Germany as a “Melting Pot”? Conceptions of Otherness Over Time

By Emma Gutman

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology

Senior Honors Thesis Brandeis University May 2018

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 3

Abstract 4

Chapter 1: Introduction 5

Chapter 2: Otherness Throughout German History 20

Chapter 3: Being German and (Legally) Becoming German 36

Chapter 4: Getting to Know You: German Attitudes Towards and Experience With Minority Groups 56

Chapter 5: Schaffen Wir Das?: Global Governance in the Refugee Crisis and National, Local, or Individual Responsibility for Integration 80

Chapter 6: Jews and Muslims: Applying the Lessons of the Past to the Present through Holocaust Education 98

Chapter 7: Conclusion 113

Works Cited 120

2 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Sarah Lamb, for her enthusiastic support and guidance from the moment I approached her about this topic, way over a year ago and shortly before I was about to leave for abroad. Professor Lamb was invaluable in helping me figure out all the necessary paperwork and procedures for conducting interviews, even when we could not meet in person. When I returned and began working on the paper itself, she was a source of validation for my writing skills and of constructive criticism that pushed me to think more critically and theoretically about the subject matter than ever before, only strengthening the final product.

I would also like to thank the entire Anthropology Department at Brandeis University for introducing me, originally just a History major, to this wonderful discipline. I have had some of the most eye-opening educational moments of my undergraduate career during Anthropology class discussions. Furthermore, the more archaeological classes within the major introduced me to my love of material culture and set me on the path I am currently planning to pursue: museum studies and/or libraries and archives.

Of course, this thesis would not have been possible without my participants, who generously gave their time and shared their personal experiences and opinions with me over cups of tea, slices of cake, glasses of wine, etc. Thank you, as well, to my host family for making me feel so welcomed and encouraged in my German abilities. Thank you to my friends and roommates for putting up with my crazed demeanor this entire semester. And finally, thank you to my parents for providing constant encouragement and comfort.

3 Abstract

Although the German lands have a rich and diverse history prior to the National Socialist regime of the 20th century and since then, Germany is tainted, seemingly forever, by this dark past. The government, fully aware of this reputation, has put a considerable amount of effort into redeeming itself through monuments, Holocaust education, relations with Israel, etc. However, this thesis goes beyond viewing German and Jewish relations in isolation. I explore how Germany’s past experiences with “otherness” throughout history—certainly, including the Jews—affect its current experiences integrating immigrants, minorities, and refugees—particularly Muslim ones. I argue that—although German citizenship has become more inclusive, particularly to other European or at least Western cultures, over time—there is still some semblance of essentialist ideology circulating among Germans. Those who do not fit this mold encounter obstacles to their structural and cultural integration into German society. Governmental solutions to amend this marginalization and aid the Syrian refugees currently at Germany’s borders are often unsustainable, short-sighted, or provisory, demonstrating Germany’s dilemma between its responsibility to atone for the past, its deep-rooted pragmatism, and its enduring hesitation to truly accept non-Germans as they are. By comparing these trends to the failure of Jewish emancipation and suggesting reforms to Holocaust education, I shift the onus of integration onto the Germans themselves. Accordingly, by interviewing Germans—mostly ethnic, but non-ethnic citizens as well—I try to gauge the openness of the average German to multicultural policies that do not merely tolerate “otherness,” but actively encourage it. In doing so, this thesis seeks to contribute to anthropological research concerning the dichotomy between unfortunate, but seemingly natural human inclinations for “othering” and the need for multiculturalism.

4 Chapter 1: Introduction

In comparison to the largely Christian population of my suburban South Jersey hometown, there were around four families—including mine—who played the role of the token Jews. Occupying that role was always a bit strange for me. Unlike the children of the other families, I had not gone to Hebrew school, was not bat-mitzvahed, did not know a word of Hebrew, and celebrated only Hanukkah with my family just to fill the void of

Christmas. Yet even then I had the sense that my family was undeniably culturally

Jewish. That is why my decision to study the German language came as quite a shock to my family. In seventh grade, all students were required to spend a third of the year taking each language offered—French, Spanish, and German—and then pick one to continue on with. My decision was purely motivated by the affability and sheer efficacy of the

German teacher. If you wanted to genuinely learn a language, you took German. Though

I’m sure that my parents did not and do not mind on a purely practical level, they seemed to cope emotionally with the idea through dark humor, specifically references to the

Holocaust. I later learned that my grandmother, who had served as a nurse for the U.S.

Army in the Second World War, blatantly disapproved but had never said anything to avoid hurting my feelings.

