THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

HERE TO LEAVE: POLICY TRENDS IN THE GERMAN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

BRADLEY C. MORABITO SPRING 2018

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in History, International Politics, and German with honors in History

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Jens-Uwe Guettel Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies Thesis Supervisor

Kathryn Salzer Associate Professor of History Honors Adviser

* Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines in historical context the developmental trends of German immigration policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Chapter 1 provides context for the political and economic state of the Federal Republic of Germany during its foundation and through the post-war era, and how those political and economic factors drove the establishment of economically motivated, active recruitment programs as the normal case for immigration at the expense of underdeveloped family and emergency migration frameworks. Chapter 2 begins to examine these issues, discussing the paradigm undergirding legal frameworks that persisted despite revision after the end of the guest worker era. Instead of developing adequate social infrastructure, policy consistently tended towards elastic controls on residence and work in order to promote exclusion and expulsion, leading to integration problems. Chapter 3 discusses how integration issues contributed to a heightened awareness of border control and developing concern for the expansion of immigration policy and regulation, which was further accelerated by the surge of asylum seekers and other irregular migrants in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 concludes with a brief summary of the historical trends that came to define German immigration after the Second World War and into the present, suggesting not that the troubles in European migration today are a direct result of the

German case, but rather that policymakers and their constituents would benefit from an understanding of its historical shortcomings and successes.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Introduction ...... 1

A Chronic Dilemma ...... 4

Chapter 1 Foundations in the Post-War Context ...... 8

The Basic Law ...... 9 Political Motivation: The Republikflucht ...... 13 Economic Motivation: The Wirtschaftswunder and Guest Workers ...... 18

Chapter 2 Inertia at the End of the Guest Worker Era ...... 29

Legal Frameworks and the Paradigm of Exclusion ...... 31 Barriers to Integration and Social Consequences ...... 46

Chapter 3 Sovereignty and Migration Policy at the Threshold of the EU ...... 53

Catalyst for Change: Asylum and Aussiedler ...... 55 Border Control Culture and European Integration ...... 61

Conclusion ...... 66

Bibliography ...... 70

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Jens-Uwe Guettel, for sharing his expertise and providing guidance throughout my academic career at Penn State.

Thank you to my honors advisors, Mike Milligan and Kathryn Salzer, for your infinite patience and expert advice in the process of completing this thesis.

I am so thankful to my grandparents, mother, father, sister, and Cara for their boundless confidence and support.

I owe thanks to friends too numerous to list here – I thank you all for being a part of my experience at Penn State.

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Introduction

In recent years, immigration has become a ubiquitous issue in European political discourse. Policymakers across the continent predicate their election campaigns on border policy; journalists fill headlines with news of refugees and migration controls; mass political movements coalesce and divide themselves along the lines of human movement. In large part, this pervasive awareness is the result of an immigration crisis, which has caused the steady escalation of asylum applications to unprecedented levels. The Syrian refugee crisis is well known to

Europeans as a major cause of political division and public concern. Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, displaced migrants have fled into the surrounding region in ever-increasing numbers, but it was not until 2015 that the refugee crisis spread fully to the European continent.1

By that time, over six million were displaced, and in only the first half of the year, roughly

137,000 people sailed across the Mediterranean to reach European shores.2 At the end of 2015, over one million had entered Europe by unauthorized means, the majority of whom were Syrians fleeing conflict via boat.3

These dire circumstances were further complicated by the nature of European Union

(EU) asylum law. The Dublin Regulation stipulated that asylum seekers submit applications in

1 “Syria's civil war explained from the beginning,” Al Jazeera, 1 October 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-160505084119966.html 2 “Mediterranean Crisis 2015 at six months: refugee and migrant numbers highest on record,” UNHCR, 1 July 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/5592b9b36.html 3 “Migrant crisis: One million enter Europe in 2015,” BBC, 22 December 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-35158769 2 the first state to which they arrived, and that they be returned to said arrival state if they attempted to migrate to another member state without official transfer.4 The evident flaw in the system was this responsibility of border states to cope with the greatest share of crisis flows. It led to the severe overburdening of those EU border states whose proximity made them the first destination for asylum seekers who often intended to resettle further west and north. Hungary was the first to suspend the Regulation under these pressures, citing the undue stress of accepting asylum seekers returned to their border without adequate support from other EU members.5 The pressure of Hungary’s withdraw transferred inward to Austria and Germany. This systemic stress weighed heavily upon the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose careful political composure faltered in key public instances of compassion and shame; first, when she embraced a tearful young student facing deportation, and again when she faced ridicule while visiting a refugee center.6 Shortly thereafter, she affirmed at a press conference what would become the trademark phrase of her efforts in the crisis: “We can do this.”7 Despite contentious debate in the

German parliament and a significant lack of consensus among its constituents, Merkel suspended the Dublin Regulation in Germany and opened its borders to asylum seekers.8

4 “Regulation (Eu) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council,” 26 June 2013, http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013R0604 5 Krisztina Than and Shadia Nasralla, “Defying EU, Hungary suspends rules on asylum seekers,” Reuters, 23 June 2015, http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-austria-hungary-idUKKBN0P31ZB20150623 6 Janosch Delcker, “Merkel’s migrant problem,“ Politico, 26 August 2015, http://www.politico.eu/article/merkel- migration-problem-refugees-pegida-racism/; Jules Johnston, “Merkel’s awkward moment,” Politico, 16 July 2015, http://www.politico.eu/article/merkel-falters- palestine-germany-german-guardian/ 7 In the original German: “Wir haben so vieles geschafft. Wir schaffen das.” 8 Allan Hall, “Germany opens its gates,” 24 August 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-opens-its-gates-berlin-says-all-syrian-asylum-seekers- are-welcome-to-remain-as-britain-is-10470062.html 3

The results of Merkel’s decision have been the onus of much debate and scrutiny since

2015. Beyond whether the decision to admit refugees was a net positive or negative for Germany varies significantly according to one’s values as they apply across a range of issues from pragmatic to ethical; however, the crisis has largely subsided, due primarily to the Balkan states’ efforts to close passage through their borders and a rather tenuous agreement with Turkey to accept returned migrants. Without a doubt, the situation certainly remains challenging.

Significant barriers exist to the successful integration of migrant populations; many lack language proficiency and adequate documentation of their qualifications, while legal and cultural barriers to employment opportunities also persist. Addressing these issues proactively has been a central objective for German policymakers. Integration efforts have been a pillar of the German immigration system since reforms in the early 2000s, and new efforts have been developed as a response to crisis. Between more efficient reception screenings to determine skills and proficiency; language and job training initiatives; the integration of new technologies to monitor engagement and support connections with potential employers; and legal changes to incentivize work with the potential for permanent residency, Germany has laid the foundation for better labor market integration.9

Surrounding this policy framework is a climate of contending temperaments. Growing discontent about the large-scale admissions galvanized support for the right-populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, similar to others that have swelled in number and support across

Europe, as well as the radical anti-Islamic group, Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA). The success of such reactionary movements has revealed with startling

9 Victoria Rietig, “Moving Beyond Crisis: Germany’s New Approaches to Integrating Refugees into the Labor Market,” Migration Policy Institute, October 2016. 4 clarity the complexities of immigration issues, the effects of which extend well beyond the immediate context of human movement.10 However, anxiety and opposition to the new immigrant population have been counterbalanced by a welcoming culture of civic engagement.

Signs reading, “Refugees Welcome” hang in windows and from balconies, and public support for the pro-integration policy initiatives sustains despite the rise of opposition parties. The highly personal nature of political opinion regarding national and economic security as it relates to migration issues is certainly visible both in the formal political expression of policymakers and the informal political expression of their constituents. The perception of crisis inflamed and amplified these political expressions, and they have come to dominate much of popular and academic discourse, even as the refugee crisis has largely abated in Europe.

A Chronic Dilemma

Though most obvious in the context of crisis, neither the issues related to immigration nor the political discord surrounding them are unique to recent years. The movement of people into and within Europe has long evoked questions of identity, especially for Germany.

Nationalism and its extreme nativist extensions remain a permanent taboo due to its troubled history, but the question as to whether Germany is an “immigration state” is one that has persisted, despite evidence that immigrants have helped to define its culture, demographics, politics, and economy for some time. Even in the early 2000s, amid reform that embraced the notion of Germany as an immigration country, politicians such as Minister of the Interior

10 Sebastian Fischer, “The Rise of the Populists: a Problem for Merkel and Germany,” Spiegel, 5 September 2016, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/rise-of-populist-afd-a-problem-for-merkel-and-germany-a- 1110954.html 5

Wolfgang Schäuble were decrying the notion of an immigrant identity for the Federal

Republic.11 The Syrian crisis is certainly not the first to precipitate controversy and political unease at such a scale; in fact, the current issues of immigration policy in Europe, and Germany especially, echo of crises – both of borders and identity – throughout its modern history.

Trends that developed from the foundation of the Federal Republic after the Second

World War created the structural weaknesses that precipitated such crises. Broadly, these trends involve the establishment of economically motivated, active recruitment programs as the normal case of migration to Germany, while other avenues of entry were not equally accounted for. A framework developed from this early basis that operated with high efficiency when immigration was characterized by the normal case, but quickly showed its flaws in times of crisis. Most notably, the immigration system’s flaws were revealed in its inability to effectively regulate, process, and integrate family migration following the oil shock of 1973, and its inability to effectively provide for the influx of asylum seekers during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Undermining the structural integrity of the German immigration system was an understanding of migrant labor as a temporary phenomenon. This understanding entrenched a policy framework defined by a paradigm of exclusion and expulsion, rather than developing a robust immigration policy that could effectively regulate inflows while providing for meaningful integration of permanent migrants.

Mounting political pressure to address these systemic flaws precipitated reforms in the early 1990s that were narrow in focus and only perpetuated the legal paradigm of previous decades. Simultaneously, the process of European integration was accelerating, and early EU

11Andrea Dernbach, “Wir sind kein Einwanderungsland,” Der Tagesspiel, 7 December 2006, http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-kein-einwanderungsland/783936.html 6 legal frameworks were developing in the same political climate that informed the German system. At the root of contemporary political questions regarding the border control culture of

Europe and its legal frameworks lies a history characterized by an evident pattern: prepare for the normal case and react to the consequences with short-term solutions. A preference to ignore the realities of permanent migration consistently impeded systemic reform in Germany, and this historical trend clearly echoes in the modern day.

This thesis examines in historical context the developmental trends of German immigration policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Chapter 1 provides context for the political and economic state of the Federal Republic of Germany during its foundation and through the post-war era, and how those political and economic factors drove the establishment of economically motivated, active recruitment programs as the normal case for immigration at the expense of underdeveloped family and emergency migration frameworks. These foundations in the post-war context lend perspective to the issues that the system would later face.

Chapter 2 begins to examine these issues, discussing the paradigm undergirding legal frameworks that persisted despite revision after the end of the guest worker era. The persistent denial of permanent immigration as a facet of West German society led policymakers to encourage return migration even as the rotational mechanism of the guest worker program failed.

Instead of developing adequate social infrastructure, policy consistently tended towards elastic controls on residence and work in order to promote exclusion and expulsion, leading to integration problems.

Chapter 3 discusses how these issues contributed to a heightened awareness of border control and developing concern for the expansion of immigration policy and regulation, which 7 was further accelerated by the surge of asylum seekers and other irregular migrants in the late

1980s and early 1990s. Examining policy reform in response to these pressures, and its concurrence with European integration, a legal paradigm that failed to comprehensively acknowledge the realities of immigration in Germany evidently persisted at the threshold of contemporary EU law.

Chapter 4 concludes with a brief summary of the historical trends that came to define

German immigration after the Second World War and into the present, suggesting not that the troubles in European migration today are a direct result of the German case, but rather that policymakers and their constituents would benefit from an understanding of its historical shortcomings and successes.

Germany has the second highest immigration rate globally, and that is a position unlikely to change in coming years. Though for many the question still remains as to whether German identity should be defined by its immigrant history, it is indisputable that a functional immigration policy proves integral to the political, economic, and social stability of Germany.

Given that many of the immigration concerns facing Germany in recent years are, to some extent, products of broad historical trends, it is imperative that policymakers be aware of the history and development of immigration in Germany. Effective policies, which ensure the maximum welfare of all German residents, regardless of origin and status, must be informed by the historical successes and failures of the immigration system. Understanding the trends that characterized the development of this system in the latter half of the twentieth century will provide a lens through which to understand the issues that persist in EU and German law today.

