is not documented in statistics, because immigrants are not counted according to religion. Since

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1989, in Munich alone, more than 3,000 new congregation members have been registered, says Charlotte Knobloch. [. . .]

Strengthening the Congregations “The answer is clear for the federal government: strengthening our Jewish congregations beneﬁts a reuniﬁed Germany,” declares the Interior Ministry. Career prospects, however, are almost entirely absent for these emigrants. The director of the Munich Labor Office, Erwin Blume, is attempting to develop an initiative to refer qualiﬁed, Russian-speaking job seekers to exportoriented ﬁrms. “We must not see this group as a problem group,” he says, “but as a potential for productivity.” But in the face of a bureaucracy and political sphere whose highest credo is “Germany is not an immigration country,” it is doubtful that he will have much success. [. . .]

12 FRIEDRICH MERZ

IMMIGRATION AND IDENTITY: ON THE FREEDOM-BASED GERMAN GUIDING CULTURE First published as “Friedrich Merz zum Thema: Einwanderung und Identität—Zur Diskussion um die ‘freiheitliche deutsche Leitkultur’ ” in die tageszeitung (October 25, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. Merz (b. 1955, Brilon) is a member of the German Bundestag and was chair of that body’s Christian Democratic Union faction from 2000 to 2002. Though his proposal of a “German guiding culture” catalyzed ﬁerce debate about cultural pluralism and constitutional patriotism, the concept of a “guiding culture” (Leitkultur) was ﬁrst popularized by the Syrian-born Göttingen professor Bassam Tibi (see chapter 5 in this volume) in 1996.

[. . .] Immigration and integration can be successful in the long run only if they ﬁnd broad support among the population. This will necessitate a capacity for integration on both sides. The host country must be tolerant and open; immigrants who want to live with us on a long-term basis must, for their part, be ready to respect the rules of coexistence in Germany. I have described these rules as the “liberal German guiding culture.” The formulation set off knee-jerk indignation as well as broad approval. Particularly thought provoking is the comment that my critique was correct and understandable because there was no longer a generally accepted deﬁnition of what we understand our culture to be (possibly because of the long-neglected debate about standards and a basic sphere of social agreement). It is alleged that human relations are now regulated only by laws, not by a common valueoriented social consensus. If this indication is correct, then we should argue not over concepts but rather over content. Only when we have created clarity for ourselves can a concept for immigration and integration truly succeed.

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The constitutional tradition of our Basic Law is essential to our country’s culture of civil liberties. It is shaped by the absolute respect for human dignity, a person’s inalienable personal rights, and by the civil rights, liberties, and the right to protection from the state, as well as civic duties. The Basic Law is thus the most important expression of our system of values and therefore a part of German cultural identity that enables the inner coherence of our society. German culture was shaped decisively after World War II by the European idea. As a country in the middle of Europe, Germany and the Germans have identiﬁed themselves with European integration, with a Europe of peace and freedom, based on democracy and a social market economy. Integral to our system of freedoms is the position of the woman in our society, which was achieved only after decades of struggle. She must also be accepted by those who, primarily for religious reasons, have a much different expectation. We cannot and must not tolerate the development of parallel societies. Cultural coexistence and mutual enrichment through cultural experiences from other countries come up against their own limits, where basic consensus toward freedom, human dignity, and equality is no longer observed. Coexistence with foreigners thus has its consequences. People of different origins can shape their future together only on the foundation of commonly accepted values. Furthermore, a successful immigration and integration policy must insist that the German language be understood and spoken. This requirement is not national linguistic chauvinism but rather a basic precondition for peaceful coexistence in our country; it is also our cultural foundation even if the Basic Law does not touch on this issue. Whether it is the identity of our country, the constitutional patriotism, or even the liberal guiding culture that has shaped us, the immigration and integration of foreigners, which we want to and must promote, need to be oriented toward commonly held, valid standards. Whoever avoids a discussion about it or, at best, answers with hackneyed phrases, merely prepares the ground for political radicalism, which until this point has thankfully been limited to minorities on the left and the right. 13 G U S TA V S E I B T

NO GREATER COUNTRY First published as “Kein schöner Land” in Die Zeit (November 2, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell.

Typically German: the historically clueless advocates for a guiding culture are following a fatal tradition and ignoring the modern feeling of Heimat. Germany will have to cope with a certain amount of immigration in the

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coming decades, so that the demographic break in the current generation of 40-year-olds will be less problematic. The CDU is no longer disputing this fact, though it is the same party that stubbornly denied the problem as long as it called the shots. The CDU—ﬁrst in the form of Jörg Schönbohm and then Friedrich Merz—has developed the concept “German guiding culture” as a new answer to these circumstances. The immigrants would be wise to adapt, especially if there is no way to do without them. The content of the idea is diffuse, applying to everything from the Basic Law and command of the German language to “Western values.” Less sibylline is the new general secretary, Meyer, who is already barking that foreigners should abide by German “regulations and laws”—a paradoxical request in a situation in which foreigners cannot rely on the police to do their duty and protect their lives. However unclear the content of the concept “guiding culture” may be, its function is clear. The phrase guiding culture denotes an empty space: the assimilative attraction that enables immigration societies to receive foreigners and still retain their own identity. The German guiding culture would in effect have to achieve what the United States’ mythological self-image as a society of free and equal pursuers of happiness or France’s universalistic selfconception of the nation and human rights accomplish. The American and French self-concept is realized particularly in both nations’ capacity to look appealing beyond their borders. The situation is similar for the English gentleman’s ideals as well as for the autonomous traditions of small nations like Switzerland and Holland.

The Expulsion of Spirit in Favor of the Reich That Germany does not have such an advertiser-friendly, hospitable, and independently convincing national culture at its disposal is proven by the tense, authoritarian attempt of the coalition parties to postulate one. The more they bark, the more unattractive German culture becomes. Contrary to the claims (most prominently by Martin Walser) that this lack of appeal is simply a consequence of National Socialist crimes and the subsequently necessary self-critical assessment, this weakness arose during Bismarckian nation-state formation and was already diagnosed before World War II. In the 1935 ﬁrst edition of Helmuth Plessner’s famous book, Die verspätete Nation [The Belated Nation], which described the Bismarck empire as a pure invention of power, he spoke of a “great power without a conception of the state,” without a persuasive concept, which both France and England have embedded into the foundation of their nations. [. . .] The sinister, exclusionary origin of the German nation-state instantly created a venomous atmosphere in the ﬁrst decade after the establishment of the Reich: in the anti-Roman cultural battle that egregiously infringed on the law, in the anti-Polish policy for West Prussia, and in the Berlin anti-Semitist debate of 1878. In that nasty dispute, the imperious phrase guiding culture

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would have ﬁt perfectly, since that debate was an equally artiﬁcial uproar over the supposed unwillingness of a small minority to conform. Whoever uses the phrase guiding culture today must have forgotten much of the German history he pretends to love. For in place of a humanitarian element typical of national ideas in Western nations, a cultural darkness arose in Germans, one that the phrase guiding culture references with hideous precision. This missionary consciousness celebrated its most wanton excesses in the journalistic military deployment of hundreds of German professors during World War I; one can read about this “intellectual mobilization” in Kurt Flasch’s recently published account. Here it becomes clear what a guiding culture can look like in Germany: Protestant, militaristic, idealistic (therefore uncompromising), apolitical, authoritarian, faintly religious, and historically philosophical. The dichotomies are familiar: culture versus civilization, spirit versus intellect, and music versus politics. What generations of enthusiastic foreigners had once seen as typically German—the subtle, the sentimental, the slightly anachronistic, the meditative, as well as the provincially endearing, the profundity of German existence—all the romantic valeurs of German culture (not the least of all its humor) had long been trampled underfoot by the homogeneous ideals of a society that wanted to know no parties, only Germans. Without this background, the National Socialists would not have been able to wage their war against modern art, the churches, and the Jews. [. . .] 14 MARK TERKESSIDIS

GERMAN GUIDING CULTURE: THE GAME OF ORIGINS First published as “Deutsche Leitkultur: Das Spiel mit der Herkunft” in Tagesspiegel (November 4, 2000). Translated by David Gramling. Terkessidis (b. 1966) is a psychologist and freelance journalist.

Germans are racking their brains about what their guiding culture is. Skating rinks and McDonald’s, Bach and Roberto Blanco, the Reeperbahn and Cardinal Ratzinger? Hülya B., a Muslim woman, knows. Hülya B. is a trained educator and is unemployed. This is due primarily to the fact that her religious denomination is not Christian. Even her career counselor prophesied this situation, because more than two-thirds of all kindergartens in the Federal Republic are managed by church entities. For Muslim women, this means: not a chance. Of course, Hülya B. applied at state kindergartens, but the competition there is very intense. And she was informed in a roundabout way often enough on the telephone that most native parents have problems with a Turkish woman with Islamic beliefs taking care of their children. At the moment, the young woman is doing various temporary jobs. Hülya B. knows quite well what “German guiding culture” means. Though commentators from the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper dismiss

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the concept as “drivel” and simultaneously a “dishonorable discussion” in the Bild newspaper’s opinion section, guiding culture is anything but ﬂowery words for most migrants. To be sure, in Germany, there is far more of something resembling a dominant culture than in other comparable European immigration societies. In the current debate, the opponents and defenders of guiding culture at least agree on one thing: that German society became culturally distinct long ago. The conﬂict has to do only with how it is evaluated. By and large, the liberal public ﬁnds diversity normal and wonders why the bellicose rapper mien of Turkish teenagers or the head scarves of young Muslim women are any worse than the rest of the population’s private cookouts. In the Union [CDU], by contrast, many fear the loss of values, standards, or rules of play in the face of cultural difference. According to assertions from Meyer to Goppel, foreigners always seem to be abusing the rules expected of guests: mistreating the constitution, or behaving disrespectfully toward German customs. Angela Merkel sees the “leftist idea” of the multicultural society as a failure. How much difference does Germany really tolerate? Hülya B. is not too strict about her beliefs. She does not wear a head scarf. Were she to wear one, her problems would be all the more apparent. The case of Fereshta Ludin ultimately demonstrates that the head scarf means much more in this society than a private tendency. She was not allowed to become a teacher in Baden-Württemberg because the Ministry of Culture considered her head scarf a “symbol of cultural separation” that would not coalesce with notions of tolerance here. Although more crosses ornament school walls in the state of Bavaria, after a converse resolution by the Federal Constitutional Court, Ludin’s symbolic devotion is not allowed in the school. And this, despite the fact that the learned young woman represents a model example of “integration.”

Everyday Ostracism Without a doubt, Fareshta Ludin can imagine something when she hears “German guiding culture.” So can the Muslim organizations that no longer wish to practice their religion in backyard meetings and thus are applying for permission to build a mosque. The officials and inhabitants of most communities cannot bear the idea of seeing a minaret out the window. In contrast, the chimes of nearby Christian churches are felt to be normal, despite continuously dwindling signiﬁcance and membership. The same thing occurs with religious instruction. For 40 years, Muslim believers have lived here. But whereas both domestic Christian denominations are taught in schools without question, the demand for a corresponding class for Muslims appears to many as a usurpation of German schools by fanatical Koran preachers. Of course, it is not simply about Islam. How about Orthodox classes for students of Greek or Serbian origin? In contrast to France—though many na-

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tives do not know it—there is no secularism in Germany. State and religion are not strictly separated from each other. Here, the two Christian denominations are privileged, and thus far there have been hardly any attempts to introduce secularism, thus making denomination a private issue, or to equally enfranchise the beliefs of immigrants. “Guiding culture”—really just pretty words? The dominance of an invisible guiding culture encompasses more than the religious sphere. For instance, Serhat Z. received no apprenticeship position. Meanwhile, he knows for sure that it has to do with his origin. After numerous failed attempts, he put the rule to the test. He called various middle-class businesses about an apprenticeship and gave his own name on some occasions and an invented native name on others. When his “foreign” name came up, the conversation was most often quickly over. Young people with migration backgrounds have a more difficult time obtaining an apprenticeship position. This has nothing to do with education level. Studies show that the decision makers in this country’s various small businesses consider the cultural background of young migrants to be a problem. Above all, it is alleged that young men of Turkish ancestry would disturb the business culture—due, for instance, to their ostensibly higher irritability in matters of honor. [. . .] In contrast to France or Great Britain, “we” in Germany means only the community of natives; this “we” sounds entirely exclusive for all people of non-German backgrounds. However, migrants often do not appear very forthcoming. For most natives, their communities [original in English] come across as closed off and bound to their homeland. The Turkish men’s café or the head-scarved woman seem to belong to another world. Even today, many ﬁrst-generation Greek immigrants know no more about their own cities than their workplace, the Greek church congregation, and the route to the airport. But maintaining an imaginary homeland or one’s own tradition as a frame of reference is not always due to a defensive posture among migrants but to the conditions for acceptance in Germany. From the outset, access to citizenship was made almost impossible for migrants and thus created barriers to political participation. On top of everything, membership in a political migrant organization can be grounds for the denial of citizenship even today. Thus, there was nothing else for immigrants to do than to relocate to the community activities of cultural organizations. [. . .]

Head Scarf as Symbol Also, the much-debated head scarves, evidently the signal par excellence for the traditionality of the “foreigner,” are anything but traditional. Often enough, young, educated women of Turkish descent wear the head scarf. However, this head scarf has absolutely nothing to do with the traditional head scarf of the mothers, which leaves the hairline free and ties under the chin. Young women wear a so-called turban—a towel that covers both the

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whole hair and the shoulders. The “turban” has no special cultural meaning in Turkey and is worn by young Muslim women in all European countries today. Moreover, the Essen education researcher Yasemin Karakasoglu-Aydın discovered in a survey of “head-scarf students” that the women’s families were often not very religiously oriented. To be sure, this head scarf is a religious symbol—but the decision to wear it is felt as a fully individual and particular expression of personality—once again not traditional but very modern values. The separation of a German guiding culture from a foreign tradition, which has not been traditional for a long time, proves to be primarily strategic. The desire to maintain the separation, which the Union is now arguing for, portends a static future. In contrast, we should concern ourselves with the further dissolution of the currently existing guiding culture. We need a political framework that will put migrants’ societal participation on stable ground. To overcome the strict separation between “we” and “they,” it will be necessary for both natives and migrants to identify the sites of each other’s entanglements—that fragile world in between where identities appear dependent on each other in unpleasant, unsettling ways.

15 MOSHE ZIMMERMANN

THE WORD GAMES ARE OVER: MORE IMMIGRATION, LESS GUIDING CULTURE First published as “Das Wortspiel ist aus: Mehr Einwanderung, weniger Leitkultur” in Süddeutsche Zeitung (November 18, 2000). Translated by Tes Howell. Zimmermann (b. 1943, Jerusalem) is the director of the Richard-Koebner-Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Paul Spiegel is president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

For the historian George Mosse, there was no doubt: since the rise of the Third Reich, German culture, the heir to the Enlightenment, was not to be found on German soil but abroad in exile with the Jekkes, the German Jews. It was the German-Jewish educated classes, he once wrote, who rescued the positive in German culture after the dictatorship, the Holocaust, and the collapse; he wrote this around the time that Helmut Kohl heralded his cultural turn in Germany. Is this what Paul Spiegel meant when he announced that he wanted to use the term German culture as a replacement for German guiding culture? If so, then Paul Spiegel’s attack is coming from the right corner: he speaks, among other things, in the name of murdered and emigrated bearers of German culture, and reacts accordingly to associations that call forth the term guiding culture, associations that conjure up names like Spengler, Moeller van

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den Bruck, or Rosenberg. And when a CDU politician described Spiegel’s complaints as “exaggerated reproaches,” a further association could hardly be avoided: namely, the accusation against the “exaggerated Jewish intellectualism.” There the debate could begin, and the attribute indecent, a word one German politician used to describe Spiegel’s speech, could have been the breaking point.

