Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

212 Norbert Cyrus
collective memory: beginning with the immigration of Polish workers in the second
half of the nineteenth century, German nationalistic interest groups created and
propagated the image of the less-civilised Polish ‘job thieves’. When the developing
German agriculture and industry needed cheap labour, Poland became the main
important country of origin. On the one hand, Polish workers were recruited
because they were cheap and diligent, but on the other hand they were perceived
to drive out German workers and to undermine German culture (Herbert 1986).
According to perceptions once propagated by German interest groups, which are
over a hundred years old, Poles represent disorder, they drive German workers out
of their jobs, have a bad work performance, and accept lower wages because
of lower standards of living and civilisation. Historically rooted terms like the
‘Polenflut’ (Polish flood) or ‘Polnische Wirtschaft’ (Polish economy) still have a strong
negative connotation in Germany (Orlowski 1996; Kurcz 1999). The fact that the
first introduction of laws regulating the entry and stay of foreigners in Germany
was initially restricted to Poles from abroad (while other foreigners such as Italians
were not affected) underlines the significance the Polish ‘other’ had to play in the
process of German state and nation formation (Wippermann 1992; Gosewinkel
1997).
According to commentators, the mutual stereotypes are still relevant in the
German–Polish relationship in general and in the debate on the Polish accession to
the EU in particular. The Polish Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Wlodimierz
Cimociewiec recently estimated that the German perception of Poland relies on
negative prejudices from the past and many people do not know much about
Poland. According to Cimociewiec the fear of Eastern enlargement often uttered
in both countries stems from mutual ignorance (Tagesspiegel 21.1.2002). The Polish
sociologist Zdislaw Krasnodebski, now teaching in Bremen, detects an increasing
public interest in the subject of Polish immigration:
In view of the approaching accession of Poland to the EU, worry and fear
increase that a huge, uncontrolled immigration from Poland will take place. In
a particular sense this is a new version of the old fear of the competition of the
‘cheap hands’ and the ‘Slavic flood’.
(Krasnodębski 2001: 13)
The critique that the stereotypical perception of Polish workers is reproduced in
the debate on Eastern enlargement is shared by German observers too. The
Commissioner of affairs of foreigners of the Land Bremen sees a ‘Poland-debate’:
Since Poland stands on the threshold to the European Union, the question of
the granting of free movement to Polish workers connected with the accession
is used not infrequently in a populist manner in order to predicate ‘us’ against
a Polish infiltration, a migration of peoples with decreasing wages, and to cause
a competition scare against Polish workers and – to put it cautiously – to
produce rejective attitudes against ‘the’ Poles, even against those who have
lived here for many years.
(Lill 2001)