Chapter 1

Foundations in the Post-War Context

Modern German immigration policy lay its foundations in the rubble of World War Two and at the threshold of the Cold War. Lost in the noise of political crises and the growing pains of an economic miracle, the issue of immigration in Germany during the latter half of the twentieth century was shaped predominantly by the demands of other state functions.

Specifically, the demand for labor that emerged as a function of economic reconstruction was the primary driver of policy formation in Germany beginning in the post-war era and continuing throughout much of the Cold War. Meanwhile, political motivations promoted a loose and friendly – if underdeveloped – asylum law that allowed for the large-scale admittance of refugees from the German Democratic Republic. Even at this earliest juncture, the developmental issues of the twentieth century German immigration system are apparent; its emphasis upon economically motivated active recruitment programs created policy that was relevant almost exclusively to primary immigration: the movement of an independent family member (often a man of working age) from another country to Germany. Though asylum and family reunification policies were included in the legal framework, the basis of regulation and systemic development was rooted squarely in the contractual recruitment of independent labor. The rotation principle that undergirded the immigration system functioned effectively in regulating primary immigration, but it failed to provide for other inflows, and therefore invited crises of increasing severity as it came to define the system as a whole. This trend began with the foundation of the 9

Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and the constitutional document that comprised the first legislative act regarding immigration in the new West German state.12

The Basic Law

The German federal state was cultivated in the western occupied zones as a political and military foothold against Soviet influence at the onset of the Cold War. As tensions between the allied powers and the Soviet Union escalated, the impetus for a unified federal republic among the western allies’ occupied zones became increasingly apparent. This integration of the occupation zones began economically. It was apparent by 1946 that the regional economies of

Germany could not be simply divided along political borders, and that some measure of integration was required for their survival. As US Military Governor Joseph McNarney communicated to the Allied Control Council, “no zone in Germany is self-sustaining.”13 Though commerce did not cease with the end of the war, it could not be properly rehabilitated without oversight and cooperation among the occupation forces. McNarney acknowledges this reality in his report, urging any of the US allies to engage in proceedings to advance such cooperation, as the US was, “unwilling to permit creeping economic paralysis to grow if it is possible to attain economic unity … as a prelude to economic unity for all of Germany.”14

12 Readers may note that this chapter does not equally examine the history of East German immigration policy. Due to the historical outcomes of reunification, the significance of West German policy trends will be highlighted to establish the basis for subsequent chapters’ analysis – which concerns primarily the Federal Republic of Germany. 13 CONL/M(46)19; reprinted in United States Department of State, Documents on Germany 1944-1985, Washington, DC: Bureau of Public Affairs, 1985, 90-91. 14 Ibid. 10

Meanwhile, the deterioration of the allied control council in 1948 foreshadowed political flare-ups between east and west, as the United States and its allies sought to functionally integrate the occupied zones as a precursor to political integration.15 These rising tensions were evident in the blockade of Berlin that closely followed currency reform in the Western zones during the summer of 1948. Pursuant to controlling inflation and in accordance with the introduction of Marshall Plan funding, the Western zones adopted the Deutsche Mark. Only days later the Soviet zone passed its own currency reform to include all of Berlin, and in response to predictable Allied opposition in their Berlin occupation zones, Soviet forces blockaded the city entirely. Opposition between east and west fostered solidarity among the Allies; talks in London proceeded simultaneous to the threat of conflict in Berlin, and by July 1st the US, UK, and

French military governors provided authorization for the convention of a constituent assembly by

September of the same year.16

A delegation of 65 members, chosen proportionally from the pre-existing voting districts, represented the German people in the formulation of a constitutional document to establish the fundamental legal basis for a federal state. Their work culminated in the Basic Law of the

Federal Republic of Germany (das Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland), a provisional document that laid the foundation for the German state and anticipated its eventual reunification.

Though the ratification of the Basic Law in 1949 was certainly a milestone for democracy and order in a state that had been at the epicenter of conflict in Western Europe for nearly a century,

15 “Agreement between the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States on the Economic Fusion of their Respective Zones (December 2, 1946)”; reprinted in Beate Ruhm von Oppen, Documents on Germany under Occupation, 1945-1954, (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1955): 195-99. 16 The London Documents (July 1, 1948), in United States Department of State, Germany 1947-1949: The Story in Documents. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, 275; reprinted in Beate Ruhm von Oppen, Documents on Germany under Occupation, 1945-1954. (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1955): 315-18. 11 such order came with the stipulation of deep entrenchment in the developing standoff that would define the international political system for the latter half of the twentieth century. The potential for conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union became the dominant political narrative at an international level from the post-war era onward – until the end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of Soviet influence in East Germany.

Despite the international tensions in which West Germany found itself embroiled, the

Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany was a political renewal for those it represented.

Though it was intended to be a provisional document, the Basic Law is extensive – even before the amendments that came in 1956. In 146 articles, it outlines not only the methods by which

Germans would establish their new self-governance, but also ensures the nature and integrity of that government as a federal democracy. The first nineteen articles clearly outline and defend the

“Basic Rights” (die Grundrechte) of German citizens. Reminiscent of the constitutional Bill of

Rights in the US, it is far more extensive and specific in its discussion. Immediately following these basic rights is Article 20, which explicitly defines the Federal Republic of Germany as a democratic social state.17 In asserting that state authority is derived exclusively from the people, the Basic Law accepts certain historical truths. It makes the German people accountable for its government, and ensures the accountability of the government to its people as well.

This accountability would later become problematic for the German government and its constituents, as the idealism inherent in some of the Basic Law articles created systemic issues as byproducts to its provisions. Perhaps one of the most apparent of such structural underdevelopment was that of Article 16, which guarantees the right of asylum to victims of

17 “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist ein demokratischer und sozialer Bundesstaat.” Article 20, Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. 12 political persecution.18 As a part of the Basic Rights, the right to asylum was extended as a core value in the new German state, but its significance in this regard would not draw it into further legislative efforts for some time. The issue lies not in the universal guarantee of asylum rights, which was complementary to the liberal democratic values upon which the state was founded, but rather the lack of comprehensive legislation to account for the complexities that come at magnitudes of scale.

Lacking a comprehensive federal immigration law, the German political asylum system was based upon this clause for the majority of the latter half of the twentieth century. This political inertia existed for the immigration system as a whole. Efforts to reform or expand upon the legal apparatus surrounding migration in Germany were of lesser significance in the immediate post-war era due primarily to two dynamics. First, that the West German government experienced what many called miraculous economic growth in the 1950s, which was at first supported by a labor surplus of refugees and displaced persons, and later led to the economically- motivated active recruitment of “guest workers” on short-term contracts. This Gastarbeiter program would define the normal case of German immigration for decades to come, and the lasting externalities and developments related to the program continued to define the German immigration state for the latter half of the twentieth century. The status of refugees was therefore of lesser significance during the height of the program, and remained on the periphery of political thought even after its decline. Secondly, the West German government held a political stake in an open asylum policy before the rise of the Berlin Wall. The Republikflucht, or mass emigration from the German Democratic Republic to West Germany, was the impetus not only

18 “Politisch Verfolgte genießen Asylrecht.“ Article 16, The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949. 13 for the physical division of Berlin, but also the further instigation of Cold War conflict between the Soviet Union and the western allies. These economic and political motivations would act in concert to maintain the status quo in German immigration policy until the early 1970s.

Political Motivation: The Republikflucht

Even before ratifying the Basic Law in 1949, the western occupation zones were a destination for wartime expellees – the first wave of refugees to enter Germany after the end of the war. Expellees were defined as ethnic Germans who, as of September, 1939, were in permanent residence abroad or in territory under foreign administration that was under German control in 1937.19 As previously discussed, the windfall of labor that came with the millions of refugees was a vital component in the surplus that allowed the economic miracle to take hold in

Germany. However, this inherently beneficial relationship between the expellees and the German economy did not ensure a positive social relationship among native-born citizens and their new neighbors. In the United States occupation zone, the Office of the Military Government

(OMGUS) conducted extensive public opinion polling in order to document changing perceptions across a range of issues. Among these issues was the reception of expellees on the part of native Germans, and the perception of the recent immigrants of the social climate surrounding their arrival.

The data reveal that tensions were predictably high, as the majority of expellees felt dissatisfied with their reintroduction to Germany – largely due to the perception that they were

19 Gerhard A. Ritter und Merith Niehuss, Wahlen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Bundestags- und Landtagswahlen 1946-1987. München: Beck, 1987, S. 31. 14 treated as outsiders and others. Further, a decreasing share of the American occupation zone citizens felt that the state had an obligation to support these immigrants. The early conception of

German identity in the post-war was defined at first by a denial of international and multicultural composition, and it reveals a wariness of the other that underlay the lack of attention paid to immigration outside of an economic context in the early years of the federal republic.20

The question then emerges: what other motivation existed for the West German state to support an open and loosely defined asylum policy? Though there existed a range of motivations across various levels of government – from individual interests to international pressures – perhaps the most significant was that of West German opposition to Soviet influence, and the resultant support for mass emigration from the East during the post-war era. Following the initial wave of expellees that reached Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war, more ethnic

Germans and asylum seekers fled Soviet rule for the newly established federal republic. This

Republikflucht formed the impetus not only for the escalation of Cold War tensions within a divided Germany, but also corresponded with the rise of economically motivated active recruitment programs. There was therefore a second force for legislative inertia to accompany the economic motivations in the post-war era for German immigration: the acceptance of refugees due to political motivation. This political motivation can be understood in the context of international influence on the formation of the West German state.

The Federal Republic of Germany was founded not only as a democratic state in line with the ideals and influences of the powers that once occupied it, but also in opposition to its counterpart in the east. This anti-Soviet sentiment did not emerge immediately after the war, but

20 A. J. and R. L. Merritt, Public Opinion in Occupied Germany. The OMGUS Surveys. (Urbana, IL, 1970): 112-14. 15 developed under occupation and was reflected in the public opinion surrounding major elections in 1946 and 1949. The former were local elections, held across the occupation zones. The insecurity of German voters was evident in their first exercise in post-war democracy. Turnout was inconsistent and hard to document, due to a variety of election processes and systems. Of those who did vote, 35% said they did so only out of civic obligation, rather than conviction in any one issue. Voters were not yet committed to ideas, as those who did cite issues pointed to broad abstractions such as “leadership,” and anti-Soviet rhetoric had clearly yet to permeate to the local level – only 5% of voters were in direct opposition to the communist party. In fact, party identities were hardly developed; less than one in ten Germans were affiliated with a party, and only 15% said they intended to do so in the future.21 If the Western allies had aimed to wipe clean the political slate of Germany, they were certainly successful. The German public was malleable and ready for democracy in 1946; they just had yet to find the direction they wished to take.

This direction would be decided largely by the efforts of the allied occupation forces, especially the United States given its active role in reconstruction and the provision of stability through the Marshall Plan in 1948. Again, public opinion polls reveal the significant extent of this international influence, especially preceding the 1949 federal elections. What is perhaps most significant among such data is the West German public’s preference among forms of governance. Whereas about half of all those polled said that they would choose a democratic republic for Germany, only 1% said that they preferred communism, and less than half of that

21 Anna J. and Richard L. Merritt, Public Opinion in Occupied Germany: The OMGUS Surveys, University of Illinois Press: Urbana, 1970, 71-72. 16 figure said they thought it was right for Germany at the time of the assembly.22 It is evident in this divide that the influence of occupying powers had significantly affected the political climate in the West. The conversation in politics for the population of Germany no longer revolved around issues such as denazification and the nature of immigrant populations in their new state, but rather the ensured success of future democracy in the face of encroaching Soviet presence.

The brewing Cold War conflict that came to dominate the international political system permeated domestic politics in the Federal Republic of Germany from even its first elections, and would continue to express itself in policy moving forward. Among the most evident expressions of Cold War politics through West German domestic policy was that of asylum law.

Though the correlation of a friendly – if relatively unstructured – asylum system with the political climate of anti-Soviet posturing does not imply causation between the two, it is evident that the mass emigration of those under Soviet control was conveniently paired with the Basic

Law asylum clause, and vice versa.