The Culture of the Constitution Yet one must not take up Spiegel’s alternative concept without further consideration. This phrase has caused too much harm in the past. The confrontation of culture and civilization, the application of the concept in the Third Reich, or the ghettoization of the German Jews in the “Jewish cultural alliance” delegitimized the use of this word for the modern context. Spiegel’s compromise, therefore, does not help the Germans. Perhaps one should choose a word combination with “constitution” instead of “culture?” To preach the old “Germanization” in this era of the “erosion of the national culture” (Hermann Bausinger) or to plead for the “homogeneity of the German people” (Edmund Stoiber)—there’s no future in this! As an outsider and observer of the German scene, one should hardly be surprised. Again and again, a provocative term incites a furor throughout Germany: in the recent past alone, it was “moral weapon,” “intellectual arson,” and “derailment,” terms that have stirred emotions. And now we have landed at “guiding culture.” If one follows the intensive debate about orthography reform, one can sum it all up as “typically German.” However, the debate over words and language must not hide the issues themselves: xenophobia, understanding of the meaning of democracy, and civic and human rights. The approximately 100 murdered victims of racism in Germany within 10 years must call forth alarm similar to the conspicuous alarm over the death toll in the current Middle East intifada. It is about the many people who understand “guiding culture” as looking down on the cultures of the “others,” even if the politicians do not mean it that way. The problem does not begin with skinheads, whom Spiegel fears as the country’s potential future leaders. It begins in the heads of the completely normal people who view the dark-skinned or those with accents as a potential danger. The test is the “everyday test”: How does a salesperson in a department store treat a foreignlooking customer? If the foundation consists of ethnocentrism and racism, then achievement of the next steps is merely a question of the speciﬁc socioeconomic conditions. Soon it will become quite natural to look the other way, not just due to cowardice but to consent as well. In Germany, there is currently no “Fourth Reich” in the making, but it is still a country in which racism has not lost its cultural breeding ground. However, the realization that not only the

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“foreigners” are endangered but also democracy altogether—and therefore all of us—this realization has not become common knowledge. German historians, along with other intellectuals, are in the midst of a vigorous debate on the question of continuity before and after 1945. One discovers, with great dismay, the personal continuity and asks whether the presentation of the separation between personal entanglement in the system before 1945 does not rest upon a deception, whether the whole of society could truly free itself from the “original sin.” As long as this question cannot be clearly answered, one must exercise the greatest caution, and indeed not only among intellectuals. One can only escape this constellation when one dispenses with unnecessary word games and again addresses the questions of immigration. The mission should be compensating for the loss of German culture during the emigration in the 1930s with a new immigration of today, instead of provoking a national German guiding culture. For this immigration will not only enrich the pension fund but also German culture.

16 ULRICH K. PREUSS

MULTIKULTI IS ONLY AN ILLUSION First published as “Multikulti ist nur eine Illusion” in Die Zeit (May 31, 2001). Translated by David Gramling. Preuss (b. 1940, Hannover) has been the president of the Berlin Central Administration of the German Federal Bank since 2002.

Germany is becoming a country of immigration. The Basic Law does not lead the way. Now that the CDU and CSU have shifted their course, Germany is on its way toward officially becoming an immigration country. The politics of migration will from this moment on be a permanent element of German domestic politics. However, the actual challenge of this development is the following: We must transform the already existing and, to a certain extent, merely physical presence of foreigners into a self-evident status of belonging in our society. That is the core of the integration problem currently making its way into the foreground of discussion. I am consciously speaking of foreigners but am not referring to the increasingly outmoded governmental and human-rights concept of the foreign. This concept still derives from the golden-age ideal of a homogenous polity. In those days, those who belonged to other states switched sovereign territories only in small numbers, and mostly only temporarily. In this era, the foreign was that which belonged to another state. Far into the twentieth century, it was the preeminent doctrine that one’s state bound him to an ex-

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clusive and existential relationship. Foreignness in a guest country was, to a certain extent, the opposite of belonging to one’s home state. This approach we may term the “state-rights” model of the foreign. In our time of open statehood characterized by border-crossing mobility and mass migration of labor power, this exclusive and existential quality of citizenship is increasingly the mere formal-legal assignment of the individual to a common essence. Such citizenship reveals little about the identity of a person. Thus we see in the foreigner not much more than the holder of a foreigner’s passport, which he, as a “German Turk,” “German Russian,” or “German Palestinian” often doesn’t even possess anymore. Rather, he is a representative of an ethnic minority living here. In other words, the concept of the foreigner has transformed from a state legal category to a sociocultural one. Meanwhile, the fact that many ethnic minorities live in Germany has clear consequences. The ideal of a homogenous society, which was overcome long ago, is once and for all defunct. It may not and cannot serve as a normative standard any longer. More precisely, if we officially deﬁne ourselves as a country of immigration and accept foreigners as fellow citizens, we must make room for a new normality together. This approach can succeed only if we negotiate consciously in the role of the foreigner, who, together with many others, will form a new societal reality. Until now, the normalization of the foreigner succeeded by means of his naturalization. He thus gave up his previous citizenship and obtained the new one, after a few challenging conditions. Many liberals and leftists believe it is possible to tackle the problem of immigration and integration in this manner today as well. But just as many conservatives have bid farewell to their illusions, leftists and liberals must also now give up that old beloved idea that naturalization— in other words, the acceptance of the immigrant into the legal community of citizens—is the solution to all integration problems. There is an eternal debate about whether foreigners should be naturalized at the end of a long and successful integration, or even at the conclusion of an assimilation process. Others maintain that the acquisition of citizenship must take place at the outset, because it is the precondition for any integration. Leftists and liberals have always fought for the second model. Their position belongs to the honorable tradition of the universalist ideals of the French Revolution, which promises to see every naturalized person not as belonging to a foreign people but rather as a new citizen, one who does not differ from the autochthonous people in his humanity and has a consequent right to be regarded as equal. The republic unequivocally required the newcomer to adjust to the secular and human-rights-oriented political culture of France. All particular characteristics—such as origin, religion, skin color, language, customs, and traditions—by which the abstract

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human in the concrete individual may be recognized needed to be held separate from the public sphere and were banned to the private sphere. This civil-rights universalism has its price, however, because precisely origin, religion, ethnicity, skin color, and language are for many people, especially outside this country, sources of self-awareness, self-respect, identity, and also pride. Those belonging to minorities in particular seek to affirm their insistence on their ethnic-cultural particularity and demonstratively avow their origin. Demanding assimilation to customs, traditions, and normative standards of the majority population would detract from their own. Nonetheless, they would not cease to be different from the majority, whether because of language, skin color, or name. Their insistence on particularity, they say, ought to communicate to the majority society that they wish to preserve their identity in an environment that is foreign and often hostile. This stance leads, particularly among young immigrants, to ethnic isolationism and sometimes even to an unconditional and aggressive identiﬁcation with an abstract ethnic subject. The sad consequence: the liberatory impulse, which lies in the discovery of one’s own ethnic particularity, is thus once again destroyed. An immigration politics that relies on human-rights-oriented universalist principles is ambivalent. For whoever grants entry to immigrants, but simultaneously demands the public neutralization of their origin and culture, expects them to deny their own identity. It is common knowledge that this contradiction was the core of the French conception of immigration for decades. Still today, representatives of a rigid secularist republicanism hold fast to this idea. In Germany, such a model has no such chances. Here, the traditionally strong territorial, religious, cultural, and political particularism has allowed for a high degree of openness toward cultural diversity, especially on the regional and local levels. At its core is the freedom of religion and conscience guaranteed by the Basic Law. Its classic theme, which is also highly pertinent these days, is the tension between the basic law of equality of responsibility for all citizens and the individual’s privilege to abstain on religious grounds (consider, for example, the head-scarf question or the issue of nonparticipation in physical education). The courts have found these cases “friendly to basic rights”—that is, in favor of the “dissenters.” With the one exception of compulsory taxation, a person may be freed from performing responsibilities to the state—from military duty, inoculation, school and social duties, and allegiance requirements—if he may credibly claim that these duties cause him to violate binding principles of his religion and conscience. For a long time in our country we have coped with such conﬂicts without repercussions for the democratic sense of equality—especially with those (with the exception of the military objectors) that concerned members of small religious communities. The constitutional core of these conﬂicts was

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expressed each time as follows: How much freedom from duty can the egalitarian constitutional state afford? It could be only as magnanimous as the concerned community was small and as the meaning of the exception to the norms of the majority community was marginal. Now, however, Germany wants to deﬁne itself as a country of immigration, and immigrants are tossing out new questions in great numbers. Thus, it is no longer simply about the recognition of a marginal lifestyle’s eccentricity and stubbornness by excusing its practitioners from communal duties. Of course, such an exception always means something that is often forgotten in the debates: namely, being shut out from the majority community. The task of an immigration society consists much more in the recognition of the cultural speciﬁcity of immigrant minorities and in making them coconstitutive bearers of the society. For such a common entity, the concept of individual freedom from duty, which was always considered in terms of an exception, is inappropriate. Granted, this old concept may work tolerably well for the liberation of a Muslim girl from coed physical education, maybe even for the freedom from battle in exceptional cases. The concept may, for a limited time, deal even with general facts of life, like businesses’ hours of operation, norms of dress, dietary regulations in state institutions, holiday regulations, or building codes for non-Christian religious buildings. But one thing is certain: these exceptionist regulations do not serve the integration of immigrants in German society. Neither are they intended for an immigration society. Here a concept oriented toward individual exceptions not only comes up against its own internal limits but also galvanizes and reiﬁes the immigrant’s role as outsider. The fact that we must understand ourselves as a country of immigration means that we may not consider immigrants as incomplete Germans who live on the margins of society, for a certain amount of time, usually in the ﬁrst generation. Exactly this fact calls for a policy of formal equality and of strict cultural neutrality toward all individuals and their cultural conditions. We should therefore take another path: the path of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and his “politics of recognition,” which prizes the intrinsic value of cultural differences and protects their claims to an identity—an identity that is also marked by group membership. This policy demands neither a guarantee of group-level rights (as in the citizens’-rights minorityprotection model) nor a cultural relativist avowal of multicultural society. [. . .] It is difficult to ﬁnd a steady path between the Scylla of an immigration concept based on cultural assimilation and the Charybdis of a multicultural society of nationalities. Without a doubt, the Basic Law will remain the basis of this new immigration society, but this realization doesn’t help us much. For the interpretation of the basic laws changes constantly, and the constitution does not prescribe a certain integration policy. The idea of declaring the “German guiding culture” as a standard for integration will necessarily fail,

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because no united national culture exists in a pluralistic society. Under no circumstances can it become a binding canon without simultaneously conﬂicting with the central principles of the Basic Law. The Basic Law is indeed open to an immigration society, but it is not a sufﬁcient guide toward it. Now the political task is to ﬁnd a new form for this society, a form in which immigrants are assumed and accepted as equally enfranchised constituents of a self-renewing republic. The situation is entirely comparable with the entry of Germans from the former GDR. Therefore, it is a case of creating a new normality. If this effort is successful, it will be the path between a bloodless universalism and an autistic multiculturalism.

17 JÜRGEN HABERMAS AND JACQUES DERRIDA

AFTER THE WAR: THE REBIRTH OF EUROPE First published as “Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (May 31, 2003). Reprinted as “February 15, or What Binds Europeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in the Core of Europe,” in Constellations (vol. 10, November 3, 2003). Translated by Max Pensky.

The Treacheries of a European Identity [. . .] It is easy to ﬁnd unity without commitment. The image of a peaceful, cooperative Europe, open toward other cultures and capable of dialogue, ﬂoats like a mirage before us all. We welcome the Europe that found exemplary solutions for two problems during the second half of the twentieth century. The EU already offers itself as a form of “governance beyond the nationstate,” which could set a precedent in the postnational constellation. And for decades, European social-welfare systems served as a model. Certainly, they have now been thrown on the defensive at the level of the nation-state. Yet future political efforts at the domestication of global capitalism must not fall below the standards of social justice that they established. If Europe has solved two problems of this magnitude, why shouldn’t it issue a further challenge: to defend and promote a cosmopolitan order on the basis of international law against competing visions? Such a Europe-wide discourse, of course, would have to match up with existing dispositions, which are waiting, so to speak, for the stimulation of a process of self-understanding. Two facts would seem to contradict this bold assumption. Haven’t the most signiﬁcant historical achievements of Europe forfeited their identity-forming power precisely through the fact of their worldwide success? And what could hold together a region characterized more than any other by the ongoing rivalries between self-conscious nations? Insofar as Christianity and capitalism, natural science and technology, Roman law and the Code Napoleon, the bourgeois-urban forms of life, de-

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mocracy and human rights, and the secularization of state and society have spread across other continents, their legacies no longer constitute a proprium. The Western form of spirit, rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, certainly has its characteristic features. But the nations of Europe also share this mental habitus, characterized by individualism, rationalism, and activism, with the United States, Canada, and Australia. The “West” encompasses more than just Europe. Moreover, Europe is composed of nationstates that delimit one another polemically. National consciousness, formed by national language, national literatures, and national histories, has long operated as an explosive force. However, in response to the destructive power of this nationalism, values and habits have also developed which have given contemporary Europe, in its incomparably rich cultural diversity, its own face. This is how Europe at large presents itself to non-Europeans. A culture which for centuries has been beset more than any other by conﬂicts between town and country, sacred and secular authorities, by the competition between faith and knowledge, the struggle between states and antagonistic classes, has had to painfully learn how differences can be communicated, contradictions institutionalized, and tensions stabilized. The acknowledgment of differences— the reciprocal acknowledgment of the other in his otherness—can also become a feature of a common identity. The paciﬁcation of class conﬂicts within the welfare state and the selflimitation of state sovereignty within the framework of the EU are only the most recent examples of this. In the third quarter of the twentieth century, Europe on this side of the Iron Curtain experienced its “golden age,” as Eric Hobsbawm has called it. Since then, features of a common political mentality have taken shape, so that others often recognize us as Europeans rather than as Germans or French—and that happens not just in Hong Kong but even in Tel Aviv. And isn’t it true? In European societies, secularization is relatively far advanced. Citizens here regard transgressions of the border between politics and religion with suspicion. Europeans have a relatively large amount of trust in the organizational and steering capacities of the state, while remaining skeptical toward the achievements of markets. They possess a keen sense of the “dialectic of enlightenment”; they have no naively optimistic expectations about technological progress. They maintain a preference for the welfare state’s guarantees of social security and for regulation on the basis of solidarity. The threshold of tolerance for the use of force against persons lies relatively low. The desire for a multilateral and legally regulated international order is connected with the hope for an effective global domestic policy, within the framework of a reformed United Nations. The fortunate historical constellation in which West Europeans developed this kind of mentality in the shadow of the Cold War has changed since 1989–90. But February 15 shows that the mentality has survived the context

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from which it sprang. This also explains why “old Europe” sees itself challenged by the blunt hegemonic politics of its ally. And why so many in Europe who welcome the fall of Saddam as an act of liberation also reject the illegality of the unilateral, preemptive and deceptively justiﬁed invasion. But how stable is this mentality? Does it have its roots in deeper historical experiences and traditions? Today we know that many political traditions that command their authority through the illusions of “naturalness” have in fact been “invented.” By contrast, a European identity born in the daylight of the public sphere would have something constructed about it from the very beginning. But only what is constructed through an arbitrary choice carries the stigma of randomness. The political-ethical will that drives the hermeneutics of processes of self-understanding is not arbitrary. Distinguishing between the legacy we appropriate and the one we want to refuse demands just as much circumspection as the decision over the interpretation through which we appropriate it for ourselves. Historical experiences are only candidates for selfconscious appropriation; without such a self-conscious act they cannot attain the power to shape our identity. [. . .] 18 CEM ÖZDEMIR

MEHMET AND EDELTRAUD TOO First published in English on www.opendemocracy.net (May 30, 2005).

