Immigration to Germany, both in the country's modern borders and the many political entities that preceded it, has occurred throughout the country's history. Today,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
is one of the most popular destinations for immigrants in the world, with well over 1 million people moving there each year since 2013. As of 2019, around 13.7 million people living in Germany, or about 17% of the population, are
first-generation immigrants.
Even before
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
's formal
founding
Founding may refer to:
* The formation of a corporation, government, or other organization
* The laying of a building's Foundation
* The casting of materials in a mold
See also
* Foundation (disambiguation)
* Incorporation (disambiguation)
In ...
in 1871, its predecessor states, such as the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
and the
German Confederation
The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...
, were destinations for immigrants. Early examples include Protestants seeking religious freedom and refugees from the
partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
. Jewish immigration, mostly from Eastern Europe, was also significant. In the 20th century, rising
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
and
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
resulted in the
mass emigration of
German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
and culminated in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, in which almost all remaining German Jews and many other religious or ethnic groups, such as
German Roma, were systematically murdered. In the decades since, Germany has experienced renewed immigration, particularly from Eastern and Southern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East.
Since 1990, Germany has consistently ranked as one of the five most popular destination countries for
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
in the world. According to the federal statistics office in 2016, over one in five Germans has at least partial roots outside of the country.
In modern Germany, immigration has generally risen and fallen with the country's economy. The economic boom of the 2010s, coupled with the
elimination of working visa requirements for many EU citizens, brought a sustained inflow from elsewhere in Europe. Separate from
economic trend
*all the economic indicators that are the subject of economic forecasting
**see also: econometrics
*general trends in the economy, see: economic history
Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. R ...
s, the country has also seen several distinct major waves of immigration. These include the
forced resettlement of ethnic Germans from eastern Europe after World War II, the
guest worker programme of the 1950s–1970s, and ethnic Germans from former Communist states claiming their
right of return after the
breakup of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
. Germany also accepted significant numbers of refugees from the
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia from ...
in the 1990s and the
Syrian civil war in the 2010s.
Motivated in part by low birth rates and labour shortages, German government policy towards immigration has generally been relatively liberal since the 1950s,
although conservative politicians resisted the normalisation of Germany as a country of immigrants and
citizenship laws accordingly remained relatively restrictive until the mid-2000s. A major reform of
immigration law in 2005 saw the state commit, for the first time, resources to the
integration
Integration may refer to:
Biology
*Multisensory integration
*Path integration
* Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome
*DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...
of newcomers and significantly liberalised the labour market for
skilled professionals while restricting it for unskilled
labourers
A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...
.
Smaller immigration reforms in 2009, 2012 and 2020 contributed to the broad trend of liberalisation,
although there continue to be calls for a more comprehensive reform, especially to simplify the accreditation of foreign qualifications and make it easier for companies to employ non-EU citizens.
History of immigration to Germany
Pre-Unification
The
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...
in the 16th and 17th centuries led large numbers of Protestants to settle in Protestant — or at least religiously tolerant — principalities and cities of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
, much of which would later become Germany. According to one estimate, a total of 100,000 Protestants moved from
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
lands to what is now southern and central Germany in the 17th century.
Large numbers of
Huguenots
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss politica ...
also fled France after the
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, around 40,000 of whom settled in what is now Germany. Although many returned to France after the 1598
Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes () was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aimed pr ...
, which proclaimed a policy of religious tolerance towards Huguenots, repeated waves of conflict and persecution over the next few centuries spurred new waves of emigration.
Brandenburg-Prussia,
Hesse-Kassel
The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel (german: Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel), spelled Hesse-Cassel during its entire existence, was a state in the Holy Roman Empire that was directly subject to the Emperor. The state was created in 1567 when the Lan ...
,
Brandenburg-Bayreuth
The Principality of Bayreuth (german: Fürstentum Bayreuth) or Margraviate of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (''Markgraftum Brandenburg-Bayreuth'') was an immediate territory of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern dyna ...
, and
Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
were major destinations of Huguenots during this time.
Several thousand English and Scottish Presbyterians also fled the violent reign of
Mary Tudor; many settled in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. Many Dutch
Calvinists settled in northwestern Germany after the
Dutch Revolt
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) (Historiography of the Eighty Years' War#Name and periodisation, c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and t ...
.