The Republikflucht itself immediately followed the division of east and west with the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Hundreds of thousands fled the East for a range of reasons, though they could be broadly categorized as better economic opportunity and quality of life in the West. Though figures were significant from the onset of the mass emigration, the movement truly became a crisis for the German Democratic Republic as a reaction to the 1953 workers’ uprising. A construction workers’ strike triggered the revolt on the 16th of June, as hundreds marched on the seat of Soviet control in Berlin and triggered what would become a general strike overnight. The strike began as a specific revolt against threatening work quotas,

22 Richard L. Merritt, Democracy Imposed: US Occupation Policy and the German Public, 1945-1949, Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 383. 17 but the broader imposition of abusive policies since the previous year provided the broader context for resistance. Stalin had introduced greater Soviet influence in the Soviet zone, including collectivization policies, large-scale militarization, and general attacks upon faith and class groups that did not align with his distorted Marxism-Leninism. In response to the uprising,

Soviet tanks were deployed in East Berlin on June 17th, triggering an international outcry as images such as one depicting unarmed Germans opposing the war machines circulated in

Western newspapers.23

From 1953 onward, it was evident that the West German state had a political motivation for its asylum policy to match the economic benefits of mobile labor, and they made efforts to actively promote the Republikflucht. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the

Socialist Unity Party of Germany reported on such efforts, noting that inflammatory and propagandistic material from the West was not only attacking the Soviet state, but had also begun to encourage emigration to the west with promises of job offers and significant assistance.24 Those leaving the German Democratic Republic were overwhelmingly young, and though the most common source of employment for the refugees was the industrial manufacturing sector, a significant number were well-educated.25 This “brain-drain” was a major instigator of a more severe response by the East German government, specifically in Berlin.

When less direct measures, such as the expansion of state ideological socialization programs, failed to curtail the movement of refugees, the government turned to more severe

23 Alison Smale, “60 Years Later, Germany Recalls Its Anti-Soviet Revolt,” New York Times, 17 June 2013. 24 Attachment No. 4 to the Protocol of the Meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED, No. 29/56, from June 19, 1956 (Copy). note 45; reprinted in Dierk Hoffmann and Michael Schwartz, Geschichte der Sozialpolitik in Deutschland seit 1945. 25 Der Bau der Mauer durch Berlin, edited by the Federal Ministry for Inter-German Relations. (Bonn, 1984): 16. 18 methods. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and quickly hamstrung the Republikflucht as a mass movement, relegating defectors to extreme cases of high-risk border crossing attempts. By

1961, nearly 2.7 million refugees had fled the German Democratic Republic, with around

200,000 in that year alone. Following the erection of the wall, the yearly totals fell to a tenth of that figure, with only 21,356 refugees fleeing successfully to the West in 1962.26 Despite this abrupt end to the phenomenon, it was without question that such a massive emigration, sustained over the course of a decade, inherently undermined the legitimacy of the East German government. The West German efforts to support the flight of refugees through their asylum policy were politically motivated; and further, that political motivation fed back into the political inertia that promoted a status quo in immigration policy in the post-war context.

Economic Motivation: The Wirtschaftswunder and Guest Workers

The Second World War was, without question, devastating to Germany and the morale of its citizens; however, the economic cost of the war is often significantly exaggerated in popular memory. The economic miracle, though miraculous in many respects, was in fact founded upon rather mundane structures of labor and capital. The polar magnitudes of destruction and production during the war produced a net positive in capital, while the influx of refugees and repatriated Germans compensated for millions of combat deaths. In sum, the existing means of production at the time of capitulation served as the bootstraps with which West Germany could pull itself up again into economic stability, and the abundance of labor provided lifeblood for the

26 Bundesministerium für gesamtdeutsche Frage, SBZ von A bis Z, (Bonn, 1965): 133. 19 process. To quote a contemporary analysis: “Here lies the main difference between an impoverished developed country and a poor underdeveloped country. The first can raise itself by its own bootstraps; the other cannot.”27

The rubble and ash of German urban and industrial centers dominate images of the immediate post-war era. Indeed, the destruction of allied bombing campaigns amounted to staggering proportions in metropolitan centers – especially those in the Ruhr region, where the

United States Strategic Bombing Survey estimated rates of nearly 75% destruction.28 The shortcoming of such gross estimates is their inability to describe the effectiveness of the campaigns in actually damaging German wartime industrial output. Early estimates were misleading; in 1947, some projected the industrial capacity of post-war Germany to be around

68% of 1936 figures. As the dust settled, estimates came closer to reality, and a revised report confirmed that industrial capacity actually increased as a result of wartime expansion.29 Further investigations into the allied bombing campaigns revealed that they were more effective in causing widespread destruction in residential zones than in precise attacks on war industry. The armaments industry nearly doubled its production between 1941 and the first quarter of 1945. In

1944, only 6.5% of machine tools in German industry were damaged, and the production of the steel industry as a whole was only marginally slowed.30

The allies, especially France and the United States, took measures pursuant to the deconstruction of German military industrial output as a component of reparations. Those assets

27 Peter Alt and Max Schneider, “West Germany’s ‘Economic Miracle’,” Science & Society 26, no. 1 (1962): 51. 28 Raymond G. Stokes, “Technology and the West German Wirtschaftswunder,” Technology and Culture 32, no. 1 (1991): 4. 29 Alt and Schneider, 47. 30 Ulrich Herbert, Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland: Saisonarbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flüchtlinge (München: Beck, 2001), 192-93. 20 that were not seized as compensation to the victors were slated to be dismantled or destroyed, and the output of chemical, shipbuilding, aircraft, and other such wartime producers was stymied. As described in a US state department release at the end of the war, the primary goal of actively dismantling the German industrial sector was to prevent any return to wartime production from the basis of civilian industry.31 These efforts were, however, limited to capital that specialized in wartime production.

Though the German military industrial complex was held in stasis or to some extent dismantled by allied efforts, much of its industrial capabilities persisted through the end of the war from an economic standpoint. Fixed capital assets – that is, investments that are not consumed in production, but rather used repeatedly – increased by 11% in comparison to pre-war totals. These means of production had not only survived the war, but expanded in its course. The automotive, steel, and chemical industries were well positioned to thrive in the climate of post- war reconstruction, despite sustained price controls and production limits in occupied zones.32

All that remained for a successful economic recovery was the introduction of low-skilled labor, and that demand was met in droves.

Nearly ten million refugees were repatriated from Eastern Europe, largely on the basis of citizenship claims, residence in conceded territories, or through the indistinct West German asylum system. Simultaneously, women entered the workforce in greater numbers due to social change consistent with most of post-war Europe. These labor sources created ideal conditions for contemporary capitalists, as the labor market was suddenly saturated with a surplus that echoed

31 U.S. Economic Policy towards Germany, U.S. State Department Publication, Washington, DC, 1946, 93-101; reprinted in Beate Ruhm von Oppen, Documents on Germany under Occupation, 1945-1954. (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1955): 93-97. 32 Stokes, 6. 21 early industrial competition. This excess supply held wages low as employment and unemployment expanded concurrently. Germany was unique in Europe in the early 1950s as it experienced staggering totals of unemployed workers – exceeding at times 10% of the civilian labor force – while other states enjoyed full employment.33 The demographic issues that may have been anticipated due to the staggering loss of life in the Second World War were largely mitigated by this influx of labor. From this early stage, it was evident that an open policy toward refugees was economically beneficial for contemporary capital owners, and for an administration occupied foremost with post-war recovery, such favorable conditions towards business and industry were a boon.

With this secure foundation of capital and labor, West Germany was well-positioned to experience miraculous economic recovery. This potential was put to use by Economics Minister

Ludwig Erhard even before the ratification of the Basic Law. Following the creation of an integrated Bizone between the British and US occupying forces, Erhard facilitated the introduction of the Deutsche Mark and the removal of price controls in the Bizone. Dismantled trade barriers stimulated the West German economy via the consumption of foreign imports, and by 1955 the last of the Allies’ controls on production were dissolved.34 The economic miracle was in full swing, and with it came a thriving West German economy, re-industrialized and competing on an international scale within a decade after the most destructive war Europe had ever experienced.

33 Alt and Schneider, 52. 34 William Henry Chamberlin, “Germany’s Economic Miracle in Danger,” Foundation for Economic Education, December 1, 1962, https://fee.org/articles/germanys-economic-miracle-in-danger/ 22

Though remarkable levels of unemployment marked the inception of the economic miracle in West Germany, the German government would not take long to pursue efforts in bolstering its labor reserves. Industrial centers demanded an expanded labor pool, despite the still exceptional number of refugees from the East and the growing presence of female workers in the labor force. Further, by the mid-1950s, issues of mobility complicated statistics that pointed to a labor surplus in the young republic. Joblessness along the border between East and West was a major source of the unemployment figures, due to the lack of industrial demand in the region.35

The resettlement of displaced persons proceeded in a highly bureaucratic fashion, and did not guarantee ideal conditions for employment or education; contemporary complaints to housing officers show that families were often placed in entirely unfamiliar regions and far from the services they required. For example, one north German family was placed in the Bavarian alps, far from a school for their children and in an entirely unfamiliar setting to their East Prussian background.36

State officials recognized that such bureaucratic complications were undermining the employment of resettled workers, and rapid economic growth along the western border was depleting the labor surplus. One state secretary asserted that the surplus would not persist through 1956, and that foreign workers were the only potential labor source to compensate for rapidly depleting reserves of unemployed Germans.37 Meanwhile, the western border of the federal republic hosted the majority of industrial production, and demanded a consistent supply

35 Hans Bauer, “Arbeitervertrag Rom – Bonn unterzeichnet,“ Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 Dec 1955. 36 Stadtarchiv Bielefeld, Bestand 250,2/SPD-OWL, Nr. 1059; reprinted in Christoph Kleßmann and Georg Wagner, Das gespaltene Land. Leben in Deutschland 1945-1990. Texte und Dokumente zur Sozialgeschichte. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993): 87-88 37 Hans Bauer, “Arbeitervertrag Rom – Bonn unterzeichnet,“ Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 Dec 1955. 23 of wage labor to match its rapid post-war growth. The solution, short-term rotational labor contracts, would become the basis for German immigration policy as a whole. The Rome-Bonn

Worker Treaty established the first of such programs, and consequently laid the groundwork for what would become the larger trend of guest worker contracts in following years.

Labor Minister Anton Storch met with the Italian foreign minister in December of

1955, signing the treaty that would permit German employers to recruit Italian workers through an emigration center in Milan. A joint committee between the two states would determine those

“suitable” to employment in West Germany. Criteria included language proficiency and knowledge of law and safety provisions. Storch, a strong advocate of expanding social welfare programs, stressed that the rights of these “gastarbeiter” would be equal to those of German citizens.38 Further, the labor minister noted that there was no set quota for Italian workers in the agreement, and that he hoped for “many, many more,” to emigrate on year-long contracts.39 The treaty also allowed for families to immigrate together given a contract duration of at least one year, which would later contribute to the influx of more permanent residents. The SPD opposition expressed fears that the introduction of so many foreign workers would depress the wages of domestic labor, but government officials from the Federal Labor Ministry emphasized that the equality of rights among foreign and domestic labor would ensure wage stability.40

These promises translated largely into successes, as the employment of Gastarbeiter provided a renewed basis for post-war German economic expansion.

38 Hans-Peter Schwarz. Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution, and Reconstruction. (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1995): 87. 39 Hans Bauer, “Arbeitervertrag Rom – Bonn unterzeichnet,“ Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 Dec 1955. 40 “Italienische Arbeiter nach Deutschland,“ Der Tagesspiegel, 21 Dec 1955. 24

Five years would pass until the West German government expanded the horizons of its guest worker program, when the nature and success of the original Italian contracts informed the decision to seek other states with a labor surplus. In 1960, treaties were signed with Greece and

Spain in a similar manner to the Italian guest worker program. The following year, the government of Turkey, in cooperation with the German Labor Ministry, ratified the agreement that would become perhaps the most notable in the history of guest worker policies. Turkish guest workers were similar to any others who had come before, as the nature of their employment was by no means unique to their country of origin. The difference was one of identity – though Turkey was simply another Mediterranean state with a labor surplus, its cultural identity was significantly removed from that of Western Europe. This did not in any way suggest that Turkish labor was incompatible with German industry, or even life in Germany; rather, it contributed to a constructed tension before the time of multiculturalism. To add to this potential for dissonance between the cultures of immigrant and native German, the economic outlook began to worsen due to shocks in the energy sector. In 1965, a coal shock created financial distress, but in 1973 an even more significant oil crisis hurt the German economy dearly. The resultant economic unease revealed the first cracks in the foundation of the German immigration state.