Through taking stock of these reactions, I realized that a large part of the Jewish identity is now defined by the Holocaust. Mutual suffering bonds me and my family to other Jews, even those who propound the utmost extent of orthodoxy. There is a sense of solidarity through suffering. We all know that, regardless of our differences, we were all grouped together and would be again if history were doomed to repeat itself. I became particularly perceptive to this while participating in a German exchange program during

5 my junior year of high school. Juxtaposed against both my non-Jewish classmates and the setting we were in, I felt more Jewish than I ever had before. For instance, while visiting the Jewish Museum in Berlin, I was singled out of the group and invited to participate in the exhibit Die ganze Wahrheit: was Sie schon immer über Juden wissen wollten (The

Whole Truth: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jews), or more specifically the portion of the exhibit known derogatorily as “Jew in a Box.” This element of the exhibition involved a glass case where a person of Jewish descent would sit for a few hours and directly answer questions from visitors about Judaism, Jewishness,

Jewish history, etc. In hindsight, I find this a wonderfully innovative way to facilitate dialogue not just about Jews but also between Jews and Germans—something that otherwise does not take place enough in Germany. At the time, and particularly at that age, I felt extremely uncomfortable being asked to represent the entirety of my supposed ethnic/cultural/religious group. I felt a similar sensation while visiting Dachau. After our tour, I felt sick to my stomach and marveled at how my classmates could just go eat lunch at the museum cafeteria. Despite these isolating experiences, I also found myself particularly falling in love with Berlin, its multiculturalism, and its history, and I vowed to be back.

As I got further into my German language education, my respect for Germany grew. Irrespective of Jewish people’s feelings towards the country, it is undeniable that the Germany of this day and age has probably done more to engage with its dark history than any other country guilty of genocidal crimes. The United States hardly does enough to acknowledge its decimation of the native American population, and the standards of education about slavery and the Jim Crow era vary depending on where you are in the

6 country; whitewashed, revisionist accounts of the Nanking Massacre run rampant in

Japan; Turkey’s government outright denies that the Armenian genocide even happened.

The list goes on. Meanwhile, the German language has an actual word to describe the process of “overcoming the past”: Vergangenheitsbewältigung. All sites relating to

Judaism are kept under heavy surveillance. Holocaust denial and the use of the swastika or any other Nazi symbols are strictly forbidden. Plaques, monuments, and Stolpersteine1 are ubiquitous throughout all of Germany. No German child can graduate from high school without first being imparted with a deep understanding of the devastation of the

Holocaust, and perhaps even a sense of Kollektivschuld (collective guilt).

In addition to noticing its unparalleled engagement with its history, I have seen

Germany steadily coming into its own as a world power during my lifetime, over the last

22 years. This development seemed to reach its peak during my first semester at college.

While taking Introduction to International and Global Studies, I learned that Germany had been named the best country in the world, according to the 2014 Nation Brands

Index. This survey ranks countries based on outsiders’ perceptions of their people, governance, exports, tourism, investment and immigration, and culture and heritage.

Germany’s ranking seemed like a validation, not only of my choice to pursue the German language, but also of the tremendous progress and revival the country has experienced since World War II. But where I saw the potential for reconciliation, others saw an opportunity to escape life-threatening circumstances and start new, stable lives.

1 The direct translation would be “stumbling stones.” This is the name for a European- wide project to commemorate the victims of National Socialism, spearheaded by German artist Gunter Demnig. He installs brass plaques, including the name, birthdate, year and location of deportation, and death date (if known) in the pavement of a victim’s last address.

7

The Syrian Refugee Crisis and the New Challenge It Presents to Germany

In March of 2011, Syrians began protesting in support of the Arab Spring revolts in Egypt and Tunisia and against the injustices of their own government, led by Bashar al-Assad. With Assad’s subsequent bloody crackdown and the resulting formation of the

Free Syrian Army rebel group by military defectors, the country quickly descended into civil war. The conflict was only made worse with the introduction of international powers, such as the United States and Russia, aiding both sides while trying to inconspicuously pursue their own self-interests. On the other hand, multiple other rebel groups, such as ISIL and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, have gotten involved for blatantly self-serving reasons, trying to fill the power vacuum in the region (Al Jazeera

2018).