I have asked myself for quite a while now how our society would have reacted had a catastrophe comparable to September 11, 2001, taken place in our country—perpetrated by people from a similar background. What would then happen to the already deplorable state of relations between immigrants of Muslim background and the majority population? It seems doubtful that the recent naturalization legislation, which became law on January 1, 2000, would still ﬁnd a majority in both houses of the German legislature. Indeed, had the same legislation not been passed three years ago, I doubt if it would have become law in today’s post–September 11 world. In my view, this belief is not connected only to Islamic realities. It has more to do with the general nature of contact with those cultures in Germany that are experienced as “foreign.” For example, relations with representatives of Jewish communities—who are automatically and collectively held responsible for the politics of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, regardless of details of their work or the nature of their associations with Israel—allow us to predict what would happen in this country if another minority group suddenly found itself the center of negative national attention. When it comes to anti-Semitism, one must take into consideration the

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consequences of modern German history and the subsequent “civil safeguard system”—de-Naziﬁcation, education policy and the “watchdog role” of the U.S. media—which have resulted in a large measure of self-control among those whose opinions lean toward the anti-Semitic. However, politicians who claim they are being thanked for ﬁnally speaking “what everybody is thinking” illustrate just how thin this protective coating against antiSemitism actually is. A certain hierarchy of cultures, peoples, and religions appears impossible to eradicate. If I consider the very different reactions to a social phenomenon—like, for example, youth violence—I begin to lose faith in the ultimate realization of the basic principle of equality or the prohibition of violence, both stated in the German constitution. In the recent case of the juvenile repeat offender “Mehmet from Bavaria,” everybody was outraged by the amount of sheer aggression shown by one young Turkish person (who was raised—and, therefore, learned his delinquency—here). His deportation to Turkey seemed to become the most pressing domestic political issue in Germany. Meanwhile, young German people (read: children of native German parents), after setting ﬁre to a facility for asylum seekers or torturing and beating to death an equally German youth because of his or her clothing, are considered the unfortunate ones—exceptional cases who, with patience and a lot of understanding, can be rehabilitated. Even the most passionate advocates of law and order will mutate into sympathetic sociologists of youth with compassionate hearts for the social environments of these unfortunate creatures. We can say with certainty that it does not matter to the victims which country the parents of their aggressors came from. Yet our politicians and media continue to obsess over the issue and, in so doing, further sensationalize the immigration issue. Certainly, the aggressive media coverage of cases like Mehmet’s is not representative of collective public opinion in Germany. My personal experiences alone attest to this fact—experiences, it should be noted, that many other individuals of non-German heritage, representing all sectors of society, can undoubtedly relate to. However, in the United States, a headline like one that appeared in a major German news magazine not very long ago is simply unimaginable. The headline was used for an article describing a membership drive for the Green Party that I helped organize, in which 42 German citizens of Turkish and Kurdish origin had registered as Greens. It proclaimed, “Özdemir brought his 42 Turks.” Almost 2.5 million people in Germany with Turkish passports know full well the connotation here of the intentionally chosen word Turks. The author of the piece was indifferent to the fact that these were naturalized citizens—German citizens. In this context, the term Turks carries the same implications as the now outdated terms coloreds and Negroes would have in

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America. To stay with this example: not only in the United States would this journalist have had difficulty ﬁnding a newspaper likely to print something as insensitive about, say, an African American Congressman. [. . .] Not until Germany recognizes that immigration issues affect everybody— native and nonnative Germans alike—will we have established a protective roof for every member of our society. What we have to acknowledge and, more importantly, accept is the fact that these issues do not only affect Mehmet, Giovanni, and Olga. They affect those with names like Hans, Eberhardt, and Edeltraud, too.

19 FRANZ MÜNTEFERING, CLAUDIA ROTH, AND ANGELA MERKEL

HOW SHOULD THE IMMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM THE COUNTRIES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION BE REGULATED IN THE FUTURE? First published as “Wie sollte in Zukunft die Zuwanderung von Juden aus den Ländern der ehemaligen Sowjetunion geregelt werden?” in Jüdische Allgemeine ( June 23, 2005). Translated by David Gramling.

The leaders of the parties represented in the Bundestag answer this question FRANZ MÜNTEFERING Leader of the Social Democratic Party

According to the rules currently in effect, people of Jewish faith or those who have at least one Jewish parent may immigrate to Germany without further preconditions. It is precisely the Eastern European immigrants who have ensured that Jewish congregations will prosper once again in Germany. But there are hurdles to overcome: insufficient language knowledge and meager prospects on the job market make integration into our society difficult. Of course, no new regulation may be accepted without consulting with the Central Council of Jews. We will continue to advocate for the further successful immigration of people of the Jewish faith. CLAUDIA ROTH Green Party Leader

Since 1991, more than 170,000 Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union have come to Germany as immigrants. For us, it is an inestimable signal of faith that Jewish men and women are moving into a country that attempted to annihilate all of European Jewry 60 years ago. This movement has led to a ﬂowering of Jewish congregations in Germany. The great enrichment that this development has provided—not only to our country but also to the Jewish congregations in our country—can be sensed when one visits synagogues in Germany. Immigration, however, also represents a challenge to those con-

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gregations. A great number of immigrants neither seek nor ﬁnd their way to the Jewish congregations. This state of affairs is awkward for the congregations. But the door to Germany is also open to secular Jewish men and women. Any discussion of the regulation of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe must be pursued in common with the representation of Jewish congregations. For us, it is clear that Jewish immigration will continue to enrich our country. It shall not be restricted. ANGELA MERKEL Leader of the Christian Democratic Union

I am very pleased that in recent years, many lively Jewish congregations in our country have been formed. In this regard, the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe must be kept under consideration. These immigrants are welcome, because we intend to strengthen Jewish life in Germany, and the current legal principles for immigration have generally stood the test. It is, however, important that the people coming to Germany actually become integrated in the Jewish congregations. To ensure this, there must be a constant dialogue between the political sphere and the Jewish community in Germany.

8 LIVING IN TWO WORLDS? D O M E S T I C S P A C E , FA M I LY , A N D C O M M U N I T Y

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Every night more than a million television sets in Germany tune in via satellite to a wide range of free Turkish-, Arabic-, and Asian-language channels. They allow migrants to view 24-hour programming in their native languages but cause anxiety among German media experts about the ostensible failure of national integration.

S AT E L L I T E D I S H E S I N B E R L I N - K R E U Z B E R G , 2 0 0 5 .

HE TEXTS IN THIS CHAPTER attempt to offer an impressionistic engagement with the “lifeworld” of migration: living rooms, bedrooms, schools, apartment complexes, rental units, deportation holding facilities, nursing homes, and makeshift encampments. A federal statute regulating accommodations for guest workers opens this chapter, followed by a 1974 interview with New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, in which he addresses the dilemma of representing migrant workers in his ﬁlms. A 1977 article in Der Spiegel on “guest-worker children”—or children of recruited laborers—interviewed teenagers about their employment, their educational experiences, and the daily presence of discrimination in their lives. Two years later, the Berlin-based physician Albrecht Spieß began documenting a health anomaly among youth of transnational backgrounds: a disproportionately high number of “guest-worker children” presented psychosomatic stress symptoms such as ulcers, which are highly uncommon in patients of that age. Another group of texts in this chapter illustrates the strained relations between German and immigrant neighbors in housing complexes and rental properties. A 1979 class-action complaint letter from the German residents of a housing complex claims that Turkish neighbors are noisy, unruly, and excessively social. Another text, a mock classiﬁed advertisement penned anonymously from the perspective of a Turkish father looking for a new apartment, sardonically recasts this stereotype of the Turkish family home. It also calls attention to the ubiquity of housing discrimination, which prevents working-class Turkish families from living outside of designated immigrant neighborhoods. Dilek Zaptçıoglu’s 1993 piece shares the title of this chapter, “Living in Two Worlds.” Her essay rebuffs the long-held fable that immigrants in Germany live in an indeterminate and troubled space “between two worlds.” Cautious and passionate, Zaptçıoglu’s article attests to the affective “bilocationality” of the second generation of German Turkish youth, their experiences visiting Turkey during and after a childhood in Germany, and their sense of investment and belonging in multiple, overlapping homelands. A second article from 1993, “At Most Half a Homeland,” serves as a generational counterpoint to Zaptçıoglu’s piece, surveying the experiences of retired guest workers who, despite perennial intentions to return to their for-

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mer homelands, now share their later years with other retired labor migrants in Germany. The article investigates the options for hospice, nursing homes, assisted living, and health insurance for elder immigrants, as well as the longterm health effects of decades of dangerous, repetitive physical labor in German workplaces. A 1994 article, “Saying ‘I Do’ for the Certiﬁcate,” explores the logistical intricacies of marriages of convenience. Refugees and lesbian and gay immigrants are particularly affected by the spousal residency statutes of German immigration law. Traditionally, German law has barred immigrants in same-gender relationships from obtaining citizenship through civil marriage as their heterosexual counterparts could. This article documents the phenomenon of “double marriages of convenience,” in which two binational same-gender couples exchange partners for the purpose of civil marriage and citizenship. A 1994 conversation between Deniz Göktürk and Wulf Eichstädt addresses the multiculturalist notion of “living together in Berlin,” the idealized coexistence of migrants and nonmigrants in urban space. Under what conditions can one say that these urban residents are “living together (Miteinanderleben)” rather than “living next to each other (Nebeneinanderleben)” in the private and public spheres of the city? A 1995 article on Berlin’s main deportation facility, the Krupp Street Prison, sketches out the daily life of inmates awaiting unspeciﬁed deportation dates. Because these inmates are not protected under criminal law statutes on compulsory detainment, they do not enjoy the access to health care, education, or rehabilitation measures that traditional prisoners do. A topic often sidestepped in the political debate on immigration is the international traffic in women as wives, domestic servants, or indentured sex workers. We include a promotional essay by a German entrepreneur in the international sex trade. “The Thai wife” advertises an internet-bride service in terms of cultural encounter and enrichment, invoking the stereotypes of both the cool, rational European and the wild, passionate Asian. We decided to include this text as an example of the cooptation of multicultural discourse for even the most exploitative ends. Klaus Hartung’s article on the sprawling Kreuzberg Center apartment complex in Berlin’s East Kreuzberg district chronicles one businessman’s efforts to reinvigorate the insolvent, neglected structure. Since the mid-1970s, Kreuzberg has served as the quintessential urban dystopia for antiimmigration advocates throughout Germany, and the Kreuzberg Center apartment complex has been one of its deﬁning architectural landmarks. In the 1990s, entrepreneur Peter Ackermann sought to convert the building into an economically viable mix of residential and mercantile venues by constructing playgrounds, limiting the amount of döner kebab stands, and aggressively prosecuting drug offenses in the center’s corridors and stairways.

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A 2001 article, “Colorful and Speechless,” surveys multilingual kindergartens in Hamburg’s Ottensen and Veddel districts, where in one typical kindergarten class the children speak 18 different languages. At issue in this article is the lack of funding and state support for multilingual pedagogy, as well as a dearth of qualiﬁed applicants for these low-wage teaching posts. Although the 2005 Immigration Act calls for every immigrant to learn German as a condition of citizenship, researchers are nearly unanimous in demonstrating that generation after generation of transnational youth lack access to linguistically appropriate primary education, whether bilingual or monolingual. Frankfurt-based cultural anthropologist Regina Römhild’s 2002 essay “When Heimat Goes Global” highlights the “transnationalization” of immigrant cultural spheres. Römhild’s essay follows one of Frankfurt am Main’s Uzbek teenagers, Katja, whose “normal” life depends on a network of affiliations between migrants of various backgrounds. In the most concrete ways, locality and community are multiple for Katja; she continually ﬁlters her everyday life through a prism of global connections. “The Campsite Is Growing” reports on a Roma tent city along a German highway, whose inhabitants have left their official residences to evade the Federal Border Patrol. After the Serbo-Croatian war, the German state began sending asylum applicants back to Belgrade and other Eastern European cities. Roma teenager Demail had completed tenth grade when his parents discovered that they had to abandon their Essen apartment for a nomadic existence if they were to remain in Germany. As the interview concludes, Demail sketches out the ﬂoor plan of his former apartment on the ground of his family’s tent. The texts in this chapter focus on the private, domestic sphere in its most diverse forms: the transnational oikos as it is lived and practiced within the German nation-state. The chapter concludes with texts concerning two aspects of domestic life: an essay on undocumented house cleaners from Poland and a manifesto on the rights of Turkish women in response to a series of high-proﬁle “honor killings” in Berlin.

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1 THE FEDERAL MINISTRY FOR LABOR AND SOCIAL ORDER

GUIDELINES FOR HOUSING ACCOMMODATIONS FOR FOREIGN EMPLOYEES IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY First published as “Richtlinien für die Unterkünfte ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” by the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Order (April 1, 1971). Translated by David Gramling.

Unless otherwise stipulated by local statutes, the following guidelines are to be followed: I. Construction design 1. The height of bedrooms and living rooms must be at least 2.30 meters. In attic spaces, the lowest clearance must be two-thirds of the ﬂoor space of each given room. 2. The ﬂoors must have a heated surface. 3. Walls and ceilings must be insulated. 4. Outer doors must be thick and must be lockable. When bedrooms and living rooms lead directly to the outside, a double door or windscreen must be installed. 5. The window panels must be at least one-tenth of the overall ﬂoor space. Windows must be thick and able to be opened. If direct ventilation is not available, sufficient ventilation systems must be installed. [. . .] II. Living spaces 1. Accommodations must be established such that 8 square meters are provided for each person. [. . .] III. Sleeping quarters, living quarters, inﬁrmary spaces 1. Separate sleeping quarters must be provided for men and women. 2. In cases in which employees work different shifts, workers from different shifts must be provided with different sleeping quarters. 3. Each resident must have his/her own bed. Two beds may be installed above one another at most. 4. No room may have more than four beds. 5. Each room must have a sign in German and in the official mother language on which the legal capacity of the space is noted. 6. Provisions for each bed include a mattress, a pillow, a sufficient number of wool blankets and sheets. 7. Each new worker must receive clean sheets. [. . .]

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2 R A I N E R W E R N E R FA S S B I N D E R A N D H A N S G Ü N T H E R P F L A U M

AT SOME POINT FILMS HAVE TO STOP BEING FILMS Published in The Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes, Michael Töteberg and Leo A. Lensing, eds. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 11–15. Translated by Krishna Winston. This 1974 interview concerns Fassbinder’s ﬁlm Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), one of the ﬁrst German ﬁlms to address guest-worker issues.

HGP: Herr Fassbinder, in this ﬁlm you’ve told a provocatively simple, simpliﬁed story. Is there a didactic program implied in your reduction of the conﬂicts to such a level? RWF: It seems to me that the simpler a story is, the truer it is. The common denominator for many stories is a story as simple as this. If we’d made the character of Ali more complicated, the audience would have had a harder time dealing with the story. If the character had been more complex, the childlike quality of the relationship between Ali and Emmi would have suffered—whereas now the story’s as naïve as the two people it’s about. Though of course the relationships are much more complex, I realize that. But it’s my opinion that each viewer has to ﬂesh them out with his own reality. And he has an opportunity to do that when a story’s very simple. I think people have to ﬁnd their own opportunities for change—of course, you can go strictly by ideology, but for the larger audience, I don’t think that makes much sense. HGP: Couldn’t the very simplicity of this ﬁlm give the audience an excuse to dissociate themselves from the story, saying, “In reality nothing’s that simple?” RWF: They have an excuse, or actually they’re forced, to dissociate themselves from the story, not at the expense of the ﬁlm but rather in favor of their own reality—to me that’s the crucial thing. At some point, ﬁlms have to stop being ﬁlms, being stories, and have to begin to come alive, so that people will ask themselves: What about me and my life? I think this ﬁlm forces people—because the love between the two comes across as so clean and pure—to examine their own relationships with darkerskinned and also older people. To me that’s very important. You can’t make it simple enough. HGP: On the other hand this simplicity can be incredibly provoking: for instance, when Ali’s sitting in Emmi’s apartment, and you see the big lonely, empty apartment and a little, lonely woman, and he’s describing his room, where six of them are crammed in like sardines—the question just spontaneously occurs to you: Why doesn’t Ali simply move in with Emmi? RWF: Yes, that’s what we discovered with the television series Eight Hours Are Not a Day: the simpler the stories, the more the viewers could do with

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them. The intellectuals and leftists charged that all that wasn’t true anymore, but they were wrong; it was still true for the viewer, because he had a chance to translate everything into something that related to himself and his own reality. And if art, or whatever you want to call it, seizes the opportunity to get discussion going among people, it’s achieved its maximum effect, I think. To what extent does Fear Eats the Soul incorporate your experiences with other ﬁlms? I’m thinking primarily of the ﬁlms of Douglas Sirk, of course. Yes, actually ever since I saw his ﬁlms and tried to write about them, Sirk’s been in everything I’ve done. Not Sirk himself, but what I’ve learned from his work. Sirk told me what the studio bosses in Hollywood told him: a ﬁlm has to go over in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Okinawa, and in Chicago—just try to think what the common denominator might be for people in all those places. To Sirk something still mattered that most people in Hollywood don’t care about anymore: making sure his work was in tune with himself, with his own personality—that is, not just produced “for the public,” like those ﬁlms here in Germany that none of us likes: those sex and entertainment ﬁlms that the producers think the public likes, but they don’t like themselves. That’s the difference between a production for the masses by Sirk and one by Vohrer. Sirk hasn’t done much that he’s ashamed of, and I’m impressed by that. The dramatic structure of the story of Fear Eats the Soul reminds me of Sirk: in the ﬁrst half of the ﬁlm the couple has to contend with problems that come from the outside and tend to have a stabilizing effect on their relationship. Not until this pressure from the outside lessens do your protagonists (and the ﬁlm itself) confront the internal conﬂicts, the problems the two of them are bound to have with each other. Yes, but that’s not Sirk, that’s life. In the case of minorities, outsiders, etc., it really is true that as long as they feel pressure from outside they don’t get around to their own problems, because they’re completely taken up with shielding themselves and assuring themselves of a kind of solidarity. As I was writing, it was hard for me to get away from that; I wondered how to work it so people wouldn’t be putting so much pressure on the two of them anymore. What’s the function of the ﬁnal sequence, when Ali collapses from a stomach ulcer, and the doctor at the hospital mentions that that’s a common diagnosis for guest workers. Don’t you have an entirely different reality forcing its way into the picture at that point? It’s true to life. I heard about it from a doctor at a clinic. She described this scene to me in detail, and I could picture it perfectly. Here you have this absolutely authentic bit of guest-worker reality breaking in, and people have to deal with that, too. Of course, the ending’s meant

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to take this private story, which I’m crazy about and also happen to think is very important, and give it a thrust into reality, including in the mind of the moviegoer. [. . .]