In the year preceding the 1965 coal shock, West Germany welcomed its one-millionth guest worker – an occasion that marked perhaps the apogee of the program as a whole. In a bulletin from the Federal Press Office, Labor Minister Theodor Blank acknowledged the role of guest workers as integral to the success of the West German economy in the post-war economic miracle, and predicted the longevity of the program and its significance in that regard. His otherwise positive statements ironically foreshadow two major issues that would reveal 25 themselves in the doldrums of the energy shocks. Firstly, he discusses the commitment of the

German government to the successful social integration of guest workers, noting the importance of bringing workers’ families to reside for the duration of contracts. Secondly, he notes the importance of the rotation principle, wherein individuals who came through the guest worker program return to their countries of origin to apply their learned skills and general experience to their home economies.41 Though both of these facets of the program are positive components in principle, the pressures of a troublesome economic outlook would reveal that they were, at least in part, at odds with one another.

The conflict between these goals was manifest in the reaction of the West German government to the economic troubles of the 1973 oil shock. As a result of the Organization of Oil

Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) decision to significantly inflate oil prices, the energy market suffered and sent ripples through the German manufacturing economy. Though the suspension of guest worker contracts had occurred previously in 1967 – due to economic recession – the reaction in 1973 was significantly more severe in its scope and depth. One contemporary report noted that the ban on recruitment was to protect not only the employment of German citizens, but also to preserve the social adequacy of conditions for foreigners seeking employment in

Germany. In effect, the government officially recognized that a suspension of recruitment was vital to the preservation of an acceptable living standard for labor in the federal republic. The magnitude of the economic strain upon the labor force was further reflected in the penalties for

41 Theodor Blank, “Eine Million Gastarbeiter. Eine nicht unerhebliche Voraussetzung für das Gedeihen der deutschen Wirtschaft,“ in Bulletin (Federal Press Office), no. 160, (October 30, 1964): 1480. 26 violating this ban. Those who illegally employed foreign labor were subject to massive fines – at one point as high as 50,000 DM – and a heavy prison sentence of up to three years.42

These reactionary policies reveal the weaknesses of the West German immigration policy in its singular focus upon guest worker recruitment. In responding to the effects of economic recession, the conflicting efforts to simultaneously integrate and rotate labor created friction that overheated in the time of crisis. Firstly, the policy to unite families inherently undermined attempts to curtail immigration into the already flooded foreign labor market during periods of recession. The West German government initially instituted a policy to encourage families to immigrate together not only due to its benefits in the way of integration, but also because it kept the social allocations that families received from being sent abroad. Families who resided together in Germany were provided greater assistance from the state than those who sent their payments abroad to family members in their home country. This policy proved more of a strain on the system than a benefit, as the volume of wives and children that followed male guest workers greatly increased. Additionally, the policy subverted efforts to stymie the massive influx of foreign workers into a depressed labor market in the early 1970s, as this pattern of family reunification persisted without violating recruitment bans. These family members not only constituted a strain on the social system, but also progressed eventually into the labor force themselves. The system was thus backlogged and undermined due to a lack of preparation for economic crisis.43

42 Kurt Steves, “Anwerbestopp bleibt bestehen,” Die Welt, June 13, 1974. 43 Christian Schneider, “Eine Invasion von Gastarbeiterkindern? Eine Einsparung, die teuer werden kann,“ Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 8, 1974. 27

Secondly, the rotation principle inherent in the guest worker program failed due to similar social convictions on the part of the Federal Government. As acknowledged in a contemporary news report, the government in West Germany committed to the idea that legally employed foreign workers were not to be expelled from their employment on the basis of economic troubles or recruitment bans.44 The solution instead was to incentivize voluntary resignation and return to country of origin for many workers, especially among the ever-increasing population of

Turks. Severance packages were offered by major industrial employers, such as Ford

Automobile Works in Cologne, ranging from 4,500 to 7,000 DM. These heavy incentives were relatively successful in effecting guest workers’ return to their host countries, largely because employees too feared the repercussions of weathering the economic downturn in a depressed labor market.45 The nature of these voluntary severance packages reveals the inadequacies of the piecemeal contract system in West Germany at the time. Under positive economic conditions, it functioned effectively and self-perpetuated through a rotation principle inherent in the short-term duration of labor contracts; however, the introduction of frictional economic developments caused the system to overheat. Unable to effectively return excess foreign labor to origin countries, the rotation principle failed and undermined the perpetual motion of the German immigration system as a whole.

Though family reunification policy and a commitment to incentivizing the return of immigrant labor to their home countries both constitute positive developments in the German immigration system, they proved to be incompatible with the normal case and its rotational

44 Kurt Steves, “Anwerbestopp bleibt bestehen,” Die Welt, June 13, 1974. 45 Key L. Ulrich, “In großer Sorge nehmen viele Türken die Abfindung und unterschreiben ihre Kündigung,“ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 14, 1974.

28 function. This incompatibility is the primary indication of systemic weakness in the system at that time. A tendency for policy to plan for the normal case of active recruitment and then react to its consequences led to scenarios that set principled values against functional pragmatics. The shortcomings of the German immigration system were not in the lack of policies to account for other inflows and externalities, but rather its orientation as a whole towards rotational immigrant labor. The rotation principle, though arguably responsible for much of West Germany’s economic success in the post-war era, invited political and economic risk due to its conflict with liberal democratic values and the natural progression of migration at critical junctures.

29

Chapter 2

Inertia at the End of the Guest Worker Era

As its momentum was disrupted by economic recession, a transition occurred in the

German immigration system. The normal case of active recruitment began to yield to family reunification – the movement of relatives to join the primary immigrants who found work through guest worker contracts. Though this transition had already begun to occur organically, the jarring halt of the Gastarbeiterprogramm accelerated the shift and intensified its effects.

Over a decade of economic success preceded the 1967 recession in West Germany, and in the intermediate period of recovery before 1973, guest worker recruitment rose steadily to meet the demand for labor. Even at the fading twilight of the guest worker era, rotational immigrant labor deeply permeated the economic structures of West Germany; in fact, the economic downturn had only further entrenched the understanding that imported labor could be easily returned in the case of rising unemployment. The number of guest workers sharply declined in 1967 by nearly

400,000 individuals, suggesting that their role as a flexible reserve to alternatively draw upon and exclude from the workforce was valid.46 However, these figures fail to account for the inevitable dynamics of migratory flows transitioning from rotational to permanent immigration.

Such dynamics can be understood as the product of economic and social necessity.

As it became more advantageous for employers to keep trained workers on longer contracts, rather than seek a new replacement with every two-year cycle, guest workers began to naturally develop more permanent connections to their environment. For many, the standard of

46 Stephen Castles, “The Guests Who Stayed - The Debate on ‘Foreigners Policy’ in the German Federal Republic,” International Migration Review 19, no. 3 (1985): 518. 30 living in Germany exceeded that of the underdeveloped peripheral states from which they emigrated. This developmental incongruity was the result of post-war industrial growth, as discussed in the previous chapter, which created more gainful and stable employment opportunities in Germany than in the Mediterranean states with whom it established contractual recruitment through the guest worker program. This higher quality of life contributed to the natural flow of family reunification. The pull factors of education, healthcare, social support, and general welfare all undergirded the highly typical movement of spouses and dependents to join their family members working on contracts in Germany. This movement was further accelerated by the family reunification policies established by the German government in order to reduce the loss of output to remittances and promote social welfare. After recruitment was banned in 1973, the government pursued alternative measures to discourage family reunification and force repatriation whenever possible. A legal paradigm of exclusion and expulsion undergirded these policy decisions, as West Germany continued to deny the permanency of its foreign resident population.

The established roots of guest workers before the ban also helped to bring working-age foreign nationals to join friends and relatives who could help them navigate the recruitment process. However, the recruitment ban in 1973 most notably triggered the dynamic introduction of a non-working immigrant population. In the period of recovery that saw a dramatic increase in guest worker contracts between 1968 and 1973, there was simultaneously a surge of dependents, increasing the non-working population of Turkish nationals alone by over eight percent.47

Though the massive fluctuation in guest worker population between the economic recovery and

47 Karin Hunn, “Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück--”: die Geschichte der türkischen “Gastarbeiter” in der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005): 208. 31 shocks of the late 1960s and early 1970s suggested that immigrant labor could be simply imported and exported as convenient, it became evident even at the onset of the recruitment ban that the political conversation surrounding immigrant labor – especially from Turkey – was no longer an exclusively economic concern. Rather, the transition to family migration and the permanency that resulted among much of the immigrant population provoked new conversations about integration and the shortcomings of a system predicated upon a failing rotational mechanism. This chapter will examine the path dependency of the German immigration policy framework and the integration issues that resulted from systemic inertia and a lack of structural reform.

Legal Frameworks and the Paradigm of Exclusion

The guest worker era was founded upon a fundamental misconception that employment opportunities predominantly inform migration decisions to the exclusion of other economic, social, and political considerations. The most immediately evident repercussion of this paradigm in immigration policy was the failure of a rotational mechanism at the end of the guest worker era; however, further consequences emerged as the permanent phase of labor migration revealed that social and political issues were largely endogenous to what was initially conceptualized as an exclusively economic process. Principally, the guest worker program was based on an understanding that the causal mechanism that drove labor recruitment was an individual decision based upon employment opportunities. This theory can be simply expressed as the difference between wages in the origin country and expected wages in Germany; a significant difference would encourage foreign labor to migrate for higher wages. If this were true, the lack of better 32 employment opportunities following the recession in the late 1960s would have caused massive return migration and stemmed the flow of immigration.

This was evidently not the case, and it became clear that the mechanisms informing migration decisions were more nuanced than responding to an international job offer on the basis of pay. Contemporary theorists introduced frameworks to better describe the migratory process in the 1970s, as these realities were examined. Michael J. Piore’s dual labor market hypothesis provides an explanation of why the supply-side policy solutions enacted in an effort to mitigate the impact of immigration were ineffective.48 In this model, the economy of destination countries tends to segment and organize itself among owners of capital and labor, with each segment bearing the cost of unemployment in different ways. As capital cannot be “laid off” in times of low demand, capital owners organize production to shift the burden of recession to labor – eschewing the risk of fluctuations in demand by controlling the number of employees, who must always bear the cost of their own unemployment.

The theory therefore predicts a concentration of migrant labor in sectors that are characterized by high demand variability and an abundance of low-skilled jobs. Piore notes that the German industrial sector was a prime case for this dynamic, and that labor-employer relation norms made it difficult for market forces to affect labor supply. Curtailing immigration was therefore a demand-side issue – not one that could be solved by limiting the supply of temporary immigrant labor as the state attempted through policy.49

48 Michael Piore, “The Jobs,” in Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor in Industrial Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979): 15-49. 49 Ibid., 40-41. 33

Contemporary sociologists such as Jacob Mincer and Larry H. Long also challenged the concept of migration as an individual decision, revealing that the pressure to shift from a phase of purely economic, rotational labor migration to one of family unification was a natural progression that fit the process as it already existed.50 Importantly, their work considers the decision to migrate as an analysis of the net gain for all family members. This aggregation of the social benefits for primary earners as well as their partners and children shows that migration decisions during the guest worker era were individual only insofar as one member of the family unit would move; the motivating factors contributing to individual movement were, in fact, made in the familial context.

Thus, as avenues opened for the unification of family members, the constructed utility of temporary migration for individuals gave way to the underlying dynamics of net group gains.

Taking the family as a unit of analysis is not only significant in that it reveals the group dynamics that operate behind individual migration decisions, but also because the authors consider the role of women as part of the labor force. This is a clear departure from the conceptualization of immigrant labor as independent young men, which was a deceptive stereotype in flux at the end of the guest worker era.

While theory adapted to better understand migration decisions, policy was much slower to come to grips with the reality that the piecemeal approach to short-run migration solutions would no longer function as the basis for the West German system. Legal frameworks were adapted in an attempt to meet the challenges of permanency from the 1960s to reunification, but

50 Jacob Mincer, “Family Migration Decisions,” Journal of Political Economy 86, no. 3 (1978): 749-58; Larry H. Long, “The Influence of Number and Ages of Children on Residential Mobility,” Demography 9 (August 1972): 371-82. 34 they remained rooted in the same paradigm that failed with the end of the guest worker program.

Rather than producing a robust system that appropriately regulated and provided for the social cost of immigration, the legal framework was predominantly occupied with attempts to exclude and expel migrants. An overview of this framework’s development reveals that successive attempts by West German policy makers to adjust migration law and regulation changed very little in form and intent between the beginning of the guest worker program and the reunification of Germany.