After World War II until reunification (1945-1990)
Forced emigration of ethnic Germans from eastern and central Europe
Towards the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and in its aftermath, up to 12 million refugees of
ethnic Germans, so-called "
Heimatvertriebene
The German Expellees or ''Heimatvertriebene'' (, "homeland expellees") are 12-16 million German citizens (regardless of ethnicity) and ethnic Germans (regardless of citizenship) who fled or were expelled after World War II from parts of Germ ...
" (German for "expellees", literally "homeland displaced persons") were forced to migrate from the former German areas, as for instance
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
or
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
, to the new formed States of
post-war Germany
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
and
Allied-occupied Austria
The Allied occupation of Austria started on 8 May 1945 with the fall of Nazi Germany and ended with the Austrian State Treaty on 27 July 1955.
After the in 1938, Austria had generally been recognized as part of Nazi Germany. In 1943, however, ...
, because of changing borderlines in Europe.
[http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelgeschichte/d-76574305.html , SpiegelOnline 25 January 2011.]["Konrad Adenauer Stiftung" ](_blank)
viewed on 31 March 2015.
Guest worker programs
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-01986-09083, Schwarza, kubanische Gastarbeiterin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-01986-09083%2C_Schwarza%2C_kubanische_Gastarbeiterin.jpg)
Due to a shortage of laborers during the
Wirtschaftswunder
The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social marke ...
("economic miracle") in the 1950s and 1960s, the West German government signed bilateral recruitment agreements with
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
in 1955,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
in 1960,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
in 1961,
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
in 1963,
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
in 1964,
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
in 1965 and
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
in 1968. These agreements allowed German companies to recruit foreign citizens to work in Germany. The work permits were at first issued for a duration of two years, after which the recruited workers were supposed to return to their home countries. However, many companies repeatedly renewed the work permits; some of the bilateral treaties were even updated to give workers
permanent residency
Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with suc ...
upon arrival. As a result, even though many did ultimately return to their countries of origin, several million of the recruited workers and their families ended up settling in Germany permanently. Nevertheless, the government continued to encourage the public perception of the arriving immigrants as temporary guest workers (''Gastarbeiter)'' and for many years made little provision for their
integration
Integration may refer to:
Biology
*Multisensory integration
*Path integration
* Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome
*DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...
into German society.
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
set up similar foreign recruitment schemes, although at much smaller scales and exclusively with other socialist states. Most foreign workers recruited to East Germany, known locally as ''
Vertragsarbeiter'', came from
North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
(ca. 60,000),
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
(30,000),
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
(21,000) and
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
(6,000). The government portrayed East Germany as a post-racial society and called the foreign workers socialist "friends" who would learn skills which could then be applied in their home countries. In reality, racism and exploitation were widespread.
The workers were generally strictly segregated from locals and did menial work that locals refused to do.
Considerable portions of their paychecks were often diverted to their home governments, making their livelihoods precarious. Following
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
in 1990, many of the roughly 90,000 foreign workers living in what had been East Germany had no legal status as immigrant workers under the Western system. Consequently, many faced deportation or premature termination of residence and work permits, as well as open discrimination in the workplace and racism in everyday life. The vast majority ultimately returned to their home countries.
Immigration from East Germany to West Germany
During the 1980s, a small but steady stream of East Germans immigrating to the West (''Übersiedler'') had begun with the gradual opening of the
Eastern bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
. In 1990, the year of
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, the number swelled to 389,000.
Aussiedler
![Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F079036-0016, Lager Friedland, Familie aus Kasachstan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-F079036-0016%2C_Lager_Friedland%2C_Familie_aus_Kasachstan.jpg)
As Eastern bloc countries gradually began to open their borders in the 1980s, large numbers of
ethnic Germans from these countries began to move to Germany. German law at the time recognized an almost unlimited
right of return for people of German descent, of whom there were several million in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. Germany initially received around 40,000 per year. In 1987, the number doubled, in 1988 it doubled again and in 1990 nearly 400,000 immigrated.
Upon arrival, ethnic Germans became citizens at once according to Article 116 of the Basic Law, and received financial and many social benefits, including language training, as many did not speak German. Social integration was often difficult, even though ethnic Germans were entitled to German citizenship, but to many Germans they did not seem German. In 1991, restrictions went into effect, in that ethnic Germans were assigned to certain areas, losing benefits if they were moving. The German government also encouraged the estimated several million ethnic Germans living in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to remain there. Since January 1993, no more than 220,000 ethnic Germans may immigrate per year.