The real victims mixed up in all of this are the Syrian people, experiencing devastating poverty, social unrest, destruction, and death. Over 12 million of them have been displaced since the beginning of the war (Al Jazeera 2018). While statistics show a steady increase in asylum seekers in Europe from 2011, most of those Syrians displaced early on in the war moved elsewhere within their own country (Pew Research Center

2016, Brookings Institution 2015). Of the 4.6 million that ventured outside of Syria, most only initially went to nearby countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey (Brookings

Institution 2015). However, more and more people have been pushed farther afield as the war has worsened. 2015 marked an unprecedented surge of 1.3 million asylum seekers to

Europe (Pew Research Center 2016). Accordingly, just one year after the Nation Brand

Index result, Germany received 442,000 asylum applications—more than double what it

8 received in 2014, about one-third of the total for Europe that year, and “the highest annual number ever received by a European country over the past 30 years” (Pew

Research Center 2016). Germany’s liberal asylum policies and desire to compensate for the past—both legacies of the Second World War—coupled with its current economic dominance formed the perfect recipe for an immigration land in trying times. There did indeed seem to be an initial enthusiasm to help the refugees, summed up by Chancellor

Angela Merkel’s rallying cry: “Wir schaffen das.”2

However, the homogeneity of the German population is another consequence of the Second World War. As the economic and political implications of welcoming so many “others” become apparent and in the wake of such incidents as the 2015/2016 New

Year’s Eve wave of sexual harassments and assaults by immigrant men in Cologne and the attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, old prejudices seem to be cropping up again. “Us vs. Them” rhetoric, almost reminiscent of that used against the Jewish population during the Interwar period, seems to be on the rise. Along with this rhetoric has come its political expression, the rise of the right-wing populist party Alternative für

Deutschland.

This nationalist, conservative backlash is not unique to Germany either, as is evidenced by the 2016 election in the United States. Donald Trump’s election was an affront to America’s many ethnic, racial, and religious minorities. Following the marked resurgence of the swastika symbol among his “alt-right” followers, the desecration of multiple Jewish cemeteries, and President Trump’s failure to even mention the millions

2 Translated more literally as “we will manage it,” or more optimistically as “we can do it.” Chancellor Merkel used this phrase during a 2015 press conference about the refugee crisis.

9 of Jewish victims on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, American Jews—who up until this point had seemingly achieved a status of whiteness—were surprised to find themselves looped in with these victims. I certainly was. It was under these circumstances that I made my promised return to Berlin for a five-month study abroad program, keenly aware that Germany might now be one of the safest place for a Jew to be—if not de facto, then at least certainly de jure. The German government would never tolerate such anti-Semitic incidents as those happening in the United States. Along with this realization of my somewhat protected status as the ultimate wronged minority in

German history, I became interested in how that history compared to Germany’s experience with immigrants, minorities, and refugees today.

Constructing German Identity: It Takes One to Know One

Much of cultural anthropology focuses on studying minority populations, trying to understand their cultures in their own contexts while distancing oneself from the assumptions of what is normal in one’s own culture. I hope to demonstrate precisely the opposite: how the majority group—in this case mostly white, multi-generational, ethnic

German citizens—conceives of “otherness,” or people who are different than them. I find that much of the political rhetoric around immigration puts the onus of integration on that same “other.” However, I argue that with its dark history and its unique transparency around that dark history, Germany must view accountability for integration slightly differently. Thus, I aim to evaluate and understand better how well current ordinary

Germans are applying the lessons of the past to their current demographic challenges—

10 essentially, whether Germany itself has the capacity to serve as an immigrant nation or multicultural “melting pot.”

I organize this thesis according to the main themes of my interview questions: namely, nationality and self-perception, attitudes towards and experiences with minority groups, politics, and a historical comparison with Germany’s Jews. Chapter 2 will provide a brief overview of immigration throughout German history. I will dispel the

National Socialist myth of Aryan Germanness while contextualizing precisely why the lack of a clear ethnic-national identity could lead to the victimization of Germany’s minorities—most notably, the Jewish people. I will then demonstrate how immigration was an integral part of Germany’s post-war building efforts. Finally, I will address how the East-West divide uniquely challenged conceptions of the German identity and committed West Germany (and Germany as a whole, post-unification) to its role as the ultimate asylum land.

Chapter 3 will explore what it means to be German, according to both the law and actual, ordinary Germans. I will elaborate on the different definitions of citizenship between a self-described immigration land, such as the United States, and Germany. I will go on to describe how German citizenship laws have changed over time, with new paths available through integration. However, I see these newer ideas, often rooted in a culture of monolingualism, as still being inherently connected to older conceptions of ethnic citizenship. Thus, I noticed that they can uniquely fit the views of my liberal interviewees while still remaining more strict and conservative.