The guest worker era itself was a reflection of inertia in the legal framework surrounding immigration in Germany. Regulatory structures from the pre-war era persisted until the mid-

1960s to control the allocation of residence permits through legislation passed under Nazi administration. Specifically, the Foreigners Police Decree of 1938 and the Decree on the

Treatment of Foreigners of 1939 provided the basis for enforcement and regulation during that time.51 These laws did not provide social support or any significant rights for migrants outside of the basic permission to reside in the Federal Republic of Germany, and even this basic provision was phrased in a manner to give utmost flexibility to the agencies charged with enforcing legal residence. Authorities had to simply decide whether the character of an applicant and the purpose of their stay made them “worthy of hospitality.”52 Throughout the 1950s, local authorities accumulated greater influence over the experience of migrants who operated under such uncertain legal provisions.

51 For more on these laws, see Diemut Majer, “Non-Germans Under the Third Reich,” (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2003): 178. 52 Stephen Castles, et al., Here for Good: Western Europe’s New Ethnic Minorities, (London: Pluto Press, 1984): 75. 35

While the influence of the Ausländerbehörde (foreigners authority) and its police enforcement agency persisted well into the 1980s, the administrative responsibility for regulating migrant worker contracts was largely delegated to the local level until the mid-1960s. The consistently rising population of foreign-born residents – especially non-working – in the Federal

Republic created pressure to develop the immigration system in a more comprehensive manner.

The result, however, was a paradigmatic law that hardly departed from the post-war norm. In

1965, the West German parliament passed the Ausländergesetz (Foreigners Law), which introduced new wording to the clause regarding residence permits: “a residence permit may be granted, if it does not harm the interests of the German Federal Republic.”53

This elastic approach to the law evidently renewed the climate of uncertainty and dependence that surrounded migrants in Germany since the end of the Second World War. The legal status of foreigners residing in Germany was again left to the discretion of police and political authorities in a way that even contemporaries acknowledged as continued opposition to permanent immigration. Commentary from one conservative legal expert noted that, “these measures became necessary because the Federal Republic was being swamped by foreigners.”54

A preference to exclude and expel unwanted migrants evidently defined the legal framework in

Germany with regard to the rights of migrants to reside; however, it was certainly not limited to the basic level of residency. In fact, the official instructions to authorities charged with implementing the Foreigners Law of 1965 plainly states: “Foreigners enjoy all basic rights, except the basic rights of freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement,

53 Kanein, Ausländergesetz, Munich: 1966, in Castles, et al., Here for Good. 54 Ibid. 36 and free choice of occupation, place of work and place of education, and protection from extradition abroad.”55

The restriction of immigrant rights paired with an elastic basis for deportation created a state of constant threat for guest workers and other migrants in the era. Paired with a lack of legal provisions for social infrastructure to promote integration of migrant labor, it was clear that the

West German state based its immigration policy on a simplistic conceptualization of the migration process. Assuming that labor was a commodity that could be imported or exported without regard to its human elements, the legal framework in Germany was structurally unsound at the end of the guest worker era.

Political pressure for reform did not dissipate as recruitment totals continued to spike in the years preceding the recession that would end the guest worker program. Mass labor migration became even more an issue of political contention between and among employers, labor groups, and the state. Both opposition to the influx of foreign residence and the demands of industries dependent upon migrant labor continued to mount. The influx of non-working dependents introduced a necessary policy trade-off between economic and social values; resources diverted to social expenditures promoting education, housing, and public health for newcomers were weighed against support for industry. For migrants, these policy considerations were beneficial and necessary for successful integration to a more permanent labor market; however, the policy framework elected consistently to support the status quo, which was also beneficial for employers. Conflict between the state and industry became significant as more

55 Allgemeine Verwaltungsvorschrift zur Ausführung des Ausländergesetzes. Paragraph 6, in Castles, et al., Here for Good. 37 restrictive policies in the final years of the guest worker program threatened the sustainability of manufacturers’ labor supply.

The resultant demands on the part of industry were rather simplistic – make the rotational mechanism a more rigid legal process. Employers’ associations suggested that the limit on residence permits would be a 5-year stay, and that family reunification policies be repealed to prevent the influx of non-working migrants. This solution would not have been effective due to the natural entropy of the rotation mechanism, but other pressures existed to prevent the more rigid codification of the law. Firstly, the evident paradigm of the guest worker era was one that recognized migrant labor as a short-run commodity that was to be excluded and exported at whim. The flexible authority of pre-war policies that was renewed in the Foreigners Law of 1965 provided evidence of this paradigm and functioned accordingly. To convince the government to abandon this elastic control – however limited it was – in favor of a more rigid system would be nearly impossible.

Secondly, international norms in favor of family reunification exerted influence on

German policy makers. While it is difficult to demonstrate the effect of international institutions and organization on the Federal Republic’s immigration policy, its commitment to family reunification very much aligned with other similar states in the international political system.

Even countries facing pressure to reform and restrict immigration in the early 1970s such as

France, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the United States chose to continue supporting family reunification. In the extreme case of Denmark, labor migration was only legal from other

Nordic states between 1972 and 1973, but the immediate relatives of Turkish guest workers were 38 still allowed to apply for permits.56 Further, West Germany was already party to international agreements that bound much of Europe to commitments responding to social issues. The

European Social Charter was a treaty effective by 1965 that guaranteed certain human rights and freedoms through the authority of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR). At this stage of European integration, international remission structures were not yet as effective as they would be under EU law, but the ECSR proved useful in norm setting. A precursor to the more powerful European Court of Human Rights, the ECSR introduced a specific list of NGOs with the authority to lodge complaints against the violation of rights.57 This created structural legal pressure in favor of family reunification, undermining the demands for a more rigid system.

Finally, the fluid nature of residence enforcement was economically beneficial on a macroeconomic level in ways that would be inhibited under the more rigid system that employers’ associations promoted. Allowing workers to stay on longer contracts meant eschewing the significant costs of training new foreign labor to replace repatriates every five years. Further, experienced labor was inherently more productive and well-adjusted to the

German work environment.58 Employers were effectively reaping the benefits of integration, as guest workers transitioned to a more permanent immigrant experience with family members.

This was, however, counterintuitive to the logic that originally defined the benefits of a rotational labor program. Before family reunification became a norm in the late 1960s, highly mobile young men without a secure attachment to life in Germany were incredibly mobile. They could

56 Peter Nannestad, “Immigration as a challenge to the Danish welfare state?” European Journal of Political Economy 20, no. 3 (2004): 755-767. 57 As opposed to the ECHR provision that allows any individual, group, or NGO to lodge complaints against a state under the jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights (i.e. EU states); “Details of Treaty No.035,” European Social Charter, ETS No.035, Part I Article 16 & 19. https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/- /conventions/treaty/035 58 Castles, et al., Here for Good, 78-79. 39 transition between sectors or locations easily, or employers could simply replace them by allowing their contracts to expire and seeking new recruits.59

While this mobility declined with the transition to a more permanent system, other macroeconomic benefits became more significant. Guest workers continued to work in industries less popular among native Germans and under conditions that were generally more strenuous

(e.g. considerable overtime and lower wage rates). Guest workers already provided economic stimulus through their consumption of local goods and the resultant increase in demand for the domestic market, but family reunification increased these benefits. Instead of sending remissions abroad, guest workers and their families consumed in place, and without significant provisions for social infrastructure. This meant that immigrant families spent proportionally more on childcare, health services, and other goods that were generally supported for the German public.60

Even as the rotational mechanism faltered and the guest worker era ended in 1973, political pressure did not effect policy reform towards a more comprehensive immigration system. Instead, the West German state elected to rely on alternative measures to encourage return migration as permanency became a political reality. The obvious solution of simply revoking residency permits and turning to mass deportation was an option inherent in the system as it stood. Indeed, the process was foundational to the policy introduced in 1973 that prioritized

West German workers above migrant labor, requiring that employers hire immigrant labor or renew contracts only when native applicants could not be found. Guest workers were often

59 Ibid. 60 Ulrich Herbert. Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland: Saisonarbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flüchtlinge. (München: Beck, 2001): 210-226. 40 forced to leave work as a result of this policy, and authorities would subsequently revoke their residency permits. In this case, deportation was the next legal step; however, the financial and sociopolitical cost of forced return was considerable.

Pressure to address the perceived issues surrounding a large foreign population was significant, but counter-sentiments developing on the left in opposition to racially charged sentiment grew simultaneously. The election of an SPD-FDP coalition in the early 1970s and the emergent left-wing student movements limited the extent to which policy was openly anti- immigrant.61 These political sentiments are manifest in the action plan that outlined policy goals moving forward from the official end of the guest worker program. A reactionary political climate certainly surrounded the abrupt halt of migrant worker inflows; however, it is evident that the SPD-led government was at a certain level committing to a more socially progressive approach to the migrant question. The action plan drafted in the summer of 1973 included provisions for better housing regulations and social programs, which were partially realized in the coming decades, as well as more strict enforcement structures. Most importantly, the plan states plainly:

The Federal government will refuse on grounds of social and humanitarian considerations to bring to an end the residence of a foreign worker after the completion of a given period. On the contrary, in cases of a prolonged stay the legal status of foreign workers should be improved.62

Deportations did happen, but they were far rarer than cases of “voluntary” repatriation; instead, indirect pressures and an atmosphere of uncertainty caused many foreign workers who

61 Castles, et al., Here for Good, 198. 62 Eberhard De Haan, “Foreign Workers and Social Services in Federal Germany,” in Nermin Abadan-Unat, ed., Turkish Workers in Europe 1960-1975: A Socio-Economic Reappraisal, (Leiden: Brill, 1976): 356. 41 lost permits to work and reside to return home. These pressures were the product of a paradigm of exclusion and manifested in a number of official policies, all of which were short-term attempts to resist structural change in the immigration system. First, the West German government made attempts to limit access to social infrastructure for families with dependents abroad and those in Germany. For workers sending remissions home, social support was withheld, such as the child-benefit payments that were denied or reduced for families who did not reside as a whole in Germany.63 This drew immigrants to use family reunification avenues, rather than to repatriate. In 1975, the state responded to this inflow by reducing child benefits for migrants relative to workers with European Economic Community (EEC). These reactionary measures were coupled with a systemic opposition to the provision of migrant social infrastructure in West Germany throughout the 1970s, and they impeded the natural transition to permanency in a family reunification system.

The influx of non-working immigrants after the end of the guest worker program was due to family reunification, but labor policies exacerbated the extent to which women in particular were unable to find work. Contemporary estimates put the non-working population of foreign residents in West Germany at 2.35 million, or about 43% of the foreign population in the country. Women had previously enjoyed relatively abundant employment opportunities in the

Federal Republic, not only because of the general benefits of mobility and flexibility, but because they could be paid a substantially lower wage rate than their male and/or native counterparts. By 1973, women composed over 30% of the foreign work force – a substantial

63 Christian Schneider, “Eine Invasion von Gastarbeiterkindern?“ Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 8, 1974. 42 portion given the common understanding of the typical guest worker as a young, single male.64

This trend of workforce inclusion was stymied in an attempt to indirectly discourage women from using family reunification to find work in West Germany. As of the winter of 1974, the spouses and working-age children of migrant workers were denied work permits. The reasoning was again rooted in an understanding that removing economic opportunities might prevent future immigration and encourage voluntary repatriation.65 Instead, it contributed to the massive unemployment of the otherwise work-ready foreign population.

The next measure to create pressure for return migration attempted to control residence internally. In 1975, the West German government passed a regulation making it illegal for migrant labor to locate in areas deemed “overstrained” with foreigners.66 The policy focused primarily on metropolitan centers such as Frankfurt and Berlin. Again, the indirect attempt at forcing repatriation failed to function effectively, as it was nearly impossible for authorities to enforce the rules regarding settlement in urban areas for the same reasons that they were attempted to limit residence there. Namely, the social network effects in major urban centers that the regulation targeted made it possible for immigrant communities to effectively settle and find housing. Immigrants coming to Germany through family reunification channels were not likely to find housing away from the areas in which their independent working family members found work. The housing rule was abandoned after only two years of ineffective enforcement, but was clearly yet another attempt to pressure return migration seated in the continued opposition to permanent immigration.

