Copyright © 2007, Editura ASE - BONUM

The next phase began in 1955 when the German state and the free enterprise recruited
so-called guest workers („Gastarbeiter“) from Italy, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Yugoslavia etc.
At the beginning there arrived mostly young men, who should carry out simple tasks in the
booming post-war economy and who should go back to their home-countries after a couple of
years, sometimes only after months. Then the female workers arrived in the 60’s, mainly
working in the textile industry and in the hospitals. The guest workers stayed on for longer
and called for their families, increasingly since 1973. In this year the state stopped the
recruitments and drastically reduced the possibilities for labour-migration to Germany. Only
family members could immigrate. 11 Mio guest workers re-emigrated, from a total of 14 Mio,
the rest of them remained. The guest workers became immigrants, without acceptance of the
German majority for a long time. Their children, the second generation of these immigrants,
were also treated like foreigners, despite the fact that they were born and grew up in
Germany.
In the same way the German Democratic Republic recruited workers from Vietnam,
Angola and Cuba. At first they educated them, but step-by-step they assigned them more
unqualified tasks. The workers weren't given big chances to integrate. After 1990 the Federal
Government tried to send them back to their home countries. Only a few found a way to
acquire a title for a residence permit status.
Since the 1960s, ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union came to Germany, especially
from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. During the time of Perestroika, and after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number of immigrants increased. About 4 Mio resettler,
the so-called „Aussiedler“ came between 1950 and 2002 to West Germany respectively the
united Germany since 1990, 2,9 Mio of them only in the time after 1987. Meanwhile, the
immigration declined because of institutional restrictions since the midst of the 90’s, for
example quotas and language tests. Since 2005 the called family members must also
demonstrate their German language skills.
The resettles are German subjects and have better legal conditions than other
immigrants. On the other hand, they experience the same social marginalisation due to the
lack of German language abilities and different backgrounds. And they were much more
forced to assimilate because they inhabit the German citizenship.
The bilingual competences obtain mostly no acceptance and the use of the Russian
language for example raises hackles in the German society. As a result, the immigrants back
out of public social life and spend their time mostly in their own communities.
In the 80’s and at the beginning of the 90’s an increasing number of refugees applied
for asylum, although only few of worldwide fleeing refugees came to Europe or least of all
Germany. The heated, sometimes hysterical, debate about the asylum seekers, which are
excluded from the labour market, resulted in the drastic restriction of the asylum law in 1993.
The consequences were decreasing numbers of asylum applies and asylum grants. At the
same time the number of undocumented people with irregular residence rises. They must live
in fear of getting arrested or deported all the time. So they live a shadowy existence in a
society which doesn’t want to have them in their country, even though a vast majority benefit
from the invisible work done by undocumented people.
There are four other sizable groups of people that have lived in Germany for centuries.
They are referred to as "national minorities" (nationale Minderheiten): Danes, Frisians, Roma
20