The German capital is planning to honor the achievements of immigrants — in former West and East Berlin. The move comes at a time of heated nationwide debate about migration and integration 34 years after reunification.
'Guest workers' waiting to fly back to Turkey in a separate tent erected for them at Dusseldorf airport Image: bertram/dpa/picture-alliance
Advertisement
The Berlin neighborhood Kreuzberg remains inextricably linked with Turkish immigrants and their descendants — even if today, you're almost as likely to hear English or Spanish spoken, alongside Turkish and German, in the area that once stood on the west side of the Berlin Wall.
Now there are plans to erect a monument there to honor so-called "guest workers," in particular of the first generation. The project also envisages a separate memorial to former "contract workers" from Vietnam and other "socialist brother states" in what was communist East Berlin.
The project's initiator is local Social Democrat politician Sevim Aydin, a member of the Berlin Senate, whose own late parents were among that first generation. She says migrants' contribution to Germany's success has not been recognized.
Berlin Senator Sevim Aydin hopes the monuments can be completed by 2026Image: Monika Skolimowska/dpa/picture alliance
"Migrants are always portrayed in negative terms. I think it's time to relate the positive things — also about the first generation," she told DW. "Many arrived unable to speak German, but they worked, brought up families and kept this country running," she added. "I want the voices of these people to be heard."
More than 25% of Germany's 83 million people have a migrant background, according to the Federal Statistics Office. Among children, the figure rises to 40%.
Few signs of Germany's multicultural reality
Over a million monuments are estimated to exist in Germany. Yet few reflect its multicultural history. Frankfurt first floated the idea of commemorating "guest workers" in 2004, but a result is not expected until the 2030s.
And while there are already two museums telling the story of German emigration overseas in the northern cities of Hamburg and Bremerhaven, a museum about migration to Germany is only slated to open in Cologne in 2029. The project grew out of an initiative launched by Turkish migrants in the late 1980s.
'We are from here': Turkish-German life in 1990 in pictures
Istanbul photographer Ergun Cagatay documented in 1990 the life of the Turks who stayed in Germany following the 1961 recruitment agreement. The photos are showcased in an exhibition.
In 1990, Istanbul-based photographer Ergun Cagatay took thousands of photos of people of Turkish origin in Hamburg, Cologne, Werl, Berlin and Duisburg. They are on display from July 8, 2022 to February 7 at Berlin's Museum Europäischer Kulturen, as part of a traveling exhibition, "We are from here: Turkish-German life in 1990." Here he's seen in a self-portrait in pit clothes at a Duisburg mine.
Two miners shortly before the end of their shift in an old-style passenger car at Walsum Mine, Duisburg. Due to a rapid economic upturn in the '50s, Germany faced a shortage of trained workers, especially in agriculture and mining. Following the 1961 recruitment agreement between Bonn and Ankara, more than 1 million "guest workers" from Turkey came to Germany until recruitment was stopped in 1973.
Shown here is the upholstery production at the Ford automobile plant in Cologne-Niehl. "Workers have been called, and people are coming," commented Swiss writer Max Frisch back then. Today, the Turkish community, with some immigrants' families now in their fourth generation, forms the largest ethnic minority group in Germany, with 2.5 million people.
During his three-month photo expedition through Germany, Cagatay experienced a country in transition. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Germany was in the process of becoming a multicultural society. Here, demonstrators march at a rally against the draft of the new Aliens Act, in Hamburg on March 31, 1990.
The photos provide an insight into the diversity of Turkish-German life. Seen here is the eight-member family of Hasan Hüseyin Gül in Hamburg. The exhibition is the most comprehensive coverage on Turkish immigration of the first and second generation of "guest workers."
Today, foodstuff like olives and sheep's cheese can be easily found in Germany. Previously, the guest workers loaded their cars with food from home during their trips back. Slowly, they set up their culinary infrastructure here in Germany, to the delight of all gourmets. Here we see the owners of the Mevsim fruit and vegetable store in Weidengasse, Cologne-Eigelstein.
Children with balloons at the Sudermanplatz in Cologne's Agnes neighborhood. On the wall in the background is a mural of a tree with an excerpt of a poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet: "To live! Like a tree alone and free. Like a forest in brotherhood. This yearning is ours." Hikmet himself lived in exile in Russia, where he died in 1963.
At the Quran school of the Fatih mosque in Werl, children learn Arabic characters to be able to read the Quran. It was the first newly built mosque with a minaret in Germany that was opened at that time. People no longer had to go to the backyard to pray.
Photographer Cagatay mingles with guests at a wedding at Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In the Burcu event hall, guests pin money on the newlyweds, often with the wish "may you grow old with one pillow"; newlyweds traditionally share a single long pillow on the marital bed.