64 Blitz, Rudolph C. “A Benefit-Cost Analysis of Foreign Workers in West-Germany, 1957–1973, Kyklos 30, no. 3 (1977): 483-84. 65 Castles, et al., Here for Good, 79. 66 Ibid. 43

The short-term policy responses of the 1970s proved intractable, as the natural transition to permanency continued – only under less favorable conditions for migrant labor families. This reality did little to affect the policy framework or its guiding paradigm, however, as the government clung to the traditional conceptualization of immigration. The Foreigners Law of

1965 maintained its fluid jurisdiction throughout the 1970s, coupled with piecemeal solutions evidently oriented toward the exclusion and expulsion of migrant labor. By the end of the decade, the need for a more comprehensive, long-run approach to immigration law reform was evident, and the West German government responded with the establishment of a commission to develop policy recommendations moving forward. Unsurprisingly, the federal- and state-level authorities in the Bund-Länder-Kommission produced suggestions in the same idiom that defined the preceding two decades of immigration policy: the Federal Republic should limit future immigration and promote return migration – exclude and expel. The political and economic considerations surrounding immigration policy blended conspicuously with issues of identity, as the 1977 report from the commission reiterated the policy line that Germany was not an immigration country (Einwanderungsland).

The commissions suggestions did, however, recognize the inevitable permanence of some foreign residents. Their same 1977 report promoted the selective integration of migrant labor that had long-term residence and a right to work. Foreigners who remained in West Germany for at least five years were granted unlimited duration on their residency permits and after eight years were granted a residency entitlement. While these measures established a constructive precursor to more substantial policies in recognition of permanency, they were contingent on indicators that were representative of already integrated populations. The extension of residency entitlements came only if a foreign household could demonstrate their stable long-term 44 employment, the participation of their children in the German education system, and the compliance of their living quarters with standard proportions. Employment, education, and living conditions were all facets of social infrastructure used as prerequisites, rather than provisions for successful integration. Further, the progress towards recognizing permanency were largely overshadowed by other official efforts in the same year to limit family reunification; namely, the reduction in the maximum age of children to 17 years old.67

At the end of the 1970s, it was evident that piecemeal solutions in short-term policy directives would not reverse migration trends, nor would they solve the integration issues that stemmed from a lack of social infrastructure. This was reflected in a report from Heinz Kühn, who served as Ombudsman for Foreigners in 1979, which states directly that the majority of foreign residents could no longer be considered guest workers. Rather, they were a constituency of permanent migrants for whom repatriation was no longer a realistic option, and the Federal government must formulate policy accordingly. This official report was the first to acknowledge directly the demands for a structural change in the legal paradigm surrounding immigration in

West Germany. Evidently, the foreign population could no longer be discounted, even from a purely demographic analysis. Foreign-born residents in West Germany composed little over one percent of the population in 1961; by 1980, that figure had increased nearly seven-fold to 8.2%.

Of those 6.74 million foreign residents, more than a third had lived in Germany for over a decade.68 Immigrants in Germany were a substantial portion of the population, and had demonstrated the desire to remain despite constant efforts to pressure them toward repatriation.

67 Bund-Länder-Kommission, Zur Fortentwicklung einer umfassenden Konzeption der Ausländerbeschäftignungspolitik, Bonn: Bundesministerium für Arbeit and Sozialordnung 1977. 68 Jochen Oltmer, Enzyclopädie Deutscher Geschichte Band 86: Migration im 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert, (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010): 53-54. 45

In spite of this reality, the 1980s saw only the reiteration of the exclusion and expulsion paradigm that defined policy since the guest worker era. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his administration asserted that the Foreigners Law of 1965 remained sufficient to manage immigration policy in the final years of the SPD-FDP coalition. With the formation of a

CDU/CSU-FDP coalition in 1982, Schmidt was replaced by Helmut Kohl and policy took an even more conservative direction. FDP opposition to deficit spending drove in large part the return to CDU-led government; Kohl introduced sharp cuts to social programs in order to address those concerns. As the Kohl administration reduced pensions, benefits for the unemployed, and maternal leave payments, it was evident that supporting the integration of what was still popularly considered migrant labor would not be a policy goal.69

Chancellor Kohl emphasized a far more aggressive pursuit of the same polices for exclusion and expulsion that proved ineffective for the past decade. A working group of federal ministries and state authorities produced a goal in 1983 of reducing the foreign-born population by one million in following years. Pursuant to this unprecedented reversal in immigration trends were direct measures avoided under previous administrations. Firstly, the government aimed to severely limit family reunification, with the initial goal of reducing the maximum age of children to five years old. Further, the plan involved increasing the scale and scope of deportation to include the unemployed, persons seeking social benefits, and criminals. A range of other policy proposals ranging from return premiums to exclusion from public benefits were proposed in a clear departure from the indirect approach of the 1970s.70 The Kohl administration functioned within the same paradigm as the SPD-FDP coalition that preceded it; however, it was far more

69 Robert O. Paxton and Julie Hessler, Europe in the Twentieth Century, (Boston: Wadsworth, 2012): 552. 70 Castles, et al., Here for Good, 80-82. 46 direct in its policy efforts to prevent future migration and make the immigrant experience in

West Germany negative enough to force repatriation.

Contemporary authors, such as Stephen Castles, predicted correctly that these extreme proposals would not translate into law due to sociopolitical pressure to respect deeply entrenched norms against mass deportation and limiting family reunification. Nonetheless, the intention of the West German government in the 1980s was clearly not to effect comprehensive immigration reform. Rather than create an effective framework that logically regulated inflows and provided for integration, the policy direction remained constant. This lack of substantial reform until the early 1990s created many of the problems for integration that became apparent in the 1970s and

80s. As former guest workers were unable to assimilate to the society in which they had established permanent roots, reactionary forces contributed to growing political pressure for reform. That pressure would build until the early 1990s, when asylum and other irregular flows contributed to social pressures resulting from barriers to integration, forcing systematic reform.

Barriers to Integration and Social Consequences

Immigrant integration is the process by which newcomers become economically mobile and socially included in their communities. Integration is a broad process that does not have a concrete objective in absolute terms. Rather, it is the result of inclusive policies that acknowledge the rights of immigrants and facilitate their socioeconomic success. Migrant labor in West Germany faced structural barriers to integration as a result of the paradigm of exclusion and expulsion that informed policy from the post-war era until reunification in 1990. These barriers were manifest in the suppression of immigrant rights and the social isolation of migrant 47 labor populations. As a result of these barriers, ethnic minorities were more starkly defined and contributed to the perception of immigrant populations as incompatible others. Meanwhile, an awareness of social divisions informed the development of a culture of border control. The crisis flows of asylum seekers would later present such a challenge to this culture that West Germany would be forced to reform its immigration system.

While path dependency and structural inertia defined German immigration policy for the latter half of the 20th century, the government did not entirely ignore the issue of integration. In fact, authors noted by the mid-1980s that integration was a relatively common topic of discussion in official documents. According to the West German government commission on policy related to foreign residents, integration was a process independent of assimilation. In their definition, integration was a state of peaceful coexistence between foreigners and Germans, rather than the surrender of personal identity in the pursuit of assimilating to German society and culture. Parliamentary leadership expressed further that integration is the case when, “Germans and foreigners feel comfortable and at home with each other [in Germany] and live together in mutual respect.”71

Encouraging the coexistence of ethnic minorities with native Germans was a step in the right direction with regard to acknowledging permanency and the necessity of integration practices in West Germany. Regrettably, this recognition did not support inroads to social inclusion and economic mobility so much as it acknowledged the basic merit of diversity. As with other early efforts to promote migrant workers’ integration in German society, such as the

71 Joyce Marie Mushaben, “A Crisis of Culture: Isolation and Integration Among Turkish Guestworkers in the German Federal Republic,” in Ilhan Basgoz, (ed.), Turkish Workers in Europe: an interdisciplinary study, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985): 129. 48

Kühn report, policy did not reflect an active commitment to realizing the goals of supporting migrant workers as permanent residents. Further, the multicultural perspective was positive in its conception – the peaceful coexistence of different groups – but it contributed to a process of othering that expressed the distance between ethnic Germans and ethnic minorities.

In the most positive light, this distance expressed a respect for the cultural heritage of migrant groups, especially those outside of Europe. In comparison to other states such as France or Denmark, even the assumption that newcomers need not abandon differences in favor of assimilation was rather progressive. However, the contravening force of discrimination and racially-charged political sentiment made cultural divisions hierarchical, not parallel. These conflicting sentiments are manifest in the statements of political leaders such as Alfred Dregger, head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in 1982:

Turks, with some exceptions, cannot be assimilated, indeed, they can only be integrated with great difficulty. Since Turks are different from Germans in culture and mentality, and want to stay different, it is only natural that they seek the proximity of their fellows in Germany. That means that Turkish quarters, also known as ghettos, are developing in our cities … We have no reason to let critics at home and abroad accuse us of racism, when we insist that the German Federal Republic must not become a country of immigration.72

The interpretation of integration as a process of inevitable division among diverse cultural groups interacted with ethnonationalism in the Federal Republic during the 1980s. The social structure that divided native culture from immigrant culture was evidently hierarchical and inequitable.

72 Klaus Staek and Inge Karst (eds.), Macht Ali deutsches Volk kaputt? (Göttingen: Steidl Verlag, 1982) in Castles, et al., Here for Good. 208. 49

This inequity disproportionately affected Turkish migrant labor in comparison to their

European counterparts. European integration played a role in part, as foreign residents from

European Economic Community (EEC) member states were afforded more rights and privileges than those from Turkey. For example, as early as 1968 workers with citizenship in the EEC could move at any time to Germany and automatically receive a five-year renewable work permit. Their protected rights to residence and work were equal to those afforded to non-EEC migrant labor after a decade in Germany, and only if they fulfilled the necessary requirements of education, consistent work, and living conditions.73 While the institutional benefits of the EEC were logically extended to its constituents, the massive disparity of rights and support in comparison to Turkish workers demonstrates the structural inequalities that further limited integration opportunities.

The primary expression of political barriers to the integration of non-EEC migrant labor was manifest in the legal suppression of immigrant rights. Migrant labor had access to a limited set of rights defined initially by the Basic Law in the 1950s. In this legal framework, foreign residents had the rights to expression, religion, and equality before the law (fair trial and redress).74 Gradually, they gained the rights to assembly (1953), association (1964), and membership in political parties (1967); however, free travel, free exercise of a profession, protection from extradition, and full political enfranchisement were restricted until the 1990s.75

When migrants gained the right to join political parties, the parties themselves were legally

73 Mark J. Miller, Foreign Workers in Western Europe: an Emerging Political Force, (New York: Praeger, 1981): 15-17. 74 John Bendix, “On the Rights of Foreign Workers in West Germany,” in Ilhan Basgoz, Turkish Workers in Europe, 32-34. 75 Tomas Hammar, “The Civil Rights of Aliens,” Chapter 4 in Layton-Henry (ed.), The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe, (London: Sage, 1990): 79. 50 allowed to determine whether they would accept non-citizens as members (the FDP did not).

Evidently, there were significant limits on the ability of foreigners to engage meaningfully with a society that legally excluded them from certain privileges.

The suppression of political rights was especially significant, as civil rights and freedom of opinion were only partially guaranteed for foreigners in West Germany. Even in the context of free speech, abstract limitations in the interest of public safety and political stability were effective in limiting immigrant political activity.76 Contemporary authors noted that immigrants were politically active in roundabout ways (e.g. through labor unions or via the support of pro- immigrant advocate groups), but were themselves excluded from political enfranchisement.77

This exclusion was in part responsible for the inertia that prevented structural change in German immigration policy, as foreign residents were only able to affect political actors in indirect ways.

Discrimination on the basis of citizenship was the deciding factor in legally suppressing the rights of immigrants. As the Federal Republic lacked a specific anti-discrimination law, the rights of foreigners were only those directly guaranteed in the Basic Law and Foreigners Law.78

West Germany was not unique in using citizenship as a gateway to full political inclusion; the international norm in Europe and North America was to discriminate along lines of nationality.

This was simply more problematic in the German case due to the persistent idea that migrant labor was not a permanent constituency that merited inroads to political enfranchisement. Rather than developing a “catalogue of legal and political rights,” for foreign residents in the decades following the end of the guest worker era, the government allowed the same structural

76 Ibid. 77 Mark J. Miller, Foreign Workers in Western Europe, 22-28. 78 Tomas Hammar, “The Civil Rights of Aliens,” in The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe, 74. 51 ambivalence inherent to its legal paradigm to prolong the temporary definition of migrant labor.79 Even with the gradual expansion of foreigners’ rights throughout the 1970s, they remained excluded from the political process in a way that exacerbated isolation and impeded opportunities for integration.