3 NASTY RASCALS, LITTLE PIGS, THROW THEM OUT! First published as “ ‘Gemeine Lumpen, Sauigels—rauswerfen’ ” in Der Spiegel (December 26, 1977). Translated by David Gramling.

More than a million foreign children are living in the Federal Republic. Some 45,000 of them reach working age each year but ﬁnd neither an apprenticeship nor a job. They are illiterate in two languages; they speak German just as poorly as they speak their mother language. Two-thirds fail out of vocational school, make their way into the social underworld, and become day laborers. Experts are warning about the “social powder keg of tomorrow.” Sedat Manönü, an 18-year-old Turk, never wants to wait tables at a pizzeria again. Sweating away 12 hours a day for 500 marks a month, he says, “No one even sees me there; I’m not an animal, you know.” Sedat, who graduated from vocational school and speaks German well, ran to the Hannover Labor Bureau week after week, but he did not receive an apprenticeship. Now he has “had enough of it,” and takes piecemeal jobs here and there. He’d like to smack the friendly, smiling, and regretfully dismissive labor-bureau worker. Francesco Pucci, now 17, came from Palermo to Mainz as a small child. His father and mother went to work every day, while Francesco skipped school and played on the streets with the Italian neighbors’ kids. He stole bikes, lifted a camera from a parked car here and there, busted into vending machines. During his vocational training, he scuffled with the foreman, picked pockets, and then landed in juvenile court. Today, Francesco is unemployed and hangs around at the Mainz train station. He “will soon end up in jail”—or so fears his case manager, Sebastiano Cornelio. “It can’t be helped,” elaborates Cornelio. “This kind of life story is pretty typical.” All of the female students in the ninth grade at Munich’s Albert Schweitzer Vocational School found apprenticeships this year, except the Spanish student Concepción Origuel. She is a 16-year-old who wants to become a physician’s assistant. She applied for positions at about a dozen medical practices, went to each “with big hopes,” and was “soundly rebuffed” each time. The position had already been ﬁlled. “Maybe that is natural,” she says resignedly, “since usually the Germans take them.” But she ﬁnds it “so dumb” that the doctors “always want to know ﬁrst where I am from and what my parents do. We’re not lepers or anything.” But they are treated that way—the adolescent children of foreign employees—pushed into the societal underworld, without sufficient schooling,

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without the least prospect of a career. They are dealt with like “disposable goods,” says a representative of the Federal Youth Curatorium. They are a new disenfranchised generation who are guaranteed neither residence nor employment in the host country of the Federal Republic, a country that precipitously assigns them a spot on the bottom rung of the social ladder. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung conjectures, “the difficult climb of the ﬁrst generation” is followed by “the descent of the second to even lower depths.” More than a million foreign children under 21 live in the Federal Republic. For about a half of them, the Bosporus and the Peloponnesus are their foreign homelands, whereas cities like Duisburg, Stuttgart, and Munich are their familiar hometowns. About 110,000 guest-worker children are born in Germany each year. In metropolitan areas like Frankfurt and Offenbach, every second baby has a Spanish, Italian, or Turkish father. Another 1.2 million young foreigners live back in the homeland, separated from their parents, and are waiting for entry into the Federal Republic. Many are already living illegally in the country, unbeknownst to the government. They are “foreigners who are neither foreigners nor Germans,” as one Augsburg educator summarizes the situation. [. . .] Anyone who followed their parents to Germany after December 31, 1976, [. . .] should not even attempt to obtain a work visa or an apprenticeship; both are inaccessible to them. These youth must come to terms with the fact that when they become 18, they will be unemployed foreigners and will be deported to their homeland. It is a state-sponsored idleness that drives many into the market halls and harbor dockyards, places where they can be hired illegally for low wages. [. . .] In criminal statistics, guest-worker children “do not yet play a large role,” claims a Munich police commissioner. “They behave no worse than the others; most of their crimes are petty theft in department stores, ﬁghts here and there, purse snatching.” Young Greeks work Stuttgart’s Leonhardplatz as hustlers; young Turks deal drugs in Berlin. Turks and Greeks also support Munich’s militant rock group the Black Spiders. [. . .] If Germans and foreigners “are not put on an even playing ﬁeld soon,” says Teoman Atalay, the chair of the Foreigner Advisory Board in Hannover, “violence and yet more violence will ensue, even worse than among Holland’s Moroccans.”

4 JUSTIN WESTHOFF

TURKISH CHILDREN WITH STOMACH ULCERS First published as “Türkenkinder mit Magengeschwür” in Der Tagesspiegel (October 10, 1979). Translated by Tes Howell.

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The hygienic situation of foreign fellow citizens in Berlin is considerably worse than that of the German population. Under the auspices of the Berlin Working Group on Structural Research in Health Care (BASIG), scholars from various disciplines presented this problem to the press—just in time for the Berlin Senate conference on foreigner integration in Berlin, scheduled for October 24 and 25. Using the example of Turkish women and children, BASIG spokesman Wilhelm Schraeder pointed out that the general state of health is closely related to the social situation. Foreigners are susceptible to risks beyond social discrimination; for example, language barriers make ﬁling claims for medical beneﬁts difficult. Moreover, there is the fear of losing one’s job and—as a direct consequence of that—deportation. According to Schraeder, permanent harm from inadequate medical attention to foreigners will lead to high ﬁnancial costs for society. [. . .] Foreign children, according to Angela Zink from the Federal Public Health Department’s Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology, are more frequently and more seriously ill than their German peers, and they are considerably more likely to become victims of accidents. Particularly more frequent are illnesses, infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as ailments of the intestinal tract, a physical response to their social situation. The Kreuzberg pediatrician Dr. Albrecht Spieß added that in his practice, ﬁveyear-olds were coming in with stomach ulcers, a phenomenon hardly conceivable among German children. Ms. Zink cited insufficiently furnished and often overcrowded apartments, the children’s compulsion to reorient themselves to new nutritional habits, and the low rate of vaccination among foreign children as causes for their susceptibility. According to Spieß, even when such illnesses are caught early, the mothers cannot devote sufficient attention to the children. They often lose their jobs because they have taken all of the legally allowed ﬁve sick days to care for their children.

5 “TOILET DECREE” FOR FOREIGNERS First published as “ ‘Toilettenerlass’ für Ausländer” in Der Tagesspiegel (October 10, 1979). Translated by Tes Howell.

stuttgart. Whoever did not know it before can read about it now: “Sit (don’t stand) on the toilet seat!” And so begins a pamphlet published by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Social Services, which was recently sent to local governments to be hung in bathrooms of dormitories for asylum seekers and the homeless. Tip number 2 of this guide—which is published only in German and yet covers every detail for the predominantly non-German-speaking target au-

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dience—reads, “After purging the bowels, clean the anus carefully with at least two pieces of toilet paper, folded together, until the anus is completely clean. Use the left hand for this and as much new toilet paper as is necessary for proper cleanliness. Throw the used paper into the toilet bowl so that it is ﬂushed with the excrement.” After the tip on how to ﬂush the toilet come precise instructions for washing one’s hands: “Allow the water ﬂowing from the faucet to run over both hands, then put the soap in the palm of your hand and rub your palms together several times until foam develops. Now rub your hands together vigorously; then wash the lather from your hands with a lot of water.” The “Recommendation for a hygienic cleaning after defecation” decrees in closing, “Dry your hands with a paper towel from the paper towel dispenser.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Services explained that Germanlanguage proﬁciency is necessary to comply with the guidelines. The spokesman addresses the question—whether a foreigner, who has never used a restroom, can even read and understand this tutorial—by adding that the ministry subsequently recommended that local health authorities translate the pamphlet into foreign languages. According to him, the lavatory regulations were sent to the authorities because of different prevailing hygiene practices—for example, of Muslims. Authorities in Hamburg had put out a similar “lavatory decree” a few years ago. 6 LETTER FROM RENTERS TO THEIR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT, “NEW HOMELAND” First published as “Brief von Mietern an ihre Wohnungsbaugesellschaft ‘Neue Heimat’ ” in Der Tagesspiegel (October 10, 1979). Translated by Tes Howell.

Dear Ms.

“Turks Get Out” can already be seen written on the sides of buildings and construction trailers. This is clearly the opinion of the Charlottenburg population. The hatred of foreigners grows daily. So, what kind of apartment politics is the “New Homeland” (NH) playing in order to transform the redevelopment area of Klausen Place into a “Little Istanbul”? We do not want to become a second Kreutzberg [sic]. The foreigner-friendly employees of the NH should live with foreigners for a while and not just celebrate festivals with them. Then they would no longer sign rental contracts with them. IT IS OUTRAGEOUS to rent the apartments in a complex primarily to foreigners and to place Germans as a minority in the same house, just to document that Germans are also receiving apartments. In our case, ﬁve Germans equal two families, compared to approximately 22 foreigners equaling ﬁve families, and it must be noted that these facts are concealed when the foreigners sign the rental contract. If it must be

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this way, then Turks should be in one building and Germans in another. Habits and religious differences do not allow for the two to live together. We, both German families, demand that the families [name omitted] and [name omitted] be moved and the apartments consequently vacated and rented to Germans—(but not to antisocial people such as those at 23 Seeling Street or welfare recipients). Tolerating the actions of foreigners for eight and a half months is enough. Furthermore, the rest should abide by the conditions of the rental contract and house rules. Despite several letters and meetings with the NH, not much has changed.

Statement on the Actions of the Foreigners 1. There are certainly more people living there than the number designated in the contract. 2. Loud music by [name omitted]. 3. Noise from the children during quiet hours in the complex and courtyard. (In front, automobile noise; in the back, children’s noise.) Soiling of the stairs and courtyard, as well as damage to the garden and the (almost daily) placing of rocks in the complex and courtyard doors to hold them open. 4. Odor in the stairwell because tenants leave apartment doors open while preparing food. 5. Constant visits by strangers during the day as well as in the evening (there is evidently a group of 35 people who go in and out from time to time). Even tenant Mr. [name omitted] (a Turk) has stated that “it is like a hotel here” (though he does not dare complain). It is outrageous that we have to tolerate families [name omitted]/[name omitted], who have already been evicted from several apartments and have been declared intolerable tenants. Also, the family [name omitted] often receives visitors, sometimes up to 20 people, who bring chairs with them. They also bring with them considerable noise pollution so that we cannot sleep in our little room, because the visitors remain there late into the night. Slamming doors and running down the stairs is no rarity. In addition, the amount of garbage is larger because of increased food and drink consumption; as a result, the trash containers are always full. Products are emptied out of large cardboard boxes, which are then left next to the trash bins. We ask for swift action in regard to our grievances. 7 M U S TA FA T E K I N E Z

ARE WE NOT ALL HUMAN BEINGS? First published as “Sind wir nicht alle Menschen?” in Deutsches Heim, Glück allein: Wie Türken Deutsche sehen, Dursun Akçam, ed. (Bornheim-Merten: Lamuv, 1982), 206–14. Translated by Tes Howell.

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In a society, in which time is strictly organized and nerves are strained, any disruption of people’s private lives is a difficult pill to swallow. No one likes people who occupy an apartment with their entire clan, who destroy the peace and quiet of their neighbors with noise, songs, and visits by friends and acquaintances. Cultural customs and conventions cannot be used here as a shield. People who run around streets and locales with pistols and knives, blocking the path for others and bothering women and young girls, are not welcome anywhere in the world. In short, these persistent, frequent misbehaviors have become a cause of misgivings in German society. Admittedly, this fact is not enough to excuse the Germans’ extreme selfcenteredness, their asocial character, their rejection of foreigners (especially of Turks), or their invidious, at times hostile, behavior. Interpersonal relations cannot legitimate refusing to rent an apartment just because the potential renter is Turkish or not accepting someone as a neighbor, not allowing the person a voice in the public sphere, or endeavoring to isolate the individual everywhere. Germans act strangely with one another, too, a phenomenon one rarely ﬁnds in other countries. There is no mutual love; at the center of all their relationships stand self-centeredness and mistrust. There are hundreds of thousands of examples. During a train trip, for example, a woman in a sixperson compartment set down her bag on one seat and her coat on another so that no one would sit around her. And she did so despite the fact that the trains do not belong to her father, and everyone who has paid money has a right to a seat. When the number of men and women in a compartment reaches three, it is considered full. They sit with a sour expression, holding a newspaper, magazine, or a book. If someone opens the door and inquires after open seats, he or she is considered an intruder. They do not even look up from their reading. They hem and haw, trying to prevent the newcomer from entering. Even if the person spends hours standing in front of the compartment, no one will offer a seat. If this person has a brown skin color, is a Turk, they openly lie: “No seats here,” say the Germans, who cannot lie. [. . .] This self-centeredness and mistrust have shaped the faces of many German citizens, resulting in strained nerves and a stiff, frozen facial expression. They do not look at other people with friendly faces and laughing eyes. Only when they see their dogs does a slight smile come over their lips. But when human ﬁgures appear, this expression disappears. [. . .] I have never seen a German laughing and joking around. People who sit next to or across from each other in the same compartment do not talk to each other, do not converse. Eight, ten hours pass silently and voicelessly as though everyone were constantly ill-tempered.

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8 ˘ LU DILEK ZAPTÇIOG

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS First published as “Leben in zwei Welten” in Der Weltspiegel ( June 20, 1993). Translated by Tes Howell.

The “German Turks” are no homogeneous group. Social change has begun. The ﬁrst German I ever met taught a preparatory class at the German School in Istanbul. My adventure with the German language began in 1970, when I, along with other children, went through the great gates of the Alman Lisesi above the Genoese Galata Tower in Istanbul’s Beyoglu, the old Pera district. There were just a handful of us, and we were certainly privileged, for the German School was a private institute and charged stiff tuition fees. [. . .] The German School was, and still is today, a multicultural educational institution. In addition to Turkish students, there were children from Greek and Armenian minority groups, students of Levantine Italian heritage, Turkish Jews, the progeny of White Russians (who had ﬂed prior to the October Revolution), and, of course, Germans. The latter were the children of our school’s teachers, of German diplomats and consulate officials, of German businesspeople residing in Turkey, and of private individuals. They always sat together in the classroom and associated almost exclusively with each other. After school, they almost never accompanied us on our Kafeterya or Sinema visits, and because some of their parents were also their teachers, we could never persuade them to cut class when the weather was beautiful and take a trip to one of the islands near Istanbul. Our teachers never invited us to their houses. We knew only that they lived in the chic parts of Istanbul, Bebek, and Etiler and preferred to live as a “colony” among themselves. They had butcher shops where they could buy pork cutlets and pork/beef sausage and bakeries that baked those delicious German rolls and Berliners. Whatever consumer goods that they could not buy in Istanbul at that time (nowadays, one can ﬁnd anything in Istanbul), they ﬂew over from Germany via the consulate. We had no access to the German Ghetto. Why am I relating all this here? After all, I was asked for an article about Turks in Germany, about their culture, customs, practices, and views. What does the German School in Istanbul have to do with the Ford worker Ahmet or the Kreuzberg produce vendor Yusuf? Or is the difference between the German colony in Istanbul and the Turkish colony in Kreuzberg not so great as it seems at ﬁrst glance? After the murders in Mölln and Solingen, the German media rediscovered the Turks. Now, while there is talk of new beginnings in the relationship with the Turkish minority, people want to know who the Turks are. Do the Turks even want to assimilate? The discussion centers on the Turks’ “nonexistent