Traditions are maintained in the new homeland too. Here at a circumcision party in Berlin, "Mashallah" in written on the boy's sash. It means "praise be" or "what God has willed." The traveling exhibition is sponsored by the German Foreign Office, among others. In addition to Essen, Hamburg and Berlin, it is also being held in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in Izmir, Istanbul and Ankara.
Aydin hopes that the new project in Berlin can be realized quickly so that the first generation of "guest workers" get to see it in their lifetime. The aim is not just to build twin statues or monuments, but also to document the history of post-World War II labor migration and migrant experience — in West and East Berlin.
"This should be about the suffering and the joy," said Aydin. She was six when she and her family were able to join her father in Germany in 1978. He had left in the early 1960s, working first as a miner, then as a factory worker before opening a cafe in Berlin. Her mother worked as a cleaner.
Migrants in East Germany faced drastic restrictions
Monument advisory committee member and director of the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, Natalie Bayer, told DW that the project would also highlight racism. Bayer, who was brought up by her Korean mother in former West Germany, said: "You shouldn't really compare. But I think that the experiences of the East German 'contract workers' were racist in a much more dramatic sense."
Some 60,000 Vietnamese 'contract workers' were employed in former Communist East Germany Image: Werner Schulze/IMAGO
The largest groups of migrants arrived in the former communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) from Vietnam and Mozambique in the 1980s. Frequently these contract workers were forced to hand in their passports upon arrival. For women, pregnancy generally meant abortion or deportation. The newcomers lived largely cut off from the East German population. Contact was not regarded as desirable.
Many came with the hope or promise of getting good training and jobs. They were used as cheap labor to prop up the GDR's crumbling economy. Part of their wages was withheld without their consent to settle their country's debts or to swell state coffers or pockets back home.
"We were practically modern slaves," said Adelino Massuvira Joao, a former contract worker. The majority of Mozambicans returned home following the collapse of the GDR. Many never got the portion of their wages expected on their return or the promised compensation. Massuvira Joao, who stayed in Germany, is involved in a longstanding campaign for remuneration from the German government.
Africa and communist East Germany
Communist East Germany sought ties with African states which leaned ideologically towards the Soviet Union such as Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania. This era ended with German reunification 25 years ago.
Image: Ismael Miquidade
Vocational training far from the civil war battleground
Skilled workers from African socialist and Marxist-Leninist states received vocational training in communist East Germany until it was reunified with West Germany. In 1983 while a civil war was raging at home, these Angolans were taking part in a six month course at the Central Institute for Industrial Safety in Dresden. East Germany backed the Marxist-Leninist MPLA regime.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-1983-0516-022 /U. Häßler
Solidarity with African liberation movements
A plane from the East German airline Interflug at Luanda airport. It is carrying supplies for Angolan schools. In 1978, other beneficiaries of East Germany's Solidarity Committee, which coordinated development aid, included the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), the African National Congress (ANC), Ethiopia and Mozambique.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-T0517-0022/R. Mittelstädt
Courses for African journalists
East Germany trained hundreds of African journalists from almost every corner of the continent. They attended the 'School of Solidarity' run by the Federation of East German Journalists in Friedrichshagen, East Berlin. This course for young journalists from Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe took place in December 1976.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-R1210-302
'School of Friendship'
Margot Honecker, education minister and wife of East German leader Erich Honecker, greets Samora Machel, Mozambique's first president at the School of Friendship in Straßfurt in 1983. Mozambique and East Germany had agreed in 1979 that 899 Mozambican children would attend the East German school over a four year period.
Image: Bundesarchiv/Bild 183-1983-0303-423/H. Link
Dr Agostinho Neto High School
While President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola was visiting East Germany, High School No. 26 in Pankow, East Berlin was renamed in honor of his predecessor, Dr Agostinho Neto. Members of the communist East German youth league, FDJ, welcomed the Angolan president waving banners which read "On the side of the Soviet Union, for peace and socialism!"
Angolan President dos Santos (5th from left) also visited the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate in East Berlin. East Germany sealed off the western sectors of Berlin in August 1961 to prevent disgruntled East Germans from fleeing to the West. East Berlin called the Wall as the "anti-fascist barrier." Some 200 people were killed by communist border guards while trying to cross it.
Image: Bundesarchiv
African guests at East German Communist Party congresses
The ruling East German Communist Party (SED) was always pleased to welcome foreign guests of the right ideological temperament to their congresses. Guests in 1981 included Ambrosi Lukoki (back row far right), member of the MPLA from Angola, as well as Berhanu Bayeh (back row 2nd from left), later to become foreign minister in Ethiopia's Marxist-Leninist Derg dictatorship.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-Z0041-138/M. Siebahn
East German Communist Party (SED) functionaries in Africa
High-ranking African Marxist-Leninists visited East Germany and their East German counterparts returned the compliment by travelling to Africa. East German politburo member Konrad Naumann (2nd row, right) attended the third party congress of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in Bissau in November 1977.