In Chapter 4, I will describe the actual extent of experience many of my interviewees have had with immigrants, minorities, and refugees. For the most part, this

11 did not amount to much, bringing up issues of voluntary segregation. This lack of exposure, in turn, contributed to my interviewees’ perceptions of a widespread “fear of strangers.” In expressing their attitude towards immigrants, minorities, and refugees, the

Germans I interviewed emphasized the importance of adopting democratic values over trying to abandon one’s own culture and act “German.” However, certain issues—such as head coverings, which I will explore as a case study within this chapter—demonstrate how many Germans perceive cultural traditions and ethics as inherently connected.

Chapter 5 will examine ordinary Germans’ feelings about the country’s official policies regarding refugees: essentially, whether taking on the amount of people they did was a good decision in the first place. Then I will examine the hypothetical suggestions of my interviewees: if and how the situation could have been handled better. In answering these questions, this chapter will address the effect of globalization on

Germany, particularly in the political sense. Global governance allowed Germany to rise above its past and become the truly successful world power it is today, and I believe that that experience has uniquely affected Germans’ views towards how the refugee crisis should be handled. Addressing the reality of the refugees (as well as immigrants and minorities) now being here, I will explain Germany’s integration policies on the national and local level, as well as my respondents’ suggestions of what still needs to be done. I will then explore the conditional nature of all of these policies, problematizing how they allow Germans to avoid challenging and opening up their own, exclusive identity.

Finally, Chapter 6 will explore whether my informants perceived parallels between

Germany’s past experiences with Jews and current experiences with Muslims. I will examine the assimilationist policies, similar to those implemented and suggested today,

12 used to emancipate the Jews in Germany historically and demonstrate the inherent logical fallacy in this conditional thinking. I will go on to explore how this kind of thinking has been partially addressed through Holocaust education, by relaying what my informants told me about their own experiences in school as compared to that of more recent generations. I will then describe my interviewees’ newest concerns in regards to

Holocaust education: younger generations feeling bombarded by the topic, perhaps even to the point of overkill, and (along with newer immigrant populations) not relating to the history. The chapter will conclude with their recommendations for changing Holocaust education for the better, to ensure that Germans are learning not just the pure facts, but also lessons they can apply to the contemporary age.

Ultimately, this thesis will contribute to anthropological research about the conflicts between natural tendencies of “othering” and the ultimate goals of multiculturalism that our world faces today. In his highly important 1983 book Imagined

Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, political scientist

Benedict Anderson defines the relatively modern categorical idea of the nation as an

“imagined political community” (6). He uses the term “imagined” in the sense that

“members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson 1983: 6). Within this framework there are other nations that represent precisely the opposite relation: disunion. More generally stated, groups develop a sense of commonality in contrast to an “other” or “others,” meaning these identities are by nature both inclusive and exclusive. What makes the idea of nationality particularly striking, however, is how intangible it is. It depends entirely on what imaginary, man-

13 made borders a person is born within. Yet national identity (though both imagined and imaginary) has undeniably real social, political, and economic consequences, such as war.

In fact, national identity has consequences for different ethnicities outside and inside national borders. Biological “essentialism,” as explored by medical anthropologist

Paul Brodwin in his 2002 article “Genetics, Identity, and the Anthropology of

Essentialism” bolsters the idea that “one’s identity is an inborn, natural, and unalterable quality” (323). “Imagined communities” become more than just geographic designations, but biological ones too, further defining “others” as those with different borders and/or different blood. In times of desperation, those who lack the essential, biological quality of the nation can be excluded and become scapegoats. Both formally and informally denied status as nationals of their own countries, the Jewish victims of the Holocaust are the ultimate example.

It is undeniable that globalization has changed the world, and certainly Germany, considerably since the time of the Second World War. Even prior to the Syrian refugee crisis, different nations and cultures were becoming more interdependent and mixing with each other in unprecedented ways. But as Germans once again confront the idea of an ever-growing contingent of outsiders in their homeland, I hope to contextualize how

“Germanness” and “non-Germanness” are defined today, and whether these definitions really represent a change from the past. I also hope to ascertain what implications those designations have for the integration of non-Germans into not only the structure

(economic, political, etc.) of German society today, but also its culture.

14 In the most literal sense of the word, Germany is now multicultural—a home to multiple cultures. However, Germany’s continued insistence on assimilation much more closely resembles what anthropologist Terence Turner, in his 1993 article “Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology That Multiculturalists Should Be Mindful of

It?” defines as difference multiculturalism. This form of multiculturalism risks either

“reifying cultures as separate entities by overemphasizing their boundedness and mutual distinctness” or “overemphasizing the internal homogeneity of cultures in terms that potentially legitimize repressive demands for communal conformity” (Turner 1993: 412).