In total, more than 4.5 million ethnic Germans moved to Germany between 1990 and 2007.
Refugees
![Greeting Vietnamese refugees in Hamburg, Germany 1986](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Greeting_Vietnamese_refugees_in_Hamburg%2C_Germany_1986.jpg)
And in parallel, a third stream of immigration starting in the mid-1980s were
war refugee
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. s, of which West Germany accepted more than any other West European country due to a nearly unqualified
right to asylum. Around 300,000 Iranians fled from persecution in the wake of the
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
between 1979 and 1986 alone. Notable numbers of asylum seekers came from Turkey after a
military coup in 1980 and, separately, due to ongoing persecution of
Turkish Kurds in the country. Several thousand people also sought refuge in Germany from the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
.
1990–present
Yugoslav refugees
![Germans without a migrant background (2016)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Germans_without_a_migrant_background_%282016%29.svg)
Due to the outbreak of the
Yugoslav Wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia from ...
in 1991, large numbers of refugees headed to Germany and other European countries.
[" Kriegsflüchtlinge aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien nach Zielland (Schätzung des UNHCR, Stand März 1995)"](_blank)
viewed on 31 March 2015. Between 1990 and 1992 nearly 900,000 people
sought asylum in a united Germany.
In 1992 Germany admitted almost 70 percent of all asylum seekers registered in the
European Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
.
By comparison, only about 100,000 people sought asylum in the U.S in the same year.
The growing numbers of asylum seekers led the
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
to significantly curtail the previously unqualified right to asylum in Germany, which former German refugees had "held sacred because of their reliance on it to escape the
Nazi regime
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
" and which required a
constitutional amendment.
Applications from people entering Germany after passing through other European Community member states, where they theoretically could have already applied for asylum, were now refused, as were applications from nationals of designated safe countries.
Though only about 5 percent of the asylum applications were approved and appeals sometimes took years to be processed, many asylum seekers were able to stay in Germany and received financial and social aid from the government.
["Asylbewerberleistungen"](_blank)
published on 4 September 2014.
2015 Migration crisis
![Polizei fängt Flüchtlinge ab](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Polizei_f%C3%A4ngt_Fl%C3%BCchtlinge_ab.jpg)
In June 2015, new arrivals of asylum seekers, which had been increasing steadily for years, began to rise sharply, driven especially by refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. An original projection of 450,000 asylum seekers entering Germany for the whole of 2015 was revised upwards to 800,000
Retrieved 19 August 2015 in August and again in September to over 1 million. The actual final number was 1.1 million;
Germany spent about €16 billion (0.5% of GDP) on processing and housing refugees that year.
Most of the refugees entering Europe around this time came by land via the so-called "Balkan route." According to an EU law (the
Dublin regulation
The Dublin Regulation (Regulation No. 604/2013; sometimes the Dublin III Regulation; previously the Dublin II Regulation and Dublin Convention) is a European Union (EU) law that determines which EU Member State is responsible for the examina ...
), refugees were required to file asylum claims in the first EU country they set foot in, which for many was
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, and remain there while the claim is processed. As a result, Hungary registered 150,000 asylum seekers by August 2015. However, the vast majority of these refugees had no desire to remain in Hungary and wanted to move on to Western or Northern Europe, leading to a sizable population of refugees "trapped" in the country.
The Hungarian government began to house refugees in camps under squalid conditions. The
German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, overwhelmed with the task of processing the sheer number of incoming asylum claims, was unable to prioritize deporting refugees to Hungary and decided to suspend enforcement of the Dublin regulation for Syrian nationals. As a result, refugees in Hungary requested to be allowed leave for Germany; several thousand began making their way across Hungary and Austria towards Germany on foot. Claiming it was no longer able to process asylum claims properly, Hungary began providing buses for refugees to the Austrian border. Responding to a wave of public sympathy in reaction to widely broadcast scenes of police brutality and refugees dying at the hands of smugglers in Hungary, and unable to keep the migrants out of the country without resorting to brutal force, the German and Austrian chancellors,
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
and
Werner Faymann
Werner Faymann (; born 4 May 1960) is an Austrian former politician who was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) from 2008 to 2016. On 9 May 2016, he resigned from both positions amid widening critic ...
decided to allow the refugees in. The publicity from this decision led hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the
Syrian civil war to make for Germany.