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will to integrate,” on their “culture that has nothing to do with ours,” as a Der Spiegel editor wrote after Solingen. What is the Turkish culture? Is there even a “national culture”? What is, for example, the “German culture”? Clichés yield many extremes: pork knuckle versus roast lamb, church versus mosque, yodeling versus belly dancing. It becomes more dangerous when the clichés reveal their character as prejudicial: diligence versus laziness, human rights versus torture, order versus chaos, freedom versus head scarf. Let’s pause for a moment and ask ourselves whether the Germans possess a uniﬁed culture. Doesn’t this notion remind us of forced Gleichschaltung, or social streamlining, and other phrases from National Socialism? Or of state socialism before its collapse? Isn’t every liberal society “multicultural” in the sense that its individuals have completely different ways of living depending on social status, culture, and experience? Are we not condemning totalitarian regimes for this reason—because they require certain behaviors and ways of thinking, which they characterize as “national,” “religious” or “socialist” culture, and do not tolerate any deviation? The Turks have established a society in Germany and in Turkey that is every bit as heterogeneous as German, French, or British society. A Turkish doctor who works at the University Clinic in Cologne certainly has much more in common with his German colleagues than with the Turkish factory worker who came from the small village in Anatolia and only ﬁnished elementary school. In light of this fact, it is necessary to move once again away from the useless notion of “culture” to social-classiﬁcation practices. The majority of Turkish “guest workers” came to Germany from smaller hamlets in Anatolia. For these people, the recruitment contract with Turkey (dated October 30, 1961) meant the opportunity to move into a higher social class. They left their families behind and did not necessarily want to live here but rather to work and earn money. As Max Frisch rightly said, “One had called for workers, but human beings came.” However, not even those who arrived realized this truth in the beginning. When I visited Germany in the 1970s, several Turkish families lived in one apartment. They spent hardly any money and tried to save as much as possible in order to return home quickly. Their stay “abroad” was supposed to be limited to ﬁve or six years. For this reason, no one felt a need to establish a home, to increase one’s German skills, let alone to ask about one’s rights. The threefold motto was, “Don’t stand out as objectionable; don’t talk back to the German boss; don’t annoy the foreigner police.” The image of the Turkish man, walking through the streets with a lowered head and furtively glancing around like a thief, epitomized the foreignness of the wandering worker. Yes, the ﬁrst generation did not feel comfortable here. Everything was strange: the kitchen, the smells, the surroundings, the language, the social

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etiquette. It was difficult for people to develop connections to a country in which they had no memories or personal history. Furthermore, they had come into one of the most advanced industrial nations in the world, due to precapitalist circumstances. Considering this journey into the tunnel of time, the ﬁrst generation of Turks did well here despite everything, a fact that indicated their capacity to adapt. Temporary residence abroad evolved into immigration on its own. The half-packed suitcases were unpacked in the 1980s. The negative experiences of returning to the homeland played an important role in this shift. To date, around 1.5 million Turks have returned to their homeland, following the introduced return incentives that the conservative-liberal coalition government paid in the 1980s. Turkish “Deutschländer” tried to establish new lives there with their savings. They soon noticed that not everything was as wonderful as they had imagined. They were foreign in Germany but also foreigners in Turkey. The “employee societies,” partially ﬁnanced by government loans, went bankrupt and took the painstakingly saved capital of the returning immigrants with them. The children were subjected to special government measures like “integration courses” after failed attempts at entry into Turkish schools. New schools were opened for the children of returnees, and teachers from the Federal Republic were imported. After enduring assimilation pressure in the Federal Republic, the young people were now forced to integrate in Turkey. In Istanbul, I met many of these young people who joined forces through “returnee organizations.” They complained about the authoritarian educational system in Turkey, about the unusually harsh political conditions, about the strict moral rules and the social controls, under which they felt stiﬂed. Many were desperate about their situation and deﬁnitely wanted to return to Germany. But there were some who were the ﬁrst harbingers of a new future: young people, whose perspective was inﬂuenced by a higher education, who did not feel like the ubiquitously invoked “lost generation” or like a “time bomb” on which society was sitting; they felt as though they were between two worlds, or rather living in two worlds. They were aware of the richness that their particular way of life had afforded them, and they felt at home in both countries and did not want to forsake either. The world was a small globe that people had separated into different states and upon which they had drawn senseless borders. Yes, the “Deutschländer” were different and wanted to be accepted in their differentness. The number of these young people grew with time. Today, 1.8 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, and 480,000 of them are under 15 years old. Over two-thirds of the Turks have been here at least 10 years and will remain. The immigration process shows no signs of abating. The third generation is growing up; it is undoubtedly more inﬂuenced by this country

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than by the homeland of its grandparents. Though this generation receives certain “Turkish values” from their parents, they will, however, be increasingly shaped by the customs here until their children will be distinguished from their German peers only by their appearance. Conformity to this society will certainly make their lives easier but will also remove the richness that life offers the wanderer between worlds. The “German Turks,” as they are known by some today, are not a homogeneous group. Even if they consist mainly of workers, and their children often occupy a position “at the very bottom” of German society because opportunities are not equal, there is also notable social change within the Turkish minority. Professor Faruk Sen, director of the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen, has noted for years that a Turkish middle class is slowly emerging in Germany. Some 610,000 Turkish employees have a total annual income of 22.5 billion marks and pay 5 billion of that into the pension fund. Compare that with the mere 20 million marks that Turkish retirees receive in annual income. Many retired Germans are ﬁnanced with the rest of this money. The buying power of the Turks is estimated at 50 billion marks. [. . .] These days I speak with many Turks, other foreigners, and those who were made into foreigners. They are united in their rage. But they do not vilify “the Germans,” for they know that there is no such thing. I, too, am inclined to sink into pessimism in light of the idleness of government authorities, the voicelessness of the intellectuals, and the general xenophobic atmosphere. The deep and never completely eradicated roots of racism in Germany and its manifestations—formidably violent and merciless in comparison to other countries—frighten me. Currently showing its ugly face again, this certainly does not beneﬁt the country of Goethe and Schiller, Brecht and Benjamin. But I am not in favor of ascribing certain traits to certain “peoples” as unalterable. Like many other foreigners who are closely connected to Germany through their biography, I wish that there would be a quick end to the resurgent barbarity in this country and that the great injustice that has befallen minorities for decades and has degraded them to objects of justice and administration be eliminated as quickly as possible. I would not like to regret that I walked through the gate of the German School in Istanbul over twenty years ago. The call “Germany to the Germans” would lead this country to a new catastrophe, be it only through the loss of the richness that living between worlds brings to everyone. 9 TA N J A S T I D I N G E R

AT MOST HALF A HOMELAND First published as “Höchstens eine halbe Heimat” in die tageszeitung (May 15, 1993). Translated by Hilary Menges.

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Turkish senior citizens in Berlin: Sickness, isolation and ﬁnancial woes determine their daily lives. Few places for socialization and refuge exist for them. Children and grandchildren are often the only ray of hope. berlin. When Zekeriya Eldemgil laughs, a row of golden teeth twinkles. At least this afternoon he is amusing himself splendidly. Every Wednesday the 58-year-old retiree spends hours in the meeting room of the employmentwelfare center. Here, in the middle of Kreuzberg, he meets with his retired compatriots, drinks tea, plays Tavla, gossips, and converses. “For me, this here is an alternative diversion, otherwise there is nothing else for me to do. What else should I do with myself?” he explains hesitantly. Zekeriya Eldemgil came from Istanbul to Germany 28 years ago, and, like so many other Turks in his generation, paid for the construction and preservation of Germany’s economic miracle with his health. He did piecemeal work for years and “never missed a day.” Now he has a serious metal allergy as a result of his factory labor. Three years ago, he went into early retirement. Since then he, his wife, and his almost full-grown son have lived on 724 marks of retirement income and 500 marks of social welfare per month. “How should this work? The rent still needs to be paid.” No, he says, slowly shaking his head, this is not how he envisioned old age. Over 10,000 Turkish senior citizens and pensioners spend their remaining years of life in Berlin. Sickness, isolation, ﬁnancial worries, and family conﬂicts often determine their daily lives. Even if the condition is similar to that of older Germans, a decisive component is added to the plight of ﬁrstgeneration immigrants. “The German society has dismissed them for decades. They consider themselves unwanted persons. They have always concentrated on their work, often above and beyond their own capacities. That’s why so many are physically and psychically ill,” says Mustafa Çakmakoglu meditatively. The seniors are continually coming and going at the office hours of the chair of the Turkish Community. According to Çakmakoglu, they almost always have language difficulties. Because of the long-perpetuated illusion of returning home, only a few thought it was necessary to learn the German language. “Besides, there was no time for it, given the drudgery of work,” he says curtly. At bureaus and at the institution of social security (officially responsible for senior citizens), they are helpless and insecure without interpreters. These problems are also familiar to Erdogan Özdinçer. The 57-year-old works for the foreigner information center DGB. “Many elderly come with questions and concerns; they feel useless. And we thought, okay, we’ll set up an association to solve their problems.” Since then, the Association of Turkish Retirees has gained a membership of over 100 members. Besides physical exercise, excursions, and meetings, the program also offers social advising and assistance in cases of illness. “Se-

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niors need contacts, too. They feel as if they have slogged away here and then are suddenly shoved into the corner and left alone,” says Özdinçer. This initiative of one’s own seems to be long overdue. For people seeking help, there are not enough places of refuge. Initiatives and associations that specialize in seniors, such as the labor-welfare group, are overrun. Questions about care, housing, and sustenance for foreign employees are becoming more urgent. Increasingly, they are not remigrating back to their homelands, as the German state initially planned. Most spend the last years of their lives in a land that remains ever-foreign to them. “Homeland,” the Turkish Community’s interpreter translates for Ali Ergin, “is not this here. At most a half.” Ali Ergin, the 68-year-old from Ankara, came to Berlin in 1964 and worked in construction. He made a modest fortune for himself and spends half of the year in Turkey. For most Turkish seniors, oscillation between here and there is the only possible way to live in their homeland without losing their German residency status. The threat of forfeiture lurks if one leaves the country for over six months. The physically ill prefer to remain in the Federal Republic full-time precisely because of its better medical care. Others agitatedly return to Berlin, only to ﬁnd that they cannot ﬁnd their way in either country. Ergin’s only ray of light was his children and grandchildren, “but I am losing them. They have no respect for me and live a different life than I do.” The generational conﬂict bears heavily on this age group in particular. Erdogan Özdinçer summarizes: “They vacillate between pride for their children and lack of understanding for their way of life. After all, they didn’t just work for their own beneﬁt.” For 42-year-old Ayshe, who did tailoring piecework for over 20 years and retired early, her children are also her future: “I live only for them.” She is also certain that they are the ones who will care for her and her husband in old age. The Senate members responsible for foreigner representation are looking ahead, albeit timidly. Barbara John (CDU) reckons that in the future, more and more Turkish seniors will have to be placed in retirement homes and hospice. In a pilot study, she is offering Turkish women the option to receive advanced training in the area of elder care. “It is essential to prepare nursing staff who will know the language and culture of those in need of care, so they are not driven further into isolation.” This isolation is for the most part more intensive for retired Turkish women than for men. More and more elderly women visit the meeting and information center for Turkish women (TIO) in Kreuzberg. “While the men go to cafés and meet people there, the women stay at home and are responsible for the family and the household,” reports Helga Göbel, a TIO worker. Mustafa Çakmakoglu tells of a Turkish saying that is applicable to the sit-

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uation of the elderly. “One speaks of ‘life between two mosques.’ Our seniors belong neither to one nor the other fully. They have worked and given their all for both lands, Germany and Turkey. And now nobody knows where they should go.” 10 ELKE ECKERT

SAYING “I DO” FOR THE CERTIFICATE First published as “Das Jawort für den Schein” in die tageszeitung (November 22, 1994). Translated by Hilary Menges.

Immigration through the civil registry office: Foreigners marry Germans in order to stay here. The marriage certiﬁcate is bought. The more vigilant the authorities, the more imaginative the couples. The wedding was without pomp. After the vows, the pair looked each other in the eyes shyly. The two made no more than a kissing motion. The groom threw a bashful glance at the small circle of friends, which another young man returned in kind. The registrar noticed nothing. The director of Green Card would have been gratiﬁed. In the United States, marriages between strangers for the purpose of obtaining residence and work permits for the foreign partner are an alternative to immigration quotas and the yearly green-card lottery. This abuse of the law has also become a tradition in Germany in the face of insufficient immigration rights and practically dismantled asylum rights. It is a GermanGerman history as well: the Kreuzberg freak who married a Leipzig woman seeking to emigrate had little to fear regarding criminal legal action. If, in contrast, a German takes a Kurd or Palestinian as a husband, the Foreigner Bureau is on the scene without delay. The vigilance of civil servants inspires the fantastical imagination of the prospective spouses. In the case of the ex-Yugoslavian citizen mentioned at the beginning of the article, her German helpers found an especially original marriage variation. The husband of Milica will never “properly” marry: he is homosexual. Everything has been cleared with his boyfriend. The work of convincing Milica’s boyfriend proves much harder. The young man was raised conservative, and he has been with Milica for two years. But Milica, who ﬂed to Berlin on account of the war in April 1992, wanted to marry the gay man and not her boyfriend: “Peter is my boyfriend now, but how do I know whether or not that might change sometime?” The two talked about marrying, but it would have been a marriage of convenience. The marriage of convenience with the homosexual friend rescues Milica from the extremely encumbering status as a refugee with a limited visa. Now she can travel and work everywhere: “If I had married Peter, I would

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have felt under pressure. I was afraid that if we argued I would be reproached or even be susceptible to coercion.” Doris Preiffer-Pandey from the IAF (Community Interest Group of Women Married to Foreigners) in Frankfurt suggests that ﬁctitious marriages can also be “proper” marriages: “The separation of property, withholding household costs and alimony claims only come into question at the time of divorce; during the marriage, this is not possible.” State educational loans and social security are cut off as soon as one of the partners starts earning an income. Should a partner become unable to work as a result of illness or accident, the other must “take responsibility for him just as in a real marriage.” Not even the IAF can estimate what percentage of binational marriages are actually marriages of convenience. But estimates of 50 percent to 70 percent were certainly too high and, according to Pfeiffer-Pandey, came “from people who have something against binational marriages anyway.” However, at the IAF, it is well known that young men, “particularly those from North African countries like Morocco and Algeria,” attempt to marry into Germany. Even in the Berlin IAF office, manager Lima Eurvello deplores the trickery of many African citizens: “Some come to Germany already having obtained the official certiﬁcation of their unmarried status. They know exactly what they need in order to marry here.” For its part, the IAF advises against ﬁctitious marriages altogether, because they bring about too many complications. Nevertheless, Pfeiffer-Pandey expresses understanding for foreigners who attempt to gain a residency permit this way: “For the inhabitants of non-European countries, with the exception of the United States, Canada, and Switzerland, it is impossible to immigrate legally. All borders are hermetically sealed.” Therefore, for the past 20 years, the IAF has promoted “at least some kind of immigration quota.” Michael was introduced by a friend to a woman from Thailand, who asked him outright if he would marry her. Her offer sounded tempting to this welfare recipient: the young woman intended to pay him 8,000 marks. Her relatives had saved money for years in order to send her to Germany. Once here, she was to marry and earn money to support her family from afar. IAF associate Pfeiffer-Pandey estimates that the price tag for such ﬁctitious marriages averages between 5,000 and 10,000 marks. Michael acquiesced to the bargain, and the wedding took place. He suspects, though, that the Foreigner Bureau is hot on the trail of the GermanThai couple: “At the wedding at the registry office, we barely made an effort to appear ‘real.’ I came in jeans and a bomber jacket, and she wasn’t exactly in a bridal gown.” The Foreigner Bureau would have been justiﬁed in wondering, because the two officially announced a so-called separation year just a few weeks after the marriage. They want to get divorced in one year. Shortly after the marriage, the Thai woman met another man who would marry her for love and not money.