Essentially, difference multiculturalism enables a dominant culture to either write off certain minority cultures as irreconcilable with their own or force those minority cultures to relegate their traditions to those of the majority. Turner defines true multiculturalism, on the other hand, as “a movement in support of the collective empowerment of all relatively disempowered culturally identified groups” (427). In this sense, multiculturalism borrows from anthropology’s ideas of cultural relativism to argue that

“others” are not inherently bad, just different, and they deserve the same rights, opportunities, and treatment as the majority. Germany is not there yet; no nation is, in reality. However, multiculturalism may be the best course of action as Germany faces the challenge of trying to rapidly integrate a large amount of very culturally different people.

Caught between its political and economic pragmatism and its self-imposed sense of historical obligation, I see Germany as the perfect litmus test for the feasibility of multiculturalism overall.

15 Methodology

I conducted my fieldwork while abroad in Berlin, Germany, from March to

August of 2017. I was there as a student, taking content-bases classes in German at a study abroad center as well as German language classes at Humboldt University. As a part of my program, I was also able to live with a host family in the highly diverse district of Neukölln and intern at the Jewish Museum Berlin for six weeks after the academic semester ended. Over the course of my five months in Berlin, I interviewed twelve people, most conversations ranging from 45 minutes to two hours. My informants were between 21 and 80 years old and all participated voluntarily. Though not all of them were ethnic Germans or identified themselves as culturally German3, all have lived in

Germany for a significant period of their lives and have German citizenship. The large majority of the participants were personal connections of mine, and I then expanded my network through email and word-of-mouth recommendations from these initial interviewees. In order to protect the privacy of my informants, I will use pseudonyms and slight modifications to make them less identifiable.

The interviews form the core of my research, supplemented by academic writings within the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, etc. I presented my interviewees with eighteen guiding questions, but I let them determine the flow of the conversation after. This often resulted in them sharing more personal, specific stories and me asking supplemental questions. I took notes during the interviews, and all of my informants permitted me to digitally record them as well, allowing me to make partial transcriptions and fill in the blanks of anything I may have missed. This thesis contains

3 One of my informants was Turkish-German, and another one was a Russian immigrant to Germany.

16 translated statements as well as others in their original German, when I feel it is necessary to preserve the integrity of what an informant meant. I sincerely thank all of the participants for taking the time to speak with me and trusting me with their honest opinions and insightful anecdotes.

It is important to note that I am not a native speaker of German, but I have been learning the language for around nine years now. I conducted many interviews in

English, which could have compromised the nuance and complexity of some of my informants’ answers. However, I was also able to conduct interviews in German with multiple participants who were not as proficient in English. The digital recordings thus served a second purpose of giving me the opportunity to investigate things I may not have understood clearly during the interviews themselves. Additionally, I acknowledge that my ethnic Judaism is a personal bias. Therefore, I did not emphasize this fact unless I felt that it was necessary, so as to not make my informants uncomfortable sharing their honest opinions. For instance—although I definitely see connections between the contemporary age and the Holocaust—I did not assume that my informants would agree with my opinion, and I therefore posed this same question directly to them. I may have entered this process expecting certain answers, but I tried not to make assumptions or put words into the mouths of my informants.

In addition to my interviews, I tried to keep informed in regards to current discourse about immigration, “othering,” culture, multiculturalism, etc. I took several history and cultural studies classes that covered relevant topics. I paid attention to current events and election coverage online, through campaign posters, in the subways, and I discussed the news with my host family. I attended numerous cultural events such as Der

17 Erste Mai4, a pro-EU event at the Italian embassy5, Karneval der Kulturen (carnival of cultures), and a panel with Barack Obama and Angela Merkel at Kirchentag6. As I lived in Neukölln, the most ethnically diverse district of Berlin, I made a point of exploring my surroundings on foot, attending a local mosque’s Friday services, and visiting a nearby after-school center dedicated to the empowerment of young, disadvantaged girls in the district. Of course, I also paid attention to public monuments, plaques, and museums dedicated to the memory of Jewish people.

I chose to interview primarily white, ethnic Germans, as I hoped to get a sense of how those people who constituted the majority of the population were reacting to their rapidly changing surroundings. I kept the number of people I interviewed small to allow for more in-depth interviews and analysis. I must also mention that most of my informants were residents of Berlin, so the answers might be skewed more to the left than the average. This may have limited my study, but Berlin, as both an urban center and the capital of Germany, has received a large portion of the refugees coming into the country.