Although the number of refugees in formal employment more than tripled between 2016 and 2019, as a group they remain overrepresented in unemployment statistics, which experts ascribe to a combination of red tape and refugees' difficulty in finding housing. Employment among Syrians and Afghans, the most two common nationalities among the 2015-2016 refugee arrivals, rose by 79% and 40%, respectively, between 2017 and 2018.
The
2018 Ellwangen police raid, in which residents of a migrant shelter
riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people.
Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...
ed to prevent police from deporting an asylum seeker whose claim had been deemed invalid, sparked a significant political debate.
[Clashes at migrant hostel stir German integration fears](_blank)
Reuters, 3 May 2018
In 2015, most Germans were very supportive of the large numbers of refugees arriving in Germany. Then-
chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
declared in a speech, “
Wir schaffen das" (roughly, "we can do this"), which was widely used by news media as well as the public as a defining statement of her policy during the crisis. In 2015, the brunt of the European immigration crisis was placed on Germany when 890,000 refugees crossed the border and applied for asylum, most of them fleeing from the Syrian War. By 2018, 670,000 out of 700,000 Syrians living in Germany immigrated as a result of internal strife and conflict in Syria beginning in 2011. A 2015 survey shows that 46% of the entire German population was facilitating help in some way for refugees. All over, German citizens were creating initiatives and support groups for asylum seekers as well as donating their time to help on-site with refugees. Media helped shape German attitudes as well as put pressure on the government by covering the victims of immigration and by showing individual stories, which humanized them.
The widespread
sexual assaults on New Year's Eve of 2015, for which a significant number of suspects were asylum seekers, marked a shift in the tone of media coverage and public opinion towards refugees, though the government noted refugees were, statistically, no more likely than locals to commit crimes.
Since then, Germany's intake of refugees has consistently dropped each year, while deportations increased and leveled out at around 20,000.
Refugees of the
Russo-Ukrainian War
The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. In addition to tens of thousands of deaths on both sides, this invasion has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II, with around 7.5 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced. Accordingly, by October of 2022, Germany had recorded net immigration of 750,000 people from Ukraine in the first half of 2022, according to the office, responsible for collecting information on German society, economy, and the environment. That influx pushed Germany's population growth to 1%, or about 843,000 people, in the first half of the year.
Demographics
As of 2014, about 16.3 million people with an immigrant background were living in Germany, accounting for every fifth person.
Of those 16.3 million, 8.2 million had no German citizenship, more than ever before. Most of them had
Turkish,
Eastern European
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
or
Southern European
Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alba ...
background. The majority of new foreigners coming to Germany in 2014 were from new EU member states such as
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
and
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
, non-EU European countries like
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
,
North Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
or from the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
,
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
,
South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
,
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
,
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and
Zealandia
Zealandia (pronounced ), also known as (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago.Gurnis, M., Hall, C.E., and Lavier, L.L., ...
. Due to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, many people are hoping to seek asylum in the European Union and Germany.
[Knapp 8,2 Millionen Ausländer leben in Deutschland](_blank)
"sueddeutsche.de" published in March 2015 .
The vast majority of immigrants are residing in the so-called
old states of Germany.
["Ausländische Bevölkerung nach Ländern"](_blank)
Retrieved 18 May 2015.
Immigration regulations
EU citizens
European Union
free movement of workers
The freedom of movement for workers is a policy chapter of the acquis communautaire of the European Union. The free movement of workers means that nationals of any member state of the European Union can take up an employment in another member stat ...
principles require that all
EU member state citizens have the right to solicit and obtain work in Germany regardless of citizenship. These basic rules for freedom of movement are given in Article 39 of the Treaty on the European Union.
Immigration options for non-EU citizens
Immigration to Germany as a non-
EU-
citizen is limited to skilled or highly educated workers and their immediate family members. In April 2012,
European Blue Card legislation was implemented in Germany, allowing highly skilled non-EU citizens easier access to work and live in Germany. Although uptake of the scheme has grown steadily since then, its use remains modest; around 27,000 blue cards were issued in Germany in 2018.
Self-employment requires either an initial investment of EUR 250,000 and the creation of a minimum of 5 jobs.
2019 Skilled Immigration Act
New regulations were enacted in 2020 in response to the 2019 Skilled Immigration Act.
In order to qualify for a visa under the new rules, applicants must obtain official recognition of their professional qualification from a certification authority recognized by the German government.