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Neza, a friend of Milica’s, met her future husband, Sven, in a Kreuzberg bar. Just like her friend, the Bosnian Serb fears being sent back to her bombed-out homeland, where she no longer can envision a life or job for herself. She immediately accepted the man’s offer to marry her and consequently supply her with a work and residency permit, because Sven was willing to do this favor without ﬁnancial compensation. He comes from Kreuzberg’s autonomous scene, where marriage is usually not an issue. But marriage with a foreigner ﬂatters the ego. According to Sven, “One is wellreceived in the scene when one does it.” This political correctness [original in English] among independents shows solidarity on the one hand and undermines foreigner and asylum policy on the other. The Foreigner Bureau has not remained passive in cases of suspected ﬁctitious marriages. In addition to home visits during the night or day and questioning of neighbors, parents, or employers, the couple will be summoned to the bureau and interviewed separately there. Once a ﬁctitious marriage has been identiﬁed, the residency permit for the foreigner partner becomes invalid, because it is contingent upon the continuance of the union through the ﬁrst four years of marriage. During this time, a “marital cohabitation” in the Federal Republic must continue to exist, in keeping with the Foreigner Act. The Regional Council in Leipzig is taking new steps to prevent abuse of the law. Karin Pergold, manager of the Leipzig-based IAF office, has noticed in her consultations that many binational couples mention that the foreign partner only received a year-long residence permit. But the foreigner law reads that “according to regulation, a three-year residence permit” can be granted. In the summer, an internal memo from the district office in Leipzig to the civil registrars was leaked to IAF. The signatories of the circulated letter requested in cases of marriage with a foreigner “that the Foreigner Bureau be broadly informed” of all the details. The possible indicators of ﬁctitious marriage were listed in a checklist. Next to asylum seekers, the suspicion is focused on men and women from developing and third-world countries. Further “indicators” include illegal residence in the Federal Republic, difficulties in linguistic communication between the “ﬁancés,” or an “unusual difference in age.” The circulated letter continues, “If, as a result of your inquiries, you reach the conclusion that a ﬁctitious marriage is intended, you shall orally decline the notice of intended marriage and the performance of the wedding ceremony.” A written notiﬁcation should be sent “only upon the ﬁancés’ demand.” Another circulated letter recommends a further, more inconspicuous variation to the district office of registrars: in the case of suspected ﬁctitious marriage, the written memorandum of intended marriage shall be provisionally acknowledged as received, but after a week, the couple will be orally informed of the rejection of their notice. Only if the couple insists does

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it become necessary that a written and legally instructive rejection follow. It is not known if a similar practice exists in other federal states. Berlin-based attorney Petra Schlagenhauf has had her own experiences with the ﬁctitious marriage investigations of the Foreigner Bureau. One couple “from the alternative scene” suspected of ﬁctitious marriage was invited to the bureau for questioning. The young couple had married shortly prior to imminent deportation. Petra Schlagenhauf says, “The civil servant attempted to judge the two based on his own ideas about typical marriage. There were questions such as ‘What is your husband’s hobby?’ or ‘What TV magazine does your wife read?’ ” At the end of the procedure, even the civil servant no longer felt comfortable in his own skin. In answer to the question “What stove does your wife cook on?” the young man answered irritably that he is actually the one who cooks. The couple courageously passed the difficult test; they had married for love. 11 W U L F E I C H S TÄ D T A N D D E N I Z G Ö K T Ü R K

ALL QUIET ON THE KREUZBERG FRONT First published as “In Kreuzberg nichts Neues” in die tageszeitung (November 1, 1994). Translated by Tes Howell. Göktürk discusses architecture and city planning with Eichstädt, a contributor to the International Building Exhibition, who consulted on city restoration projects in Berlin’s East Kreuzberg neighborhood.

DG: The current Intertaz newspaper theme is “the leftists and the foreigners.” Districts like Hamburg-Altona or Berlin-Kreuzberg are emerging as zones of contact. How did it happen that many foreigners, artists, social dropouts, and members of the leftist-alternative scene settled in these former working-class districts? WE: In Berlin, the inﬂux of foreigners began in the late 1960s, later than in other West German cities. Berlin-Kreuzberg was a special case, for this district had lost its workforce after the construction of two large satellite towns. The skilled worker who could afford it and the average working class family moved to Buckow-Rudow or the Märkisches Viertel, a new housing development in the northwest of West Berlin. In the days of the 1967 student revolts, I often spent evenings in Kreuzberg bars and heard the workers comment on the “student squabbles.” At that time a classic worker population still lived there, and there wasn’t a single foreigner. A vacuum then resulted from so many residents moving away to the satellite towns, and the Turkish population quickly ﬁlled it. In the early 1970s, we traveled with great enthusiasm through Kreuzberg to enjoy the food and hospitality in the new Greek and Turkish bars, which we had experienced on our international trips.

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The mood soon changed, though, and the population became a displaced mass during a powerful redevelopment process that peaked in 1973–74. Familiar examples are the areas around the Wassertorplatz, the Böcklerpark, and Naunyn Street, where housing organizations evacuated the dwellings and pushed Turkish families into other demolition areas so that the people could not reside anywhere permanently. This cynical association between the city and its people outraged everwidening spheres. Another policy existed behind the redevelopment machinery that was implemented far more aggressively in Wedding— namely, that of targeting the Turks for removal. This policy was problematic, however, because no one knew where to send them. How do the different scenes in Kreuzberg interact? We at the IBA city restoration project have strongly supported the squatters because they handle the houses with care and have been tolerant toward the foreigner population. Of course, this tolerance stems from a social romanticism and a young, middle-class ethic, but originally it was based on the premise that these young people would not compete with foreigners in the labor market. For example, a grocery vendor from Wrangel Street found that a Turkish store had taken away his customers and, with them, his livelihood. It is often said of the Turkish youth that they are brighter, more disciplined, and efficient than the German underdogs from broken families. This notion laid the foundation for hatred. Gradually, a population evolved that was capable of living together. At the time, I kept a close eye on Cuvry Street. This is a mazelike, spacious ensemble with factory buildings in the courtyard that house the alternative scene. The homes facing the front are almost exclusively occupied by Turks. The advantages, which could be gained for the Turkish population, were dependent on the squatters’ having ﬁrst brought the demolition machinery to a halt. The one is not imaginable without the other, even if they were to draw lines of demarcation in the houses and courtyards again. But there are no essential conﬂicts. People eat döner kebabs or buy vegetables in a Turkish store, but they aren’t living “together.” That’s completely right—hardly any interaction. But there is a phenomenon here that I believe is very important. The Turks have allowed a political vacuum to develop because they had no right to vote and no political presence. Approximately one-third of the city’s population has not been represented in political decisions. Because of this vacuum, the initiatives and later the Green Party’s Alternative List were able to gain so much inﬂuence. Was that inﬂuence positive or negative? In terms of developing the character and speciﬁc integration makeup of Kreuzberg, it was certainly positive. But if one wants to judge the de-

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velopment of Kreuzberg overall, then I see things quite ambivalently today. But I think there was no other reasonable way. I would not like to lose this Kreuzberg, but it has not generated anything positive for many years. In the mid-1980s, when it became clear that our society was rich enough to paint buildings bright colors and build new facilities, we saw that we had failed. After the ﬁrst great successes were achieved on the construction site, we debated intensively about how to promote social stabilization (for example, assistance for better education and jobs). But the willingness of politicians to support that project on a larger scale was practically nonexistent, and this reluctance laid a foundation for the current social conditions, which are, of course, very troubling. A good example of this isolated coexistence is our relationship to Islam. No one associated with the German initiatives understood this phenomenon, myself included. Turkish friends who helped with our work in Kreuzberg were secularized Turks from academic families in Istanbul, who distance themselves from Anatolian devoutness. Aside from a long debate about the question of whether a mosque should be built at the Görlitzer train station square (although it was unclear who should pay for it), there was never an intelligent, thoughtful discussion in which religious experts explained or asked anything. For me, that is a clear sign that intercultural interest is fundamentally low. DG: Where did the dialogue break down? WE: Social coexistence consisted of dissociations that enabled the perception of the other as inferior. Many questions were left unanswered. I personally have often felt the absence of an articulation of Turkish interests by Turks themselves. Along with young Turkish intellectuals, we have spoken as representatives for the Turks, but it never resulted in legitimized political representation. No one is paying any attention to the high unemployment rate among Turkish youth. There is also no sympathy among Germans from varying social backgrounds. The new bourgeoisie of Kreuzberg is simply not interested in the underdogs. [. . .]

12 KONRAD SCHULLER

LAST DAYS ON GERMAN SOIL First published as “Die letzten Tage auf deutschem Boden” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (September 23, 1995). Translated by David Gramling.

september 22, 4:10 p.m. Because of the risk of suicide, they had to take the belt away from the prisoner. He comes in with empty belt loops, presses the palm of his hand against the glass barrier in greeting, and asks that his name

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not be used. He doesn’t have much time. The walk through the ﬁrst gate, the second gate, the passport check, and the staircase to the cells has cost us 10 of the 30 minutes allotted for our visit. This is Berlin’s Krupp Street Prison. Of the 2,459 people sent back to their homelands from German deportation centers in the year 1994, most of them spent their last days in Germany here: rejected asylum seekers, felons at the end of their sentences, the mean and the mild, the sick and the healthy, youth and adults. The drug dealer sits here next to the desperate refugee, who is here not because of a crime he might have committed but because he must leave the country. This type of custody does not count as punishment. It is only supposed to ensure that the deportation candidate is on hand when the hour comes. Boredom nags at the unnamed prisoner. Twenty-three hours in front of the communal television, one hour in the yard, day after day, month after month. Uncertainty eats away at one’s sanity; it makes one’s nerves vibrate. The conditions here over those months make a classical prison seem like an amusement park. Deportation custody is not supposed to accomplish reintegration into society, and consequently such efforts are neither required nor provided. In contrast to the penitentiary in Moabit right around the corner, activities, training, weekend visits, and furloughs are impossible here. Unlike criminal custody, deportation custody is only presumed to last a few days, and consequently the overcrowded residence halls and other conditions are thought to be tolerable, as the man without a belt tells us. The fact that health care is nonexistent here and medical treatment is geared toward the singular goal of ensuring that deportees are capable of transportation arises from the belief that patients’ chronic illnesses are the responsibility of their home country. Thus, instead of therapy, painkillers are prescribed; instead of an expensive cast for a polio patient, only an ointment. Those infected with HIV have to eat the same institutional meals as everyone else, despite their special nutritional needs. Our time is almost up. Only now does the man behind the glass come to the point. Activist organizations such as the Berlin Initiative against Deportation Custody have claimed over and over that the Krupp Street facility is a bastion of arbitrariness, humiliation, and even violence. A list of incidents supports this claim. One concerned a prisoner who was allegedly struck in the groin area by staff because he requested too many bathroom breaks. [. . .] Considering these conditions and the recent provisional decision of the administrative court of Greifswald, that deportation custody requires a legal foundation, the grand coalition [CDU/SPD] in power in Berlin proposed a law that would address some of the needs of deportees. “Normal living without the freedom” was the formula with which SPD representative Barthels articulated the plan. The proposal does indeed provide for some improvements; prisoners shall be allowed to work during their custody; each shall be

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given his own room after six months of custody. Families will be able to stay together, and prisoners will be able to receive guests after a “certain period of time.” [. . .] 13 HÜSEYIN A.

APARTMENT WANTED First published as “Mietgesuche” in Mittelhessische Anzeigenzeitung, a classiﬁed-advertising newspaper in Hesse ( June 16, 1996). Translated by David Gramling.

Young Turkish family with four-year-old daughter seeks a three- or four-room apartment with kitchen and bath in Gießen for 1,200 German marks, utilities included. Telephone: 0641/394685. Warning: our advertisement sounds harmless, but just like other foreign families, we aren’t entirely unproblematic. We have just one daughter now, but soon we will multiply like locusts. In a few years, we will have several loud, dirty children with bad manners who will raise hell in the building. These little urchins will run around screaming all day, and you won’t understand a word they are saying. If your house has a well-tended, orderly yard with beautiful ﬂowers, plants, and trees, you will no longer recognize it after a few short minutes. Our children will promptly and completely destroy it, and we will hang our laundry out there instead. The only time the laundry will not be there is when we invite our countless relatives and acquaintances to grill with us. By the way, we slaughter our lambs in the bathtub on principle. If we move in, the entryway will smell like garlic and exotic spices. Deafening Turkish Jada music will waft from our open windows all day. At least once a week, the woman of the house will be beaten to the point that she needs hospitalization. For this reason, we will be a wellknown address for the local police. A squad car will often appear and shine its searchlight in front of your house, because we will often be involved in shady dealings that threaten internal order. Kniﬁngs are normal for us. Although we are a three-person family, we will have at least twenty people in our apartment, because we are constantly having visitors. If you are one of those people who still vacations in Turkey, even though it seems that Turkish automatons are falling from the sky like dead birds, then perhaps we still have a chance to rent an apartment in your building, for apparently you will never learn your lesson. Does this sound crazy to you? We look forward to your telephone call. 14 HAJO SCHUMACHER

MORE FOREIGN THAN THE TURKS First published as “Fremder als die Türken” in Der Spiegel (April 14, 1997). Translated by Tes Howell.

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Multikulti is the magic word that describes the dream of peaceful coexistence. The reality, evident in the ﬁrst multicultural residential project, is a long way off. Okay, “that the Poles are strange” is something Mr. Paffrath already knew, but that “they are even stranger when they own their own apartment” was new to him; “so reserved—just strange somehow.” Conciliatory, Paffrath raises his hand to his mouth and mutters, “I didn’t want to say anything.” Having brought down his garbage, the early retiree now takes a walk around the block. In front of the Turkish produce store he stops to sort apples in the display: “They should all be in a row.” Paffrath knows a lot about other nationalities. At Easter, he was in London; last fall, in the Madeira sun. He sees himself as a “citizen of European culture.” Do the Poles actually belong to this culture too? Mr. Paffrath thinks about this a bit. It doesn’t matter anyway. Paffrath is a guinea pig. And, as such, his tolerance is tested on a daily basis. For he is surrounded by more culture than he would like: Poles, Russian Germans, Turks, Brazilians, non-Rhenish Germans, Cambodians. Result: “You can forget about multikulti.” For a year and a half, Paffrath, 55, has lived with his wife and son in Germany’s ﬁrst multicultural residential project in Volkhoven-Weiler, which, depending on the wind, gets polluted air from the Ford factory, Bayer Leverkusen, or Kölner City. One hundred families purchased apartments in the rectangular building that shields a manicured courtyard from the outside world. Following the wishes of a pastor, a real-estate ﬁrm, and a dozen other like-minded citizens, the project was supposed to prove that what has failed in the nation can succeed on this small residential block. For example, Corina Läpple, 28, from number 14, was born for such multicultural projects. She found it exciting and positive that Kim, 5, and Tom, 2, will grow up with children from all over the world. And she and her husband, the IT technician Markus, 33, were curious to get to know the children’s parents. Down in the courtyard, Mrs. Läpple hoped the multicultural life with all its great diversity would blossom in the summer: aromas of exotic food, the laughter of happy and appreciative people, children of all skin colors playing together. Unfortunately, the German monoculture has so far been stronger. When her son toddled across the freshly seeded lawn, he was promptly “yelled at.” In the pond that collects rainwater, the children are not allowed to wade because of insurance issues. And to be on the safe side, the owners of the ground-ﬂoor apartments have enclosed their towel-sized gardens with an anti-international protective hedge. A few particularly sensitive residents even had fast-growing decorative

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woods planted to shield them from view. However the turbo-reforestation was against house regulations. Now meter-high walls of wooden lattice separate the lots. “So far it hasn’t been all that warm-hearted,” comments Mrs. Läpple calmly. She received no replies—not even negative ones—to her invitation for brunch and Advent coffee. Only the Ouy family from Cambodia thanked her for the offer. The Ouys, who ﬂed torture and hunger in their homeland 20 years ago, had expected more togetherness from the project. “That will come still— maybe,” hopes Mrs. Ouy politely. “At any rate, we have learned to make do everywhere we go.” And thus the residential block on Fühlinger Weg reﬂects the German norm regarding coexistence, tolerance, patience, and respect. Recently, the community quarreled hopelessly about the common spaces—conceived by the project’s planning committee as a multicultural nucleus. Partyers stand in opposition to those seeking peace and quiet. Mr. Paffrath, who lives across from the common room, likens parties in the isolated room to “[them] dancing in my bed.” Meanwhile, a German gymnastics group is now practicing there. The community newspaper, whose goal is to promote cohesion, never made it to print. Many dismissed it as outright “silly.” The tanning salon Flamingo-Sun on the ﬁrst ﬂoor is, as the neighbors joke, the most multicultural because stiff-necked neighbors can at least attain a “foreign” complexion there. Mrs. Läpple complains that “one should really be ashamed” of some of her fellow residents. At a recent meeting, a German man complained loudly enough for all to hear about “the damn foreigners.” At that point, Mrs. Läpple was looking forward to some “hopefully audible resistance.” However, the victims hung their heads and acted as though they had not heard. Afterward, someone explained to her that it makes little sense to have such discussions, because they only evoke further injury. Experience teaches that it is bad enough to be foreign in Germany; it is worse to be rebellious. Perhaps, Mrs. Läpple supposes, it would have helped if the Society for Multicultural Living, established by the Ratingen-based real-estate ﬁrm Interboden, had let prospective buyers know from the beginning what they were planning to do. Many buyers did not learn of the ﬁrm’s intention until they had signed the contract. To avoid scaring away those people who had little interest in other cultures, the clever brokers kept several lists of new residents: this group received a list with overwhelmingly familiar German names, whereas the Läpples saw one with foreign names. However, despite the low cost of approximately 3,500 marks per square meter, it was not only the natives who declined the offer. Many potential

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Turkish buyers, fearing right-wing extremists who could be attracted by the label multicultural, said “no thanks.” Yet the building contractors assured them that there was no reason for panic. Following the 1993 attack on a Turkish residence in Solingen, they had begun to build particularly secure window frames and shutters that made break-ins almost impossible. But the Islamic candidates remained skeptical. What should they think of planners who had, in the blueprints, aligned the toilets directly facing Mecca? And so, instead of the projected two-thirds, only 38 of 104 apartments went to foreigners, with a higher percentage of Germans in the project than in the surrounding concrete jungle of the Cologne suburb Chorweiler. Meanwhile, real-estate agent Reiner Götzen, 45, is quite happy “that we do not have such enormous diversity. Otherwise, we would overload the project.” So that the foreign vitality does not bubble over, Götzen has implemented “strict German house regulations” because “the Southerner doesn’t really get going until night time.” Islam expert Werner Wanzura, 54, provides mental support for the project. The pastor of the St. Cosmas and Damian congregation [. . .] has already learned something. “The Poles,” explains this emissary of Pope Karol Wojtyla, “are more foreign to us than the Turks.” Various strategies were planned to improve the situation in the beginning. However, neither the promised social worker nor the announced day-care center materialized. And there is no café, which was to be a communal meeting place. The swift end to the ﬂower shop probably scared away interested tenants. The team behind the project showed real engagement just once. In the summer of last year, Wanzura and the Catholic educational organization put on a symposium. For two days, scholars competed in Wanzura’s congregational hall over who had the most innovative idea to present. Herbert Schnoor, former interior minister of North Rhine–Westphalia, ruminated over “the multicultural society—threat or chance?” Professor Stefan Gaitanides of Frankfurt presented on the “systemic conditions for a multicultural agreement within our democratic structure in the context of international conﬂicts.” Professor Erich Schneider-Wessling of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts countered imaginatively with “integrative residential possibilities for people from different cultures—architectural design in cultural colors.” Mrs. Läpple was in the audience there, too. Unfortunately, she “understood nothing, to be honest.” Except this: “There was no way it was about us.”