As a result, I believe the population is particularly qualified to speak on how their lives have been affected. In order to avoid a complete liberal bias, however, I have also referenced statistics, polls, and articles regarding overall national attitudes.

4 “The first of May.” This is Germany’s labor day. It is known for large street festivals with radical liberal political demonstrations and stands handing out pamphlets and information. In recent years, there have been concerns of increasing violence. 5 The event’s focus was the Rome Manifesto, a document drawn up by a small group of young Europeans who believe that the European Union is unfit to handle the challenges it is currently facing and are urging reform and updates. 6 “Church congress” or “church convention.” This is an international festival of Protestant Christianity with countless spiritual, cultural, and intellectual events. This last year was particularly special, because it marked the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

18 More than examining the marginalization of immigrants, minorities, and refugees,

I am examining the people who, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to that marginalization. Through this research, I am not trying to give prejudice and hate a platform, nor am I trying to guilt trip a population based on the mistakes of its ancestors; rather I am probing whether Germans see integration policies and the refugee crisis as opportunities for both cultural gain and national repentance, as I do. I firmly believe that, to be successful, this acceptance of diversity and atonement for the past must take hold at the personal level. Thus, I must let the personal accounts of my participants take center stage.

19 Chapter 2: Otherness throughout German History

The history of the Germans is a history of extremes. It contains everything except moderation, and in the course of a thousand years the Germans have experienced everything except normality. (A. J. P. Taylor 1945 in Green 2014: 50)

British historian and well-known critic of Germany A. J. P. Taylor wrote the above sentence in his highly popular 1945 polemic The Course of German History: A

Survey of the Development of German History Since 1815. This book is the quintessential example of the Sonderweg interpretation of German history, which proclaims that

Germany took a “special path” to nationhood. Taylor’s ultimate claim is that Germany’s rapid transformation from one “extreme” to the other—from being a backwards stopover on one’s way through Europe to a world power—made the later National Socialist regime almost inevitable. I do not entirely disagree with his assessment, as this chapter will demonstrate later on. However, by fixing the parameters of his book between 1815 and

1945, I believe Taylor overlooked the exact “course of a thousand years” he harked back to in this damning quote. He took the idea of a German national consciousness, already developing in the 19th century, largely for granted.

In comparison, this chapter will examine the development of the German “self”— and consequently the non-German “other”—from its very beginnings. It will not necessarily undermine the idea of Germany’s Sonderweg (special path), but rather expand upon it by introducing a new and different measure of extremity: multiculturalism. What

A. J. P. Taylor did not address is how Germany surprisingly started out, by nature of its geography, as quite the ethnic patchwork, not to mention the considerable cultural and religious differences among ethnic Germans themselves. Only later did the country become one of the most ethnically “pure” nations in the world. Thus, Germany not only

20 transitioned from weak to strong, but also from heterogeneous to seemingly homogeneous. Today, the country is in the process of becoming, once again, more heterogeneous. Therefore, I will explore how Germany went from being the “other” to more established empires and nations to trying to purge the “other” from within its borders, and how that experience has affected “others” in contemporary Germany.

Early History: From Germanic to German

The Germanic tribes began to settle down in the northern part of the lands that would come to bear their name 3,000-4,000 years ago, later playing a historically important role as the “others” to the Roman Empire in the 5th century (Kurthen 1995:

915). Their southern migrations or “barbarian invasions” actually contributed greatly to the fall of Rome. In the power vacuum left behind, groups such as the Huns and the

Goths tried to take over former Roman acquisitions in the southwestern regions; even the

Vikings got involved, settling along the northern coasts (Kurthen 1995: 916). With its central location and lack of geographic boundaries, Germany was a natural crossroads for the many different peoples traveling and conquering throughout Europe in the Late

Antiquity.

Germany finally gained some semblance of organization during the Middle Ages as the heart of the Holy Roman Empire; although this was less of an empire the likes of

Rome and more a loose union of tribes-turned-kingdoms under the domination of the

Franks. One of its early contributions to German history was the 13th century colonizing and crusading campaigns by the Teutonic knights to the northeastern regions of

Germany, regarded as “bleak, inhospitable and dangerous” – essentially, “other” (Green

21 2014: 14). Unlike those in the Holy Land, these crusades were very successful and contributed to the expansion of the German lands, not to mention the further diversification of its population, as colonizers mixed with Slavic tribes. Meanwhile in the

German heartland, the aforementioned kingdoms were starting to solidify. Regional borders were gaining more definition and rulers were establishing dynasties that would persist for centuries, such as the Habsburgs in Austria, the Hohenzollerns in

Brandenburg, the Wittelsbachs in Bavaria, etc. German cities were also becoming important centers of commerce and education for all of Europe. However, the inhabitants of these lands were still far from considering themselves to be one cohesive people, and certainly not “German” at that.