Communist indoctrination of schoolchildren in East Germany spilled over into the holidays when they attended camps for the Young Pioneers and Thälmann Pioneers youth organizations. The visitor from the People's Republic of Congo is being introduced to Die Trommel, the Thälmann Pioneers' magazine at the Pionerrrepublik Wilhelm Pieck camp near East Berlin.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-T0803-0302
A weekend with an East German family
Young African visitors, attending a summer camp in 1982, spent a weekend with East German families. A special train took them to Schwedt, an industrial town closer to the border with Poland. Sandra Maria Bernardo from Angola is welcomed by her host Ingeborg Scholz and daughter Petra.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-1982-0731-010 /K. Franke
Tractors for 'fraternal socialist states'
In 1979 tractors made by the East German tractor plant in Schönebeck were donated to Ethiopia, then a Marxist-Leninist state. The ZT 300-C tractor was exported to a total of 26 countries, including Angola and Mozambique.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-U1110-0001/Schulz
East German textile machinery in Ethiopia
This textile factory in Kombolcha in the Ethiopian province of Amhara (picture: November 2005) produces sheets and towels. It was built in 1984 with the support of East Germany and Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia). Almost all of the machinery was made by the East German collective combine TEXTIMA in the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
East German prefab in Zanzibar
The state of Tanzania was founded by Julius Nyerere in 1964. East Germany supported his experiment in socialism by erecting a long row of prefabricated concrete buildings in Zanzibar. The prefab blocks were freighted to Zanzibar by sea and were assembled on arrival. The 'Michenzani,' as it is called, is still standing.
Image: cc-by-sa/Sigrun Lingel
Wages unpaid 25 years after East Germany's demise
Some 15,000 Mozambicans worked as contract labor in East Germany in the late 1980s. Most returned home after East Germany's reunification with West Germany on October 3, 1990. Back home the Mozambicans were called 'Madgermanes' - a derivation of 'Made in Germany.' The Mozambican state never paid them the wages for work they did in East Germany. They protest regularly in Maputo to this day.
Image: Ismael Miquidade
14 images1 | 14
Discrimination and dirty work
Former West Germany signed the first recruitment agreement with Italy in the mid-1950s. Other mainly southern European countries followed. Turkish migrants started arriving in the early 1960s and ultimately became the biggest group. Guest workers tended to end up in badly paid or unpopular jobs.
Migrants on both sides of the Wall faced exclusion, discrimination and racism to varying degrees. Neither Germanies expected the workers to stay.
Gül Ataseven-Özen came to Germany in 1972 when she was 18. After two factory jobs, she got a job as a kindergarten teacher and became politically involved.
"We helped build up Germany. Many people in the second generation have gone into politics or business, like my son. I spent 30 years working in education. That must be respected. We want to show the next generations and also the existing one we also belong here, that we have participated and contributed," she told DW.
The early 1990s saw violence in both eastern and western Germany with racist arson attacks on asylum-seekers or migrants' hostels Image: picture-alliance/ZB/B. Wüstneck
Reunification brings further disadvantages
The Fall of the Wall had a negative impact on many migrants in western and eastern Germany. Those in the former East found themselves in a particularly precarious position. Factories closed and they lost both their jobs and their work permits.
"Many were deported. Many also went voluntarily because the mood was no longer pleasant," said the museum director Bayer. The 1990s saw an upsurge of racist violence across Germany. "Integration policy took 70 steps backward," Bayer said.
Migration researcher Noa Ha said the center-left coalition government had set out with an ambitious legislative plan to modernize Germany before it was confronted with various crises and the rise of the far right.
Germany's migration policy divides communities
04:42
This browser does not support the video element.
'This is the beginning'
"We have to speak about a new German identity that is considerably more plural," argued Ha, the director of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM).
Historian and migration researcher Patrice Poutrus, whose father was Sudanese and who himself grew up in former East Germany, said he welcomed any symbol that recognizes locals with migrant roots.
But given the current political climate, Poutrus added that he feared the monument would not spark the debate needed about who or what had been commemorated in the past, nor who must be accepted as an integral part of German society today.
The history of migration must be integrated into every local museum, Ha argued. She says the Berlin monument should be followed by the same sort of acknowledgment in other German cities. "The German government should launch an entire new program. The monuments should be coupled with a political demand — that this is the beginning and not the end," Ha concluded.
Edited by Rina Goldenberg
While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.