With social inclusion thus limited, concerns regarding the economic mobility of migrant labor were especially significant among contemporaries. Heinz Kuhn predicted late in his tenure as the Ombudsman for Foreigners that, “when the proportion of resident aliens exceeds 10 percent of the total population, every folk is likely to rebel.”80 This assessment reflects the anxiety of its time, as the foreign population continued to grow in the 1980s. By 1985, more than a quarter of the mining sector’s workforce was foreign-born, and more than a third of the automotive sector. The inertia that characterized immigration policy also characterized the position of migrant labor in the economy. Foreign residents remained ideal as employees for much the same reason that they had in previous decades: high mobility, willingness to work unfavorable positions under unfavorable conditions, and a commitment to their work for fear of losing legal status.81

The social and economic position of guest workers, especially Turkish, remained largely stagnant by the end of the 1980s. This lack of integration went unaddressed through policy reforms that consistently aimed to prevent further immigration and encourage repatriation rather than accept the permanency of migrant labor populations. The formation of ethnic minorities and increasingly reactionary sentiments with regard to foreign residents in Germany contributed to

79 Joyce Marie Mushaben, “A Crisis of Culture,” in Ilhan Basgoz, (ed.), Turkish Workers in Europe, 126-29. 80 Ibid., 130, quoted from Nina Grunenberg, “Was tun mit den Türken?“ Die Zeit, 5 February 1983. 81 Ibid., 131-33. 52 the growing pressure for meaningful reform. With reunification at the end of the 1980s, this pressure would cumulate with the influx of asylum seekers and other irregular migrants to force political action and the first comprehensive reform of the immigration system since the foundation of the Federal Republic.

Chapter 3

Sovereignty and Migration Policy at the Threshold of the EU

The migrant labor population in West Germany exerted significant pressure for policy development in the latter half of the 20th century, but the legal paradigm of exclusion and expulsion diffused this political pressure into short-term solutions. Though the immigration system was not effective in providing inroads to economic mobility and social inclusion for foreign residents, this policy framework persisted through the 1980s. As it continued to function, the assumptions that undergirded its operation were reiterated and escalated. The idea of foreign residents as guest workers persisted, and the importance of controlling their movement became increasingly significant as successive policy reforms failed to operate as intended. Border control was a defining trait of national sovereignty for Germany – and Western Europe as a whole – especially by the late 1980s. Meanwhile, European integration promoted free movement of ECC citizens between member states as early as 1985. The “gated community” of Europe emerged while the understanding of sovereignty as a function of political boundaries only heightened. The escalation of border control culture paired with political stress for immigration reform within

Germany was a volatile combination.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and reunification came the exigence for systemic change. As only one of many significant political challenges accompanying reunification, millions of Aussiedler with claims to German residence, work, and citizenship were suddenly introduced to the strained immigration system. Simultaneously, forced migration spiked at the end of the 1980s due to conflicts such as the Yugoslav wars. West German asylum 54 policy was loose and elastic as other segments of the immigration law and generally unprepared to handle the stress of such a volume of applications. The introduction of these stressors to the already volatile political climate surrounding immigration in Germany conflicted severely with the notions of border security and generated massive political pressure. The increase in asylum flows during the late 1980s and early 1990s served as the catalyst for change, precipitating reform with Germany’s first comprehensive reassessment of its immigration system: the

Foreigners Act of 1990.

The provisions for naturalization, expansion of asylum rights to include family members, and recognition of permanency in the Foreigners Act signal a brief departure from the legal paradigm that dominated policy responses in preceding decades. This departure was, however, not without caveats, as the law also increased penalties for immigration-related offenses in a manner that mirrored previous attempts to force repatriation and deter immigration. Further, a return to short-term economic recruitment and the restriction of inflows quickly followed. The government authorized short-term labor contracts for a number of countries in the same year the

Foreigners Act went into effect. The Asylum Compromise of 1992 expanded the concept of safe third countries and countries of origin, making the asylum application process considerably more difficult. At the advent of the EU, German immigration policy served as one example for the legal apparatus for Europe, thus projecting many of its patterns to the international level.

55

Catalyst for Change: Asylum and Aussiedler

The Basic Law contained two provisions for immigration outside the normative context of labor migration that were initially relevant in the immediate post-war era. First, the framework for asylum applications was defined in Article 16 of the Basic Law. It remained unchanged for much of the latter half of the 20th century due to the political and economic motivations discussed in Chapter 1. Secondly, the Basic Law allowed ethnic Germans living abroad, called

Aussiedler, to return with a claim to residence, work, and naturalization. Article 116 of the Basic

Law provided them this right of return, and during the “economic miracle” millions of

Aussiedler returned to find work along with refugees before the guest worker program was introduced.

The initial surge of asylum seekers and Aussiedler reduced to a minor flow during the guest worker era, in large part due to border controls between East and West Germany. These two alternative cases for immigration to the Federal Republic were stemmed and replaced with the normal case of economically motivated active recruitment programs. As they occupied a position as “back-door” migration even after the transition to family reunification in the 1970s, there was minimal attention paid to the policies surrounding asylum and Aussiedler. The regulatory elasticity that characterized family reunification and labor recruitment also existed for these migrants. Further, the legal paradigm of exclusion and expulsion that informed other facets of the German immigration system also functioned vis-à-vis asylum and Aussiedler.

The Federal Authority for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees was founded in 1953 with the passage of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention. Staffed with under 100 employees until the 1970s, this authority was tasked with processing asylum applications under the 56 international framework established in Geneva and the constitutional law of the Federal

Republic.82 Both of these documents provide rather broad guidelines as to who receives refugee status and political asylum.83 The 1951 Convention defines a refugee as an individual who is outside the country of his or her nationality and unable to return or “avail himself of the protection of that country,” due to a “well-founded fear,” of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or group membership.84 The Basic Law plainly stated in

1949 that, “persons persecuted on political grounds shall have the right of asylum.”85 With these broad legal definitions and a minimal staff, Germany followed a relatively open asylum policy during the post-war era. This system did not see reform during that time largely due to economic and political motivations paired with a legal paradigm that prioritized authorities’ discretion.86

Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, there were only modest changes to the asylum policy. The 1965 Foreigners Law only changed the name of the Federal Authority to the Federal

Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees. A decade later, as civil conflict in Turkey began to increase the flow of asylum seekers considerably, the law prohibiting asylum seekers from obtaining work permits was lifted – a marked departure from other contemporaneous policies aimed at preventing immigrants from seeking work in Germany.87 This departure was very brief, however, as the mounting number of Turkish nationals began to overwhelm the minimal

82 DEMIG (2015) DEMIG POLICY, version 1.3, Online Edition. Oxford: International Migration Institute, University of Oxford. 83 In Germany, asylum and refugee status are granted through closely related processes – not to be confused with the US system, wherein they are two independent processes. 84 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Geneva, 1951. Article 1(A)(2) 85 Article 16, The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949. 86 See Chapter 1 87 DEMIG (2015) DEMIG POLICY, version 1.3, Online Edition. Oxford: International Migration Institute, University of Oxford. 57 infrastructure of the German asylum system. The potential to find work through asylum in

Germany after the end of guest worker recruitment was an attractive benefit to applying in the

Federal Republic. It also contributed to the growing sentiment that asylum seekers were not refugees but rather “economic migrants.” Given the nature of all migration as economic to some extent, this moniker was less an official distinction than a convenient rhetorical device to criticize asylum, and it remains so in the present day. Regardless, there were certainly greater opportunities through the asylum route than pursuing regular labor migration after the end of the guest worker era, which contributed to the steady increase in asylum applications during the

1980s.88

Normative pressure and international treaty obligations bound West Germany to remain an accepting state for asylum seekers, much as was the case for family reunification. However, the substantial increase of Turkish asylees who were able to acquire work permits drew attention to the loose policy framework surrounding asylum generally. The government response was again couched in a short-run paradigm of exclusion and expulsion. In 1978 a law was passed to accelerate the asylum process, limiting the appeals process significantly. Under this law, the revocation procedure was discarded, and claims could be dismissed without appeal. Again, outcomes were similar to indirect efforts to discourage family reunification: asylum applications only continued to increase. In 1980, the application total topped 100,000, of which over half were Turkish nationals. The government quickly enacted a policy withdrawing asylum seekers’ rights to work and placing a one-year minimum residence requirement on work permits.89 This

88 Anthony M. Messina, Logics and Politics of Post-WWII Migration to Western Europe, 127. 89 DEMIG (2015) DEMIG POLICY, version 1.3, Online Edition. Oxford: International Migration Institute, University of Oxford. 58 effort to remove asylum as a route to permanent residence also failed to stem the flow of migrants.

In reality, the Federal Office only recognized a small fraction of applications, as was the norm for Western Europe. Germany rejected over 90% of applications, and without an opportunity to appeal, the majority of asylum seekers did not become permanent residents. While overstaying visas or otherwise residing without authorization was possible, it was difficult due to the highly publicized and heavily enforced policies against unauthorized immigration in

Germany.90 This did not, however, reduce the perception that immigrants (especially Turks) were using the asylum system to gain unfettered access to the German labor market. Anti- immigrant sentiment and racism against minority groups in the Federal Republic fueled radical opposition to the system. Violence against foreigners increased, as well did membership in hate groups and radical-right parties. A right-wing nationalist conservative party, Die Republikaner

(REP), won nearly 8% of the vote in the 1989 Berlin municipal elections and also gained seats in the European Parliament in the same year. The ineffectiveness of short-run solutions in placating nativist opposition was manifest in these reflections of popular demand for structural immigration reform at the end of the 1980s.

Adding to the perception of overcrowding was an accompanying surge of Aussiedler at the end of the 1980s. Article 116 provided for the right of return in a context that functioned effectively during the Cold War. It was explicitly a provision for the rights of individuals who would otherwise have citizenship in Germany, if not for Nazi policies that revoked their rights on the grounds of race, religion, political beliefs, or other factors of identity. Further, it provided for

90 Anthony M. Messina, Logics and Politics of Post-WWII Migration to Western Europe, 41. 59 the citizenship rights of those who would have been born citizens, according to the principle of jus sanguinis in German citizenship law, had their parents not lost their claims to citizenship during wartime.

As the majority of Aussiedler came from Eastern Europe and territories under USSR administration, the policy took on a distinct anti-communist bent. During the post-war era, both the economic incentive of much-needed labor and the political incentive of encouraging mass migration from the USSR maintained the policy. The rise of the Iron Curtain and subsequent restrictions on the movement of people reduced the influx of millions to only a few thousand migrants a year through the Aussiedler channel. As Central and Eastern European states began to liberalize at the twilight of the Soviet Union, the number of Aussiedler suddenly spiked in the late 1980s. By the official reunification of Germany in October of 1990, over 1.2 million ethnic

Germans had already returned to the Federal Republic.91

The surge of Aussiedler corresponded with a staggering increase of asylum applications in the late 1980s and early 1990s, due largely to the onset of the Yugoslav wars. The conflict was largely predicated on issues of identity and religious affiliation, making millions eligible for asylum under UN provisions. In a four-year span, over three million people applied for asylum in

Western Europe, over a third of which did so in Germany. Between 1990 and 1993, the average yearly total of applications was six times the average for the preceding decade – when anxiety over the asylum system began to build.92

The government responded to both asylum and Aussiedler with similarly restrictive policy barriers that remained fixed in the paradigm of exclusion; however, there are key

91 Ibid., 129-131. 92 Ibid., 43-44. 60 differences between the two that show systemic preferences. For asylum seekers, the

Compromise of 1992 introduced the concept of safe third countries.93 This meant that migrants passing through countries that the German government deemed safe for residence would be rejected immediately without considering their application. Evidently, the policy heavily restricted the ability of Yugoslav and Turkish migrants to apply in Germany for asylum, if only because of geographical factors. In order to reach Germany, migrants who took a land route would almost certainly pass through a safe third country before arriving. This effectively created an international buffer that would limit inflows to German borders, and it was a policy that would be emulated throughout Europe and later echo in the Dublin Regulation.