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15 K. BERGER

THE THAI WIFE: MEDICINE FOR GERMAN MEN DAMAGED BY WOMEN’S LIBBERS? Published as “Die Thaifrau—Medizin für emanzengeschädigte deutsche Männer?” in 2000 at http://guide.thaifrau.de. Translated by David Gramling.

In this age of globalization, many Europeans who are disgusted by the increasing masculinization of the female in private and professional life and deeply repulsed by women’s lib in this country are naturally looking beyond the borders of their own homeland. Thanks to the ways that men are open to the world and able to adjust to the customs of foreign cultures, more and more appear to be succeeding in freeing themselves from the constraints of worn-out conventions and prejudices and are searching and ﬁnding happiness in far-off lands in tropical regions. It is also a dream among many men to conquer a woman from a land where woman can still be woman and man can still be man—not a “little guy.” He can take her back to his chillier homeland and live with her for the long term. Many have had frequent opportunities to make ﬁrst contact. On vacations in tropical countries like Thailand, many encounters with the beauties of the land have taken place. In the vast majority of cases, this ﬁrst encounter turned out to be a meeting between a man and a female representative of the more commercial sort. However, men discovered to their amazement that a Thai lady, even if she is working in this particular industry, is usually endowed with much natural charm and deals with her customers in a friendlier and more cheerful way than her German counterparts do. Thus, many tolerance-oriented Europeans eventually toy with the idea of leading this lady, in whose pleasant company he has never for even a second felt like the usual john or tourist, back onto the path of virtue and considers staying with her beyond the period of the vacation. It is no longer uncommon today for a cosmopolitan, self-conﬁdent German man to return from a vacation with an exotic woman and to become the envy of his colleagues at home. A wild Asiatic thoroughbred female can easily turn the heads of even the coolest European. This fact does not sit well with many German ladies; indeed, they may be threatened by the prospect of falling short in men’s assessment of the feminine characteristics they seek. If we rely on experiential accounts, the Thai lady generally brings an acquired tendency to please the man and perceives a harmonious life together as her highest purpose. Her childlike, naive femininity and traditional sense of family could also doubtlessly awaken the desire among many men never to allow this tryst with the creature of their dreams to end.

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In the moments after they have survived some hot adventure and the cool European intellect calls again, intelligent men will of course ask the question whether they could maintain their right path in the future when sharing it with a lady of the “profession,” whether they will ever be able to drive the bar life out of the lady after they have succeeded in getting the lady out of the bar. Those who do not feel up to such truly difficult tasks should not immediately become discouraged and throw in the towel but should pursue other paths that might also lead to the goal they long for. Of course, these strategies are not as fast and comfortable as the commercial contact venues, but on this more time-consuming path in search of happiness, the end result could prove signiﬁcantly better. If the opportunity should arise, one should at least make an attempt to learn 100 to 200 words in the foreign language, with a focus on the essential elements of daily life—for example, shopping, eating, drinking, sleeping, driving, man-woman relationships, and similar topics—so that nothing can stand in the way of interesting journeys of discovery outside the tourist centers. One can ﬁnd smaller locations with little markets and festivals and other interesting places that are not constantly overrun with streams of tourists. In this way, with a humble knowledge of the language, one can make contact with the “normal population” and thus also automatically make contact with feminine comeliness. He who can diplomatically broach the topic of his interest in a female Thai partner on such occasions will often be surprised how quickly he will ﬁnd these desired contacts. Another alternative that could spare one elaborate traveling and effort would be a partner-placement agency, in which case one must make sure not to be ripped off by a zealous sales-oriented enterprise. Often, the marketing for such agencies uses actresses and models who are not even available but are only tempting decoys. At the same time, one can ﬁnd partner-placement agencies nowadays that provide services for no fees and operate the placement agency simply in order to offer an alternative to the more commercial venues and big businesses and to assist those searching for prospective partners in their search for happiness, without much in the way of expenditure. (See examples on the Internet at http://www.thaifrau.de.) In any case, after successful contact is established, it is the job of the one seeking a partner to make a choice and ascertain whether he intends to live together. The greatest possible number of commonalities is usually recognized to be one of the most important preconditions for realizing a harmonious partnership. With two people who come from completely different cultures and emotional worlds, no one can count on the immediate fulﬁllment of these preconditions. But if both partners demonstrate goodwill to accommodate each other as much as possible in this area, a very happy relationship can result. Different cultural backgrounds and interests can coalesce into a grand, functional unity. A commonly spoken and understood lan-

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guage is unquestionably crucial as soon as possible—so, German when the place of residence is Germany. It could be an unpleasant surprise to the woman who has taken a great leap into our country if she suddenly ﬁnds out that her ostensible big man is making ends meet in his German homeland with resources that are relatively as meager as hers had been before. Most women become acquainted with their new environment rather quickly and soon learn to treasure and use its amenities. For some individuals, integration will of course be more difficult. It should be taken as axiomatic that the higher the level of education, the less arduous the adjustment. Problems can be expressed, explained, and solved. Those with more simple natures do not have it so easy in this regard. They quickly pine for their former life, the home climate they are used to, their parents’ house, and cheerful conversation with their own kind. Their German protector and teacher will need to take some initiative to avoid the quick withering away of his wife and must not break off connections to her homeland too severely in the initial period. In this case, it would be very helpful if it were possible for her to watch the television channel Thai TV Global Network, which is broadcast throughout Europe 24 hours a day and presents a constant and comfortable connection to her homeland and an interesting source of information. He should exercise caution when choosing his circle of acquaintances. Some men have learned the hard way that the cheerful small Thai community in whose company his wife feels so at home is an organization of swindlers whose main vocation consists in quickly gambling away the income of their husbands. Only by immediately putting on the emergency brake— by cutting off the funds, that is—can this problem be resolved, no matter how difficult this might be. A horrible end is better than an endless horror and is the only solution in such cases. No one should believe, however, that gambling is a purely Thai problem. Germans are also signiﬁcantly affected by this behavior as well. Another problem concerns the pronounced sense of family of the Thai lady. It is not categorically a positive characteristic but rather one that could have disastrous effects for the German husband if not monitored and managed with precision. A disproportionate transfer of shared household funds to Thailand could also mean quick ﬁnancial ruin for the German partner. Many Thai families are in no sense demure in expressing their desires and making demands on the daughter living in the supposedly affluent paradise, and they are uncommonly imaginative when it comes to inventing new reasons for bringing about yet another lucrative funds transfer. At the very latest, after the brother’s third severe motorcycle accident or the costly burial of a grandmother that had already been ﬁnanced four years earlier, a red light should go off for even the dumbest Farang, or foreigner, and the emergency brake should be pulled. It is also not absolutely necessary for the wife’s

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brothers in Thailand to have a cell phone on their belts as a status symbol when it becomes clear that, since their sister’s wedding in Germany, they can no longer take care of their own living costs despite available employment opportunities. Those who consider such examples to be simply bad jokes could soon ﬁnd themselves in the embarrassing position of experiencing these things live in their own intimate family circle. Men are well advised to avoid such incidents and to behave like one who never lets go of the wheel and always remains vigilant. In this way, they can be relatively certain that such unpleasant events will not arise. But in no case should one generalize from these kinds of events. That would also do injustice to the many Thai women who have adjusted very well to German conditions in happy and exemplary marriages. And men should never be discouraged from looking around among the always-fascinating beauties of Thailand for an appropriate partner. It is said that every man is the forger of his own happiness, and taking on a vivacious Thai lady, and thus a little Sabai and Sanuk from the Thai way of life, could guarantee a meaningful dash of spice to the daily life of many a dispassionate European man. 16 KLAUS HARTUNG

ENTERPRISE KREUZBERG First published as “Unternehmen Kreuzberg” in Die Zeit (August 2, 2001). Translated by David Gramling. In 2003, the Kreuzberg Museum documented local housing initiatives in the exhibition History in the Making: Berlin at Kottbusser Gate. Hartung (b. 1940) is a frequent commentator on Berlin economic and urban development.

Kreuzberg Center used to be a symbol of misery and the ghetto. Now it is becoming livable. Civic sensibility and business ideas, not subsidies or politicization, have helped improve conditions. Here, the citizen is making his own reforms. On the forefront: a ﬁnance attorney. A staircase. A symbol. A simple, ﬁligree steel construction. But who notices it? Hardly anyone who comes around “the Kotti,” the Kottbus Gate—the symbolic site of civil war, ghetto, and decline in Kreuzberg—takes note of it. And whoever turns down Adelbert Street to drive through the cement mass of the New Kreuzberg Center (NKZ), would not see this staircase, only that old image of a social powder keg. He also will not see the three new maple trees, which suggest some kind of small piazza. The giant cliff of exposed concrete in the stony sea of Berlin, the concrete of a thousand social-welfare residents and Turkish hustle and bustle, has clearly established itself as a symbol. It signals failed integration, ghettoization of Turks, drug scenes. The Kreuzberg Christian Democrats were thinking of this place when they demanded that “Germany come to recognize itself again.”

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For the CDU godfather, Klaus Landowsky, it was Berlin’s “center of criminality.” According to him, “no one can get a handle on it.” His suggestion in March 1998: demolish it. The NKZ was also a symbol in Turkey; the “Gallery” constructed over Adelbert Street was known as the “Galata Köprüsü,” or Galata Bridge. Kurds ruled this massive bridge with their gambling salons and pool halls. The dual-purpose concrete ramps that led up to it were like fortress entrances, pasted over with layers of political posters promoting the Marxist-Leninist struggle. “Nothing against Kurds, but no one liked to go up there. It just was not pleasant,” said Hakan Kir, who now has his elegant Allianz agency in the Gallery. The cement steps have been torn out. The new ornamental steel staircase suggests a gentle disavowal of the cement fort of social problems. According to the architect Claudia Grünberg, who now works here, people noticed that “something has changed here.” In 2000, city-planning senator Peter Strieder hastened to inaugurate the bridge and to announce the allocation of 7 million marks in investment capital by the “neighborhood management,” to be used for building and environmental renovation. For the new business director, Peter Ackermann, what began with the new staircase is nothing less than a “model case of integration.” It is the official end of the NKZ and beginning of the Kreuzberg Center—“Kreuzberg Merkezi.” That is the new name. So reads the new illuminated sign on the cement bridge over Adelbert Street, painted bordeaux and violet. The logo: a yellow sunbeam and a green point.

Utopia and Social Misery A model case for integration? When Peter Ackermann speaks of this effort, it is a businessman speaking, not a social worker or politician. Ackermann’s motto has always been “Then I’ll do it myself.” When he took over the Kotti situation in 1999, it was clear to him that “it’s not an object that one administrates. It must be shaped.” But before speaking of a model case, one must know that Ackermann’s story has a prehistory. Social utopias don’t just fall from the sky. On the contrary, the misery began with social utopia. When the NKZ was introduced in 1970, talk of a new world was churning. A neglected Kreuzberg would receive a showpiece, a European center of the East, a mezzanine of Kreuzberg businesses, reading rooms, a swimming pool, ateliers, department stores, terrace cafés, a cinema for drinking and smoking, a greenbelt. “Mercantile, cultural, and residential areas will form a comfortable unity with artists, street singers, hand-organ players, and bookstore shoppers.” [. . .] From the outset, the project was perceived as an impertinence. The giant cement half-shell at Kotti was only thinkable because the city’s freeway and the demolition of Luisenstadt were part of the plan. For the ﬁrst time, the Kreuzberg “neighborhood” rebelled and organized against it. A faction of

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the Berlin left housed the Organization of the Proletarian Avant-Garde and mobilized the district. A core developed that later would become the successful squatter movement. This provoked yet another political consequence: the strategies of the “mindful urban renewal.” The IBA, the International Architectural Exhibit, opened at the beginning of the 1980s. There, expertise was developed for the “critical reconstruction” of the contemporary city. Berlin stood to gain much from the NKZ: a regenerative city plan, including the rescue of the Luisenstadt, a new identity of alternative neighborhood self-determination, and a paradoxical touristic allure in a new arena of Turks and the autonomous left. But the NKZ offered no such beneﬁts. Already during construction, technical costs were cut. No showpiece, no mezzanine with singers, only negative social selection instead. People with residence permits and urgent-appeal status moved in, mostly Turks with many children. The Social Welfare Bureau paid most of the rents. Apartments were passed on from renter to renter. It was similar with the businesses. The bazaar ruled supreme: entrepreneurial partnerships with hidden bosses, hot money and businesses with offshoot businesses. Within a bakery, one could also set up a prostitution business. The punks came, along with the winos and junkies. The place had degenerated into a “toilet” and a trash can for syringes, according to one bank sales clerk. [. . .] With Ackermann doing it on his own, things are going quickly. Step by step. A new name, a new logo. One hundred ﬁfty new trash cans with logos, new stairways. He secured ﬁnancing for a playground next to the Mevlana Mosque. The children of the district also have a place. After three months of struggle, a pedestrian overpass is now being built to connect both wings of the building at an even level. Ackermann is pushing rigorously for a new aesthetic: display windows will no longer be pasted shut with posters. Neon signs, even if they are expensive, are being eliminated if they do not ﬁt in. Barbed wire and fencing were immediately taken down. “No one will be driven away, no one shut out. Junkies belong to our society too.” He did not want a security guard. The reason: the more the building becomes a fortress, the more negative the image is. The shop merchants and residents won out on the issue of security guards. Ackermann did not have a social utopia in mind but rather normality: “the normal neighborhood average of unemployed people, normal mix of businesses.” Integration for him means above all the integration of the NKZ into Kreuzberg. The means for him is business. The high business quota (40 percent, with 80 businesses) was used as an operating standard. The monoculture of 16 kebap kiosks was discontinued; their contracts were not extended. Whoever wants the space must offer something new. At Ackermann’s suggestion, Turkish soups are sold on the corner of the plaza. It says so in the contract. “The man makes a roaring business!” It’s too bad if he comes up with something else. Ackermann is in charge. When a con-

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tract is breached, the word is “hit the road!” A Vietnamese woman is operating a cook shop called Thay Hung. Ackermann is promoting it, because he wants to bring female entrepreneurs into this men’s culture. “Ethnic meeting spots” like pool halls or karate schools were discontinued. He needs 20 to 30 percent vacancy in order to remodel. Horst Wiesner, head tenant and chair of the Renters’ Advisory Board, dreams of normal establishments like Nordsee, McDonald’s or even a fancy Italian restaurant in the gallery. Grünberg, the architect, wants three street cafés at the head of the plaza. “Of course, that also means that the drug scene be pushed out.” The sound of what’s to come. In any case, the gallery is free of youths loitering around. “The whole picture has become brighter,” says the shoemaker Ibrahim Contur. A contract painter with ABM-Services is working his way through the stairways and mezzanines. The architect Grünberg is trying to turn the “backside into the frontside.” The architecture has many dark corners, “dirty triangles” as Ms. Grünberg calls them. The pool hall has disappeared. In June, the homeless theater group Ratten 7 took the stage, who, together with the Ant King Peoples’ Stage, is performing the Wild West show “The Song of Death.” Now, at the former eyesore where the stairs and the gallery converge, a small café, the Neighborhood Café at the Kotti, greets visitors with colorful umbrellas. [. . .] 17 SUSANNE GASCHKE

COLORFUL AND SPEECHLESS First published as “Sprachlos bunt” in Die Zeit (May 17, 2001). Translated by David Gramling.