Johannes Gutenberg’s 1450 invention of the printing press, essential to the entire world for enabling an unprecedented degree of interconnectedness, would facilitate the formation of this identity even as it challenged it further. Weaponized by Martin Luther to disseminate opinions contrary to Church authority, it ultimately helped usher in the

Reformation in the 1520s. Protestantism swept across the country, particularly taking hold in northern and eastern Germany. When Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II attempted to re-impose Catholicism on the entirety of the empire, it descended into the

Thirty Years War, one of the most deadly and destructive conflicts in European history prior to the world wars. The many Protestant and Catholic regional rulers fighting each other for the right to choose their own faith—defining the “self” as Catholic and the

“other” as Protestant, or vice versa—was the ultimate demonstration of the disunion within this geographic area. In fact, the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ended the war by

22 reaffirming the concept of religious choice and strengthened territorial rulers in their religious convictions, allowing these religious differences to persist to this day.

Yet within this disunion, there was also union. One tenet of Luther’s new

Protestantism was that Christians should be able to read the Bible themselves, in their own vernacular. The holy texts had always been written in Latin, ensuring that only a small group of people deemed qualified enough could read and interpret Scripture.

However, in 1522, Luther produced a German translation of the Bible that was then printed and spread widely. This translation not only empowered early Germans religiously but also effectively standardized their language, which varied considerably depending on the region. Luther gave the Germanic peoples a more unified voice with which they could begin to define themselves.7

The Ages of Mercantilism and Imperialism: The Road to Unification

Before they could achieve this distinctly German identity, the German people found themselves left in the dust by the 17th and 18th century phenomenon of mercantilism. This trade-centric economic ideology shifted the focus from the center of

Europe to its coasts. To make matters worse, this era of German history was a time of

Kleinstaaterei, or territorial fragmentation, as hereditary rulers divided their states into smaller and smaller units for their successors (Fulbrook 1990: 69). As so many other

7 I would be remiss to avoid mentioning Luther’s famous 1543 pamphlet Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies). Anti-Semitism was not uncommon in Europe. However, at a time when the German identity was being challenged by religious schism, this pamphlet demonstrated that non-Christians were ultimately the real “other.” Coming from such an influential figure in German history, these ideas would carry weight.

23 parts of Europe were forming nation-states, just the opposite was happening in the

German lands. One benefit of this seemingly inward-oriented tendency was a burst of cultural energy among the ruling class. Ironically, they were highly influenced by the

French culture, with the absolutist ruler Frederick the Great famously preferring French to German. Without a tangible German culture, German nobles had to look elsewhere for inspiration. However, France’s growing status as a world power and its encroachment upon the Rhineland region began to breed a sense of resentment and victimhood in the

German people.

In the 18th century, minor conflicts between the different German states resulted in the consolidation and dominance of Prussia and Austria. Europe as a whole experienced a blossoming of cultural and technological development. In Germany, this finally took the form of intellectuals “writ[ing] in German – rather than in Latin or in

French” and “ask[ing] what meaning a German identity could have” (Green 2014: 29).

Big names such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz and Immanuel Kant took up where Martin

Luther left off. The French Revolution only inspired their hopes for the realization of a new, independent identity further. Yet, as quickly as these wheels were set in motion,

Napoleon brought them to a halt by revealing how truly weak and divided Germany was.

He defeated numerous German principalities with his imperial armies, making them client states in the Confederation of the Rhine (Fulbrook 1990: 97). This humiliation and depredation at the hands of foreigners intensified, more than ever before, both the desire for a national German identity and the sense of victimhood at being denied that by

“others.”

24 After Napoleon’s defeat, the German Industrial revolution created a new bourgeoisie class that began to demand political recognition, inspired by the

Enlightenment ideals circulating throughout Europe. They took part in the wave of revolutions passing through Europe in 1848, attempting to establish a national constitution, but were repressed by the Prussian monarch Frederick William IV (Fulbrook

1990: 117). It wasn’t until the next king, William I, appointed Otto von Bismarck as his chancellor that Germany, the nation, would start to seem like a real possibility. Bismarck facilitated Germany’s rapid nation-building by strengthening the economy and launching a series of wars against Denmark, Austria, and France to establish all of Germany’s borders (Fulbrook 1990: 126). In 1871, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, in the

Palace of Versailles, German unification was finally declared.