For Aussiedler, the state set a quota in 1992 for fewer than 225,000 eligible persons per year. This total was relatively forgiving and fit within a larger policy framework that prioritized the integration of new citizens into German society. In this sense, the Aussiedler policy was far less exclusionary than that of asylum, showing that a systemic preference remained to prioritize on the basis of citizenship. Exclusion and expulsion remained key to policy solutions at the threshold of the EU, but the framework for more robust immigration policy was certainly extant.

It was simply a question of to whom resources would be allocated for successful integration, and overwhelmingly the answer was guided by typical priorities with regard to citizenship and residence status. The passage of the revised Foreigners Act of 1990 provided a comprehensive reassessment of the German immigration system, but also reflected this duality between integration and exclusion.

93 DEMIG (2015) DEMIG POLICY, version 1.3, Online Edition. Oxford: International Migration Institute, University of Oxford. 61

Border Control Culture and European Integration

Understanding the concept of state sovereignty is key to unpacking border control and the policy frameworks that surrounded it in Germany during the latter half of the 20th century.

International relations theory offers a range of perspectives on the concept of sovereignty, and scholars provide varied and often competing definitions. Stephen Krasner aggregates these definitions into categorical meanings; of which, the most relevant to migration are

“interdependence sovereignty” and “Westphalian sovereignty”. Interdependence sovereignty concerns the extent to which state authorities can regulate transnational flows across their borders, while Westphalian sovereignty concerns the foundational notion that state actors cannot disrupt the domestic affairs of another state. The latter draws its name from the Treaty of

Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War. The concept of a nation-state is often tied to this 17th century agreement.94

Autonomy and independence are the defining characteristics of a Westphalian nation- state. Each of these values meet challenges with international cooperation and the accelerating phenomenon of globalization. Interstate conflict is the most obvious challenge to Westphalian sovereignty, as it involves the physical incursion of foreign actors into the territory of another state. There are, however, also threats to this traditional understanding of sovereignty during peacetime. International institutions promoting norms or policies that conflict with those of domestic authorities can erode sovereignty in this perspective. For example, protections for

94 Stephen D. Krasner, (ed.), Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 6-12. 62 family reunification at the international level prevented German authorities from pursuing more restrictive policies in the 1970s and 80s.

Interdependence sovereignty focuses more directly on issues of migration as a transnational flow of people across state borders. This interacts with Westphalian sovereignty; interdependence sovereignty erodes as states are increasingly limited in their ability to act unilaterally in response to migration flows.95 The Western European concept of territoriality and border control was dynamic as conflict and migration challenged these expressions of political autonomy throughout the 20th century. Before the 1900s, borders defined the nation-state politically, but they were far more permeable. The World Wars inspired a heightened awareness of territoriality as states saw their Westphalian sovereignty limited to extremes during armed conflict and occupation. This state-level awareness acceded to the international level as the Cold

War divided Europe and intergovernmental organizations began to develop complex legal structures in the latter half of the 20th century. The division of East and West Germany during the

Cold War was perhaps the most evident manifestation of the heightened awareness of border control in Europe – though it was driven by specific political factors rather than a broader normative pattern.

As borders increasingly represented a concrete foundation for sovereignty in Western

Europe, the control of human movement across them became a more central policy goal. This was especially true for Germany and is reflected in the paradigm of exclusion and expulsion that undergirded immigration policy for the latter half of the 20th century. It may therefore seem somewhat paradoxical that freedom of movement was such a foundational concept for European

95 Anthony M. Messina, Logics and Politics of Post-WWII Migration to Western Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 11-13. 63 integration. The European Economic Community guaranteed residence for citizens moving between member states as early as 1985, treating shared borders as internal rather than external customs barriers. Between EEC members, this policy was clearly a step toward trade liberalization and contributed to an erosion of interdependence sovereignty; however, it did not undermine the awareness of borders and immigration in Germany. Rather, European integration projected the domestic controls that developed from the Westphalian nation-state paradigm to an international level. The expanding common market and economic community that would eventually become the European Union shifted its borders outward, forming an international

“gated community.”

Ruben Zaiotti describes this shift as a cultural evolution from “Westphalia” to

“Schengen” at the end of the 1980s. In his cultural approach, Zaiotti defines the conceptualization of borders, the control of movement across borders, and the communities that exist inside Westphalia and Schengen respectively. The former regarded borders as linear national barriers that interact at a bilateral, intergovernmental level; the latter regards borders as semi-linear regional borders that interact in a multilateral, transnational context. Central to

Zaiotti’s argument is that the transition from Westphalia to Schengen was not a simple product of rational choice pursuant to addressing border control issues, but rather that it was a normative shift in the “ideational context in which key actors dealing with border control in the region are inserted.”96 In this understanding, the cultural norms surrounding border control at the nation- state level were projected outwards to the international level due to the normative shift of a few key actors towards post-national border security.

96 Ruben Zaiotti, Cultures of Border Control: Schengen & the Evolution of European Frontiers, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011): 10. 64

Among these key actors, Germany played a leading role due largely to its immigration reform in the early 1990s. As a strong regulating state with a dispersal mechanism for asylum,

Germany provided a case for other European (predominantly Mediterranean) states to emulate.

Two forces pressured Europe to follow the German example, especially in asylum law, at the advent of the EU. First, consensus structures provided the EU its legislative foundations, meaning that there was an inherent pressure for member states to follow the example of strong regulators rather than provide an alternative solution to regulating immigration. German law already included a dispersion scheme between Länder, and the 1992 restrictions on asylum introduced concepts that informed other states’ approaches to limiting eligibility. Second, the zero-sum nature of asylum applications caused a race-to-the-bottom effect among EU states. Due to the fact that there are a finite number of forced migrants entering the region, every application processed in a member state is one fewer application to all other states. This dynamic provided an incentive for states with weaker regulatory structures to reform their immigration systems to match the restrictiveness of stronger regulatory states.97

The pressure for other member states to conform to the regulatory norms of Germany did not produce direct replications of German law throughout the EU. In fact, asylum policy in

Europe remains diverse in spite of efforts beginning in the 1990s to establish a Common

European Asylum System (CEAS).98 However, a pattern exists that demonstrates the major drive to meet the restrictiveness of German asylum at the end of the 20th century. This drive also gave rise to more aggressive border control efforts in EU states at the regional border, who were

97 Zaun describes this dynamic in her Regulatory Competition model; Natascha Zaun, EU Asylum Policies: The Power of Strong Regulating States, (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 98 Timothy Hatton, “The Rise and Fall of Asylum: What Happened and Why?” The Economic Journal, 199, no. 535 (2009): F183-F213. 65 disproportionally responsible for asylum applications under the Dublin Regulation. According to the Regulation, asylum seekers were required to submit applications in the first state to which they arrived, and they would be returned to said arrival state if they attempted to migrate to another member state without official transfer.99 It therefore encouraged EU member states along major asylum routes from North Africa and the Middle East to develop aggressive border control systems to avoid the obligations Dublin presented.

Westphalian and interdependence sovereignty are both relevant to these policy interactions among EU states and in Germany specifically. The declining unilateral ability of the

German government to control transnational flows of people informed an awareness of border control that promoted more aggressive security measures and perpetuated the legal paradigm of exclusion and expulsion. The cultural shift from Westphalia to Schengen only served to project the dynamics of German state policy to a regional level. In this way, Germany’s response to the influx of asylum seekers and Aussiedler in the late 1980s informed the development of the EU legal apparatus that continues to struggle with forced migration in the present day.

99 “Regulation (Eu) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council,” 26 June 2013, http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013R06049 66

Conclusion

Migration policy exists at the core of many states’ political agendas, appearing as a main concern for actors across the political spectrum. The recent surge of far-right anti-immigrant sentiment and its opposition has amplified the conversation around what constitutes an effective system; however, this contemporary furor is part of a much longer political history. For Germany and the EU, it is a conversation that has its origins in the post-war context, when reconstruction demanded policy to introduce much-needed migrant labor to sustain economic growth. These origins produced a conceptualization of immigration as a temporary phenomenon that would persist for the latter half of the twentieth century and iterate through European Union policy.

While the guest worker program ended in 1973, the paradigm it informed echoes in the conversation surrounding migration policy in the 21st century. In an increasingly globalized system, characterized by rapidly accelerating economic flows, the movement of people for residence and work continues to be conceptualized as a threat to the sovereignty of Western

European states. This reactionary force – regardless of its motivations – is in direct conflict with the neoliberal trade policies and prevailing multiculturalism of the 21st century. Anti-globalism,

Euroscepticism, and Western ethnocentrism are increasingly organized as the opposition to

“mainstream” politics in Western Europe.

The radical components of this opposition are openly nativist, and their influence characterizes opposition to immigration as such. Recent elections in a number of states have called into question whether these radical components are becoming significant policy actors. In

Germany, the requirement that parties win 5% of federal second votes to be represented in the

Bundestag has historically served to prevent extreme voices from gaining direct access to 67 legislation.100 However, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party emerging from 2017 federal elections as the third largest party in the Bundestag, far-right sentiments are finding representation in the political mainstream.

At the same time, the asylum crisis has, to an extent, faded in the political conscious of

Germany and other West-European states. Asylum applications declined severely after the closing of the Balkan route in 2015, and the number of displaced persons attempting to reach

Germany through Turkey have declined. The closed gates of Europe’s external borders have left the camps just outside to such a state of squalor that the inhumane conditions seem to be deterring further migration. Even if the unpopular deal between Germany and Turkey allowing the deportation of asylum seekers were to falter, it is likely that the militarization of borders and conditions of those who seek entry would prevent another massive influx.101

Yet, even as the immediate challenge of the asylum crisis no longer occupies the position of urgency that it once did for the German government, immigration remains central to its politics. In the coalition talks that followed the 2017 Bundestag elections, a major obstacle to cooperation between the CDU/CSU and SPD parties was the issue of a cap on local resettlement of asylum seekers (the former being in favor and the latter being opposed).102 The Grand

Coalition finally formed in early 2018 with an agreement that included such a cap of 180,000-

220,000 asylum seekers admitted annually.103 While cooperation between the two largest parties limits the influence of the AfD and their more radical constituents to the margins, this effort to

100 Elections to the Bundestag include a first vote for individual candidates and a second vote for parties. 101 Nikolaj Nielsen, “EU-Turkey migrant deal redundant, rights chief says,” EU Observer, 2 March 2018, https://euobserver.com/migration/141175 102 Jamie Dettmer, “Migration Policy Threatens to Collapse Germany's Coalition Talks,” VOA News, 15 January 2018, https://www.voanews.com/a/migration-policy-threatens-collapse-germanys-coalition-talks/4208572.html 103 Ben Knight and Timothy Jones, “Germany’s coalition agreement: What’s in it?” Deutsche Welle, 12 March 2018, http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-coalition-agreement-whats-in-it/a-42242741 68 limit asylum applications without a more comprehensive approach to solving the broader challenges of forced migration to Europe echoes policies of the 20th century. As the urgency of the asylum crisis fades in mainstream German politics, it is likely that a pattern of short-run policy solutions seeking to relegate the effects of immigration flows to the external borders of

Europe will continue.

It is clear in this pattern that the paradigm of exclusion and expulsion persisted to a significant extent from the 20th century into the 21st. While new policy may yet be introduced in coming years, the paradigm that undergirds systemic inertia and path dependency in German immigration policy may also persist. The failure of the Dublin Protocol and state-level asylum structures is a call for more effective policy; the familiarity of their flaws is a call for deeper normative reform in Western Europe’s approach to immigration writ large. If German policy – and the EU policy it influences – does not actively seek to carry out such reforms, systemic flaws will likely reemerge as global migration rises consistently.

The human dimension of immigration is indelible, and good policy must account for this dimension as an important force in deciding economic, social, and political outcomes. While reforming immigration policy will certainly involve developing controls and systems of exclusion, it must also accept the reality that migration is rarely temporary or transient.

Continuing to increase investment in meaningful integration supports will be key to ensuring the success of migrants who do come, and Germany should lead the way in developing a system that more evenly distributes the volume of migration flows – especially in times of crisis.

The barriers to systemic change are substantial: anti-immigrant sentiment, the fading exigence of the asylum crisis, and path dependency defined by a paradigm of exclusion and expulsion. However, Germany has made progress over the course of the latter half of the 20th 69 century and into the 21st, and there is certainly potential for effective change. If Germany can address its own chronic flaws by introducing policy contrary to the legal paradigm that defined its immigration system in the past, then it can continue to lead the way in crafting effective EU policy to better respond to migration flows in an increasingly global system.

70

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