[ Further, the applicant must meet language competency requirements and obtain a declaration from their prospective employer.][
]
Student visa
According to a study of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), around 54 percent of foreign students in Germany decide to stay after graduation.
Asylum seekers and refugees
German asylum law is based on the 1993 amendment of article 16a of the Basic Law as well as on the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.
In accordance with the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention or the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951, is a United Nations multilateral treaty that defines who a refugee is, and sets out the rights of individual ...
, Germany grants refugee status to persons that are facing prosecution because of their race, religion, nationality or belonging to a special group. Since 2005, recognized refugees enjoy the same rights as people who were granted asylum. Germany's national ban on deportation doesn't permit returning refugees to their home country should doing so place them in imminent danger or that doing so would break EU human rights laws. This policy is a major catalyst to the large influx of Syrian refugees following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The distribution of refugees among the federal states is calculated using the "Königsteiner Schlüssel", which is recalculated annually.
Germany hosts one of the largest populations of Turkish people outside Turkey. Kurds makeup 80 to 90 percent of all Turkish refugees in Germany while the rest of the refugees are former Turkish military officers, teachers, and other types of public servants who fled the authoritarian government following the coup attempt in July 2016. Among Iraqi refugees in Germany, about 50 percent are Kurds. There are approximately 1.2 million Kurds in Germany.
An institute of forensic medicine in Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...
determined the age of 594 of unaccompanied minor
An unaccompanied minor (sometimes "unaccompanied child" or "separated child") is a child without the presence of a legal guardian.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child defines unaccompanied minors and unaccompanied children as those "who ...
s in 2019 and found that 234 (40%) were likely 18 years or older and would therefore be processed as adults by authorities. The sample was predominantly males from Afghanistan and Guinea.
In 2015, responding to relatively high numbers of unsuccessful asylum applications from several Balkan countries (Serbia, Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro), the German government formally declared these countries "generally safe" to speed up their processing.
Naturalization
A person who has immigrated to Germany may choose to become a German citizen. The standard pathway to citizenship is known as ''Anspruchseinbürgerung'' (roughly, naturalization by entitlement). In this process, when the applicant fulfills certain criteria they are entitled to become German citizens; the decision is not generally subject to the judgment of a government official. The applicant must:[Federal Government Commissioner for Migrants, Refugees and Integration]
''Wege zur Einbürgerung. Wie werde ich Deutsche? – Wie werde ich Deutscher?''
2008.
*be a permanent resident
Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with suc ...
of Germany
*have lived in Germany legally for at least eight years, or seven years if they have passed the Integrationskurs
The Integrationskurs is an integration course provided by Germany to help foreigners adjust to life in Germany. The Integrationskurs is intended to prepare noncitizens to become legally and socially accepted as citizens by learning the German la ...
*not live on welfare as the main source of income unless unable to work (for example, if the applicant is a single mother)
*be able to speak German at a 'B1' level in the CEFR standard
*pass a citizenship test. The examination tests a person's knowledge of the German constitution, the Rule of Law and the basic democratic concepts behind modern German society. It also includes a section on the constitution of the Federal State in which the applicant resides. The citizenship test is obligatory unless the applicant can claim an exemption such as illness, disability, or old age.
*not have been convicted of a serious criminal offence
*be prepared to swear an oath of loyalty to democracy and the German constitution
*be prepared to renounce all former citizenships, unless the applicant obtains an exemption. The principal exemptions are:
*# the applicant is a citizen of another European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
country, or of Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
;
*# the applicant is a refugee, holding a Refugee travel document, 1951 convention travel document;
*# the applicant is from a country where experience shows that it is impossible or extremely difficult to be released from nationality (such as Algeria, Brazil, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia);
*# renunciation of their former citizenship would cause the applicant serious economic harm. A typical example is if the person would be unable to inherit property in the country of origin.
A person who does not fulfill all of these criteria may still apply for German citizenship by discretionary naturalisation (''Ermessenseinbürgerung'') as long as certain minimum requirements are met.
Spouses and same-sex civil partners of German citizens can be naturalised after only 3 years of residence (and two years of marriage).
Under certain German nationality law#Birth in Germany, conditions children born on German soil after the year 1990 are automatically granted German citizenship and, in most cases, also hold the citizenship of their parent's home country.