The Rapid Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the German Empire

However, the unified Germany felt more like a nation under Prussian dominance—“austere, rigorous, military, Lutheran in its sense of order and duty”—than a

Germany for all (Green 2014: 38). In order to catch up to the imperialist advancement of other European lands, the new semi-democratic monarchy actively suppressed diversity within Germany: they tried to “Germanize the Slavic minority in Prussia and to subdue cultural, political and religious resistance by the Catholic Church, the socialists, and minorities in Alsace-Lorraine and elsewhere” (Kurthen 1995: 918). This homogenization was not unique to Germany, but it was expedited in comparison to the earlier and more gradual processes of unification and nation-building in countries such as France or

England.

25 Germany tried to assert its dominance over “others” outside of its borders as well, and this fact began to threaten the other European powers. The Berlin Conference of

1884-85 was not just Germany’s first formal bid for colonial power on the world stage, but also an attempt by its neighbors to restrict its progress. It is worth mentioning that, in the long term, Germany’s lack of colonizing experience—problematic as we now acknowledge experience of that type to be—meant that the country “gained virtually no experience in absorbing non-European people, cultures, languages, and religions”

(Kurthen 1995: 916). In the short term, restrictions on that colonizing experience pushed

Germany to behave “like the adolescent who feels bullied as a child, is now conscious of his new strength, and senses that the world is against him even as he seeks to assert his identity” (Green 2014: 44). These feelings came to a head in 1914.

The assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by a group of Serbs sparked the First World War. Austria-Hungary then declared war on Serbia, followed by

Russia coming to Serbia’s aid, followed by Germany coming to Austria-Hungary’s aid, followed by a tangled web of other alliances throughout Europe. Fueled by a sense of imperialist and nationalist competition, Germany followed the principle that attack was the best form of defense. They violated Belgian neutrality, caused considerable economic damage to the northeastern regions of France, and pursued unrestricted submarine warfare. As a result of these aggressive policies, the Allies went on to treat Germany, out of all the losers of the war, with the utmost severity. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles called for Germany’s disarmament, territorial concessions, and considerable reparations. To add insult to injury, the Allies also required Germany to sign the infamous “War Guilt

Clause,” claiming virtually all responsibility for the war. To debate whether all or just

26 some of these punishments were too harsh is futile now; what we know for sure is that the Germans viewed them as yet another form of victimization.

What followed can only be described as pure chaos and failure. The Weimar

Republic, Germany’s first experiment with democracy, was characterized by a political tug-of-war between the aristocrats and the communists. Hyperinflation caused widespread poverty. The sense of victimhood only grew, demanding a scapegoat. In this context, the “stab-in-the-back myth” caught on; this term describes the widely believed notion that Germany did not lose WWI on the battlefield, but because of the republican representatives who overthrew the monarchy in order to seize power in the new government (Fulbrook 1990: 153, 164). Thus, many Germans came to see the Weimar

Republic as corrupt and degenerate, ruled by “others”—Jews and Marxists.

The National Socialists seized on this economic insecurity, desire for law and order, and anti-Semitism to rationalize their national domination from 1933 onwards, despite never receiving a majority of votes themselves in a free, democratic election. In order to then pursue their ultimate goal of global domination, the Nazis needed a more cohesive base. One way they achieved this was through the creation of the Aryan German ideal. The concept of the Aryan race was an overcompensation for the country’s late development of an ethnic-national identity. It was an attempt to homogenize a population that the Nazis always knew had distinct regional, religious, and cultural differences from within and that had mixed considerably with a variety of European peoples from without.

Aryanness was, in essence, a complete and utter myth. Yet, it worked like a charm. In

1935, the passage of the Nuremburg Laws enabled blatant discrimination, on racial grounds, against the German Jewish people. In 1938, the growing threat to this minority

27 burst into actual violence during Kristallnacht. Shortly after—during the war itself—

European Jews, blacks, homosexuals, Roma, disabled people, political opponents, and many others became the victims of enforced migration, hard labor, and genocide.

Certainly, some people realized the myth of the Aryan ideal. Yad Vashem, one of the most well known Holocaust memorials and museums in Jerusalem, recounts the stories of thousands of “righteous gentiles,” or non-Jews who repeatedly and substantially risked their lives to protect their Jewish countrymen