Gastarbeiter

Gastarbeiter (German pronunciation: [ˈɡastˌʔaɐ̯baɪtɐ] ) is German for "guest worker" (or "guest workers" – the plural is the same as the singular). It refers to migrant workers who had moved to Germany mainly in the 1960s and 70s, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme (Gastarbeiterprogramm). On a smaller scale, the Netherlands and Belgium had a parallel scheme, called the gastarbeider programme.

Historical background

1962: An Italian Gastarbeiter family in Walsum (this woman's husband is a miner working for the German Walsum-Mines)

1962: An Italian Gastarbeiter (miner) relaxes after work

During the Nazi era the term Fremdarbeiter (German for foreign worker) was largely used. Most of the so called Fremdarbeiter were in fact doing forced labour. They were brought against their will from all over German occupied Europe to the Third Reich. After WW II, this term had a lot of negative associations and a new word was created. Due to a labour shortage during the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") in the 1950s and 1960s, the German government signed bilateral recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece in 1960, Turkey in 1961, Morocco in 1963, Portugal in 1964, Tunisia in 1965 and Yugoslavia in 1968. These agreements allowed the recruitment of Gastarbeiter to work in the industrial sector for jobs that required few qualifications. The labour shortage was made more acute by the creation of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, which reduced the large-scale flow of East German immigration virtually to zero overnight.

After 1961, Turkish citizens (largely from rural areas) soon became the largest group of Gastarbeiter in West Germany. The perception at the time on the part of both the West German Government and the Turkish Republic representatives was that working 60–80 hours a week in Germany would be only "temporary". The migrants, mostly male, were allowed to work in Germany for a period of one or two years before returning to the home country in order to make room for other migrants. Many migrants did return, after having built up savings for their return. However, many migrants decided not to return to their home countries and were joined in Germany by their families. Germany used to have a Jus sanguinis, a "right of the blood". This is a policy by which nationality or citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having an ancestor who is a national or citizen of the state. It contrasts with Jus soli (Latin for "right of soil") that can be found in other States such as the USA. According to the Jus Sanguinis children born to Gastarbeiter were not automatically granted citizenship; instead they were granted the "Aufenthaltsberechtigung" ("right to reside") and might chose to apply for German citizenship later in their lives. German citizenship was granted to persons who had lived in Germany for at least fifteen years and fulfilled a number of other preconditions (they must work for their living, they should not have a criminal record and other preconditions). Nowadays the Jus Sanguinis has been modified. Children of foreigners born on German soil now will be automatically granted the German citizenship if the parent has been in Germany for at least eight years as a legal immigrant. As a rule those children have the additional citizenship of the home country of their parents. At between 18 and 23 years of age they must choose if they want to keep German citizenship or the other citizenship. The governments of the German States have started campaigns in order to persuade immigrants to acquire German citizenship, which has become much easier now because for example persons now must have lived only 8 years in Germany instead of 15.

The Christian cross was a common item in a German classroom until it was ruled in 1995 that the cross must be removed if any of the students objects - an atheist family had sued

Those who have German citizenship have a number of advantages. For example only those holding German citizenship may vote in certain elections. Also there are some jobs that may only be performed by those holding German citizenship. As a rule these are jobs which require a high identification with the government. Only those holding German citizenship will be allowed to be a schoolteacher, a policeman or a soldier. Most jobs however do not require the person to hold German citizenship. Those who do not hold German citizenship, but the Aufenthaltsberechtigung ("right to reside") will be granted most rights every citizen has. They may attend schools, receive medical insurance, be paid childrens benefits, receive welfare and housing assistance.

There were some and still are some tensions in German society, because Muslim immigrants feel they have been religiously discriminated against. For example while the Christian churches are allowed to collect Church tax in Germany, Muslims are not allowed to do so. While German universities educated Jewish, catholic and protestant clerics and religious teachers in the past none of the German universities offered education for Muslim teachers and clerics. However nowadays such university courses exist. Also Muslims were often not pleased with the fact that the Christian cross was a common item to be found in German classrooms for a long time. The fact that most schools offer catholic and protestant religious education and ethics but no Islamic religious education has also been criticised (especially because some schools such as Gymnasium schools have made religious education or ethics compulsory). Students are allowed to wear a normal headscarf in school, however recently a Muslim student has sued a Gymnasium headmaster, because she was not allowed to wear a Khimar in school.. In another case a student sued because his Gymnasium provided no prayer room for him. A court ruled that German schools must provide prayer rooms for Muslim students.