Applications for naturalisation made outside Germany are possible under certain circumstances, but are relatively rare.
Immigrant population in Germany by country of birth
According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany in 2012, 92% of residents (73.9 million) in Germany had German citizenship, with 80% of the population being Germans (64.7 million) having no immigrant background. Of the 20% (16.3 million) people with immigrant background, 3.0 million (3.7%) had Poland, Polish, 1.5 million (1.9%) Turkish, 1.2 million (1.5%) Russian and 0.85 million (0.9%) Italy, Italian background.
In 2014, most people without German citizenship were Turkish (1.52 million), followed by Polish (0.67 million), Italian (0.57 million), Romanians (0.36 million) and Greek citizens (0.32 million).
, the most common groups of resident foreign nationals in Germany were as follows:
Comparison with other European Union countries
According to Eurostat, 47.3 million people living in the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
in 2010 were born outside their resident country which corresponds to 9.4% of the total EU population. Of these, 31.4 million (6.3%) were born outside the EU and 16.0 million (3.2%) were born in another EU member state. The largest absolute numbers of people born outside the EU were in Germany (6.4 million), France (5.1 million), the United Kingdom (4.7 million), Spain (4.1 million), Italy (3.2 million), and the Netherlands (1.4 million).
Crime
Only a very small percentage, around 4%, of immigrants in Germany are accused of committing crimes. Non-German citizens are, in general, over-represented among suspects in criminal investigations (see horizontal bar chart). However, the complex nature of the data means it is not straightforward to make observations about the crime rates among immigrants. One factor is that crimes committed by foreign nationals are twice as likely to be reported as those committed by German citizens. In addition, the clearance rate (the percentage of crimes that are solved successfully) is extremely low in some categories, such as pickpocketing (5% solved) and Burglary, burglaries (17% solved). When considering solved crimes only, non-German nationals make up around 8% of all suspects.
A disproportionate number of organized crime Crime family, families in Germany are run by immigrants or their children. One-fifth of investigations into organized crime involve one or more non-German suspects. This has been attributed to the lack of effort made to integrate newly arrived immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s, who at the time were seen as "temporary" guest workers.
References
Further reading
* Czymara, Christian S., and Alexander W. Schmidt-Catran. "Refugees unwelcome? Changes in the public acceptance of immigrants and refugees in Germany in the course of Europe's ‘immigration crisis’." ''European Sociological Review'' 33.6 (2017): 735-751
online
* Ellermann, Antje. ''The Comparative Politics of Immigration: Policy Choices in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States'' (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
* Green, Simon. "Germany: A changing country of immigration." ''German Politics'' 22.3 (2013): 333–351
online
* Hertner, Isabelle. "Germany as ‘a country of integration’? The CDU/CSU's policies and discourses on immigration during Angela Merkel's Chancellorship." ''Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies'' (2021): 1-21.
* Joppke, Christian. ''Immigration and the nation-state: the United States, Germany, and Great Britain'' (Clarendon Press, 1999), compartative responses.
* Kurthen, Hermann. "Germany at the crossroads: national identity and the challenges of immigration." ''International Migration Review'' 29.4 (1995): 914–938
online
* Mushaben, Joyce Marie. "A Spectre Haunting Europe: Angela Merkel and the Challenges of Far-Right Populism." ''German Politics and Society'' 38.1 (2020): 7-29.
* Piatkowska, Sylwia J., Andreas Hövermann, and Tse-Chuan Yang. "Immigration Influx as a Trigger for Right-Wing Crime: A Temporal Analysis of Hate Crimes in Germany in the Light of the ‘Refugee Crisis’." ''The British Journal of Criminology'' 60.3 (2020): 620-641.
* Schmidt-Catran, Alexander W., and Dennis C. Spies. "Immigration and welfare support in Germany." ''American Sociological Review'' 81.2 (2016): 242–261
online
* Thrädhardt, Dietrich. "Germany's immigration policies and politics." in ''Mechanisms of Immigration control: a comparative analysis of European regulation policies'' (Routledge, 2020) pp. 29–57.
* Vierra, Sarah Thomsen. ''Turkish Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany: Immigration, Space, and Belonging, 1961–1990'' (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
From Hans
External links
"6.180,013" Ausländer in Deutschland
German Foreign Office
{{Immigration to Europe
Immigration to Germany,
Foreign relations of Germany
de:Einwanderung#Einwanderung nach Deutschland