Many immigrant children’s German is worse than ever. If the parents do not help out, kindergartens and schools are powerless. The bilingual kindergarten in Hamburg’s Ottensen district is considered to be a model of successful foreigner integration, or “integration of migrant women and men” [MigrantInnenimmigration], as one would tend to say here. Thirty-six children, who come from Turkish and German families in more or less equal proportion, are bilingually educated in the kindergarten’s day care. The organization’s space, which came into being in 1989 as the result of a parents’ initiative, is bright and friendly. For recess, the three- to nineyear-olds go to a lushly landscaped adventure playground right outside. Food is prepared fresh daily, Turkish and German. The director of the kindergarten is sure of a few things. First, she is certain that Turkish children in bilingual education learn German more successfully than their peers, who are only addressed in German in their kindergartens. Second, the linguistic results are so high among their pupils primarily because the classroom emphasizes respect for the culture of origin. Last, the project acts as a model for intercultural work.

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Why is the coexistence of Germans and foreigners not always and everywhere so harmonious, enriching, and colorful as on this sunny May morning in Ottensen? Why, ﬁrst of all, is language competency among immigrant children in Germany recently becoming not better but consistently worse, as the observations of pedagogical practitioners suggest?

No Multikulti Idylls The answer is rather simple. Most foreign children do not grow up in idyllic multiculturally oriented middle-class milieus but rather in problem neighborhoods in which even the residential German population has difficulty uttering a grammatically correct sentence. Because the parents of many foreign children tend to rely on ghetto education, any hope of German-Turkish peer group learning [original in English] is in vain from the outset. The few kindergartens in Berlin’s Wedding district, in Hamburg’s Wilhelmsburg or in Essen’s Stoppenberg, have nice parent organizations with high ratios of academics, who themselves choose organizations on the basis of whether they “suit” their children. A large portion of foreign parents do not seek an education for their children based on enlightened “neutral worldviews.” Instead, especially with daughters, they scrupulously monitor adherence to religious codes of behavior, which often is tantamount to a virtual segregation from societal contact generally considered normal. Under these conditions, learning German is anything but easy. At the same time, however, command of the German language is the basic precondition for any chance of success in German society. For the 1.7 million foreign children (42 percent Turks), emphatic tolerance rhetoric is of precious little use. They deserve a sober reexamination of the conditions of their education. What structural barriers hinder them in language acquisition? What can the educational system do to counteract the separatist tendency of their families? These questions are difficult to answer, because precise knowledge about the language competency of foreign children in Germany is largely lacking. Their dubious class participation (especially in the higher grades of grammar school and special schools) and dropout rate yield unequivocal conclusions about linguistic and social disenfranchisement. However, a systematic standard-language assessment tool does not exist. The official sector ﬁrst appraises language competency during the enrollment assessment—too late to effectively prepare children with deﬁciencies. And the process, moreover, is not satisfactory. School doctors cannot judge Turkish knowledge among beginning pupils; if they conclude that the children cannot speak German well, their best option is to postpone enrollment or to make a referral to a speech-therapy elementary school. A grotesquely failed intervention with scant support resources: the children are not, after all, developmentally disabled. [. . .] Kindergarten classrooms are apparently not in a position to counterbal-

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ance the inauspicious situation in the home and cannot ensure that their charges will learn German during the three years of kindergarten. One must, however, keep in mind the working conditions of these highly focused establishments: 129 children with 18 different ﬁrst languages attend this day care for 2- to 11-year-olds in Hamburg’s Veddel district. Two of the 12 women teachers are Turks, which means that they can be counted on to understand the Turkish children. However, a sense of uncertainty inhabits most conversations. So far, the kindergarten has only been able to mobilize extra help hours for language assistance through speech-therapy pedagogy services. “Despite this,” says the teacher, “when they get to the school, the children can make themselves understood to a certain extent in German.” There is no reason to doubt this estimation. Only, from the point of view of future opportunities, the “to a certain extent” is not good enough. And a signiﬁcant although not statistically established number of non-German children have never even attended a kindergarten. For this reason, the elementary and middle school next door to the Veddel kindergarten offers ﬁve classes just for those who do not speak any German. There is also a remedial class for older students who can neither read nor write. The old debate about separate versus “integrated” classes is becoming increasingly superﬂuous. In the classes in question, German pupils make up only 10 percent, because both the Germans and the socially mobile migrants are leaving the problem districts in droves. To deal with these consequences by extending the established feeder areas of the school, a proposal currently under discussion, is questionable. According to current pedagogical opinion, at least grammarschool children should live within walking distance of school. Besides, busing [original in English] ghetto children to the suburbs would create added social conﬂicts. It would be excessively unfair to blame the coming language catastrophe only on the kindergartens. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult for some teachers to correct children at all, which is essential for second-language acquisition. However, only a few of the educators are trained in communicating German as a foreign language. In practice the particular school of thought one employs is irrelevant. Without the voluntary cooperation of the parental home, the instruction does not work. “For this reason, courses for mothers are the fulcrum and linchpin,” says Andreas Pochert, author of the Berlin languagestatus study: “The children must keep in mind: It is important to learn German; my mother knows what is at stake and is working hard on it herself.” Experts do not think highly of the idea of mandatory kindergarten or whole-day school for foreigner children. However, they are unanimous in that a daylong option is necessary. Education politics is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it is serious about language advancement, it is faced with a giant investment in language teachers, such as classes for parents and extra-help sessions for a clientele

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that cannot express its appreciation by voting. Moreover, it must communicate to German citizens that these investments will serve social peace. It needs to develop a rhetoric that makes clear to Turkish parents that forgoing mandatory measures in no way condones inaction on their part. This means that state institutions must play a different role than they have so far. Clearly, revision of some of the integration “truths” from the early multikulti milieu will be necessary. For example, it is more than questionable whether the perennially demanded “instruction in the mother tongue” really serves integration. The standard argument is that mastery of the ﬁrst language is allegedly essential for the acquisition of the second language. But must we not ﬁrst of all delegate this responsibility to the parental home, despite the complications? It goes without saying that our education system also has duties to German culture, including raising children of any ancestry in such a way that all opportunities in life will be open to them. That principle means in part that their parents not marry them away against their will. That, as women, they also be allowed to engage in a career. That they be able to deal with open society. And learn German: read it, write it, speak it.

18 REGINA RÖMHILD

WHEN HEIMAT GOES GLOBAL First published as “Wenn die Heimat global wird” in Die Zeit (March 14, 2002). Translated by David Gramling. Römhild is assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Frankfurt am Main. She is director of the research project Transit Migration.

Immigrants changed our society long ago. We just haven’t realized it yet. Katja is 16 years old. She lives in the Gallus district in Frankfurt/Main and attends school there. She came to Germany as the daughter of RussianGerman emigrants from Uzbekistan. Many of her friends are “also Russians,” as she says. The “Russian” network of kinship connections stretches into other Frankfurt districts and the surrounding region, a network of cafés and discotheques that Katja frequents. In her own district and school class, she has more contact with “Turks” and “Yugoslavs” than anyone else. One friend is from Armenia. This distinction is important for Katja because her friend could be mistaken for a Turk based on name and appearance. Katja apparently no longer wants anything do with Turks—though only a few sentences earlier, she talked of the Turkish boys in her clique. Katja’s world illustrates what cultural anthropologists call the “transnationalization” of our society. In worlds like hers, cultural inﬂuences ﬂow in from the most varied regions in the world. They combine into novel forms of coexistence under speciﬁc local conditions. What results is a completely

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normal German everyday life. Although this life has been lived a thousand times, it still remains largely invisible, even in the current debate on immigration. For Katja’s everyday life contradicts the prevailing notions of integration, of coexistence in an immigration society. This integration imperative envisages that immigrants have integrated into a given German cultural landscape. To move within a migrant network like Katja, to spend time in “ethnic” clubs and organizations—in other words, those not frequented by Germans—is seen as the absence of a will to integrate, if not outright malicious refusal. In contrast, integration is seen as successful when migrants commit themselves to their German homeland. A notion of homeland that abandons diverse, globalized relationships is a ﬁction. The reality in cities such as Frankfurt, Offenbach, Munich, or Stuttgart is that a third of the population does not have a German passport and speaks another language. Most of the youth with whom Katja socializes at school and in her free time come from migrant families like hers. Some were born here; others immigrated as children with their parents. Katja prefers to spend her free time at the “Yugoslavian” cafés and “Russian” clubs. She feels comfortable in the Gallus district, even though she preferred life in Höchst, where she used to live: in Höchst there were more Russian meeting spots; there was more happening. Both city districts are former workers’ quarters, and many migrants still live there. Katja’s experiences and her immigrant family background are considered normal here. That the Germans are by birth the majority in the Federal Republic attracts little attention in this area. From this perspective, Katja’s classmate Anika appears to be an exception: she was born as a German in Germany. When the two ﬁght, Anika is sometimes called “potato.” In the relationships youths have with one another, classiﬁcation according to nationality plays a considerable role; after all, they want to distinguish themselves somehow. Still, they meet up again on the level of comparable experiences: the countries of origin are different, but they have the migrant story in common, with which they all must deal in their own way. Katja was in Uzbekistan this year. She enjoyed seeing her grandfather again. But she can no longer take much pleasure in village life there. She cherishes the spaces of freedom that are available to her in metropolitan Frankfurt. Katja found the situation of youths in Uzbekistan depressing. She rules out returning there, at least for now. She has other plans: after secondary-school level I, she would like to apprentice as a doctor’s receptionist. Katja envisions her future here, in a Germany that she shares with many others who have had similar world experiences. Instead of acknowledging these new spheres of experience, officials still deﬁne integration as “cultural and social harmonization of immigrants with native Germans and as an assimilation of their circumstances.” So reads the language of a recently published study on the status of integration in Frank-

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furt/Main. The Gallus district, in which Katja lives, looks good in this analysis: here, immigrants are already largely “integrated into the everyday social spheres of long-established German inhabitants of the district.” Yet if Katja is “integrated,” then it is primarily within the microcosm of the immigration society, as is typical for our cities. In this context, the cultural-studies scholar Mark Terkessidis speaks of “self-integration,” referring to the efforts of migrants who must ﬁnd their own place in this society and be creative in constructing their worlds. These strategies of self-integration imply not only an analysis of the long-established Germans’ habits; at issue is also communication between immigrants of different nationalities. Native Germans on one side, non-German immigrants on the other: does this perspective sufficiently represent the reality in which we live? Katja came to Germany as an emigrant child; she and her parents are legally Germans, with German citizenship, with a German passport. Katja, however, counts herself among the “Russians” in Germany; she sees herself as a migrant like many others. Many of her classmates were born here but are still seen as “Turks” or “Yugoslavs”—an image of the foreign that partially coincides with their own self-image, even if many of these classmates’ families made use of the new citizenship law and are now Germans according to their passports. In this way, the boundaries are blurred and the ostensibly clear-cut categories interpenetrate. On the side of the Germans, there are many people with migration experience: emigrants, repatriated foreigners, mobile Germans who spend considerable time abroad on business or for pleasure. On the side of the “immigrants,” there are, however, many family members who have already lived here for two or three generations. They are an inherent part of our society, and they actively help shape it as pupils, students, employees, entrepreneurs, politicians, and artists. In contrast, the number of Germans who have settled down in families continues to decrease. The integration ideal is still based on this shrinking majority. In the future, fewer and fewer people will live their entire lives where they were born, and even the most settled people will recognize that the world around them changes unceasingly, that the world comes to them at home even if they themselves do not move. The salsa scene or the esoteric networks in the cities are examples of the development of new cultural marketplaces, in which Germans, together with non- or semi-Germans, actively participate in the globalization of their lives. We have been living in a globalized society for a long time already, not only in the economic but also in the cultural sense. Migration is one cause of this. With it, people, things, and ideas become mobile. Meeting and dealing with foreigners has become an everyday experience. However, this everyday experience has still not found its way sufficiently into the theories that we have about them nor the notions that we derive from them. Migration, so it is still believed, changes only the migrants’ lives and biography, not those

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of the society concerned. According to migration researcher Ludger Pries, nation-states such as Germany understand themselves as “receptacles” that must hold people and cultures together. Movements between the individual receptacles are understood as a disruption of the entire system. The desired equilibrium is achieved again only when the moving part is well adapted to— or “integrated” in—the new place. Still, the history of “guest workers” in Germany shows that people develop their own migration projects that are only conditionally manageable by nation-states. The migrant laborers of the ﬁrst generation who remained here did not tear down the bridges to their old homeland but rather maintained the familial, social, and economic relationships. International migration always creates new connections between countries and cultures and makes the imaginary receptacles of nation-states permeable. Thus, through their own “transnational” networks, the “guest workers” launched modernization developments in the European periphery. In the process, they spurred on a transnational Europeanization “from below.” In the nation-state logic, a life with two—or even more—homelands is seen as problematic; this phenomenon produces within the individual a tension that must be resolved. Migrant children, above all, are seen as “living between the worlds,” suffering from an identity crisis, because they have lost their cultural roots and no longer know where they belong. Whole branches of social work, of foreigner and later intercultural pedagogy, have endeavored to help people out of this quasi-pathologic condition and to help them achieve a new cultural rootedness in Germany. As though questions of identity could be answered with an either-or decision. An ethnographic study by Sven Sauters bears the programmatic title “We Are Frankfurt Turks.” In it, youths from the second immigrant generation describe their position in a cultural sphere, for which the language of integration has no name. These German-Turkish youths are developing an independent way of “being Turkish” that does not refer to the rural homeland of their parents. In fact, Frankfurt/Main is the place from which they enact distance from their homeland. Frankfurt is the place that demands this separation from them—and enables it in the ﬁrst place. For being a Frankfurt Turk is a collective project, experienced and lived as part of youth culture. One ﬁnds identiﬁcation with the city in all German migration centers: in Berlin as well as in Stuttgart, Munich, or Offenbach. For Frankfurt, statistics prove this phenomenon: according to the above-mentioned integration study, two-thirds of the surveyed youths see themselves as Frankfurters; almost half feel—partly simultaneously—connected to their parents’ country of origin, but not even one-ﬁfth identify themselves as German. Could one therefore assume, as the study concludes, that “the majority of those surveyed feel connected to the German host society?” Is the city the smallest common

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denominator that enables integration into German life—if not on a national level, then at least on the local one? The Frankfurt Turks contradict this notion: it is not the German Frankfurt to which they are referring, not the city as a part of the national republic, but rather the potentially cosmopolitan metropolis, which offers the social and cultural framework for their particular life plans. Migration produces cultural pluralization, not the uniﬁed culture of the global village. When the global comes into contact with the local, the cultures distinguish themselves further; they duplicate each other in ever-new combinations. Ayse Caglar and Levent Soysal show a glimpse of this in their studies on German-Turkish youth culture in Berlin. The German audience recognizes and appreciates German-Turkish hip-hop and rap as the musical avant-garde. German-Turkish hip-hoppers, in turn, make a conscious connection with the African-American youth culture, which they use for their linguistic and musical self-stylings. Bands such as White Nigger Force, by name alone, express the fans’ feeling that they are the “blacks of Germany.” Kreuzberg and Brooklyn have become symbols for cultural kinship in the global sphere. The second generation of immigrants in particular articulates itself aggressively and, in the process, adopts a political position: their spokespeople are musicians, ﬁlmmakers, and writers such as Feridun Zaimog ˘ lu, who has made the jargon of German Turks, “kanaki speak,” socially acceptable, or the political-action group Kanak Attak. The language and culture of the “ghetto kids” [original in English] have indeed become part of the commercialized German multiculture. But there are other, less spectacular forms of such cultural globalization: cafés and clubs emerging in the expensive downtown areas have established themselves in the mainstream yet still serve/cater to almost exclusively Turkish patrons, especially from the middle class. Here, one can listen to Turkish pop as it is played in Istanbul or Ankara, and the interior design is urban and fashionable. The décor here is neither ghetto nor arabesque f

Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration, 1955-2005 (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism) - PDF Free Download (2024)