Gastarbeiter in the GDR

A guest worker from Cuba, working in a German factory (Chemiefaserkombinat "Wilhelm Pieck"), 1986

After the division of Germany into East and West in 1949, East Germany faced an acute labour shortage, mainly because of East Germans fleeing into the western zones occupied by the Allies; the building of the Berlin Wall (1961) exacerbated the labour shortage, and in 1963 the GDR (German Democratic Republic) signed its first guest-worker contract with Poland. In contrast to the guest-workers in West Germany, the guest-workers that arrived in East Germany came mainly from countries within the Eastern Bloc or from socialist and communist countries worldwide. In this sense, the guest-worker program flew in the face of that of West Germany; the SED used their guest-worker program to reiterate support for fellow communist governments. Instead of viewing their guest-worker program as exploitation of the worker, the East German government saw themselves as shoring up support for their brothers in communism as well as providing a service to these countries by allowing their workers to come and work for higher wages.

1990: Vietnamese costermonger in Gera

The guest workers in East Germany came mainly from the Eastern Bloc, Vietnam, North Korea, China, Poland, Angola, Mozambique and Cuba. But their stay in Germany was much restricted by the East German government as well as the Stasi. Only those workers who passed strenuous qualification exams were allowed to train in professional fields or attend universities in East Germany. Residency was typically limited to only 3 years. The conditions East German Gastarbeiter had to exist in were much harsher than those experienced by the Gastarbeiter in Western Germany. They had to live in dormitories, four persons shared a room, men and women were separated and husbands and wives were not allowed to see one another, the "dormitory father" had the keys for every room and would come unannounced to see what everybody was doing. In addition, contact between guest-workers and East German citizens was extremely limited; guest-workers were usually restricted to their dormitory or an area of the city which Germans were not allowed to enter, and open contact with German citizens could bring extreme consequences. For example, female guest-workers were not allowed to become pregnant during the course of their work contract or they faced deportation or forced abortion, and the same was true of male guest-workers who were found guilty of impregnating East German women. The Stasi kept close watch on guest-worker populations, and it was through this organisation that guest-workers were deported back to their countries of origin.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification in 1990, the population of guest-workers still remaining in the former East Germany faced deportation, premature discontinuation of residence and work permits as well as open discrimination in the workplace. Out of the 100,000 guest-workers remaining in East Germany after reunification, about 75% left because of the rising tide of xenophobia in former East German territories.

Also the Vietnamese (in contrast to other Gastarbeiter) were not granted the "right to reside", because of diplomatic reasons. Thus they lived in a "grey zone". Many started selling goods at the roadside. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall most Vietnamese were granted the right to reside however and many started opening little shops.

Currently

Today, the term Gastarbeiter is no longer accurate, as the former guest worker communities, insofar as they have not returned to their countries of origins, have become permanent residents or citizens, and therefore are in no meaningful sense "guests". However, despite the fact that many of the former "guest workers" have now become German citizens, the term Ausländer is still colloquially applied to them as well as to their naturalised children and grandchildren. A new word has been used by politicians for several years: Migranten (German term for: Immigrants).The term was thought to be politically correct. Gastarbeiter, as a historical term however, referring to the guest worker programme and situation of the 1960s, is neutral and remains the most correct designation. In literary theory, some German migrant writers (e.g. Rafik Schami) use the terminology of "guest" and "host" provocatively.

The term "Gastarbeiter" lives on in Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Slovene languages, generally meaning "expatriate" (mostly referring to a second generation from the former Yugoslavia or Bulgaria born or living abroad). The South Slavic spelling reflects the local pronunciation of gastarbajter (in Cyrillic: гастарбаjтер or гастарбайтер). In Belgrade's jargon, it is commonly shortened to gastos (гастос), and in Zagreb's to gastić.

In modern Russia, the transliterated term gastarbeiter (гастарбайтер) is used to denote workers from former Soviet republics coming to Russia (mainly Moscow and Saint Petersburg) in search of work. These workers come primarily from Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Also for a guest worker from outside Europe, from China, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

References

• Götürk, Deniz, David Gramling and Anton Kaes. Germany in Transit: Nation and Migration 1955-2005. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
• Chin, Rita, Heide Fehrenbach, Geoff Eley and Atina Grossmann. After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
• Kurthen, Hermann, Werner Bergmann and Rainer Erb, eds. Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Behrends, Jan C., Thomas Lindenberger and Patrice Poutrus, eds. Fremd und Fremd-Sein in der DDR: Zu historischen Ursachen der Fremdfeindlichkeit in Ostdeutschland. Berlin: Metropole Verlag, 2003.

• Turks in Germany

External links

• German Embassy: Reform of Germany's citizenship and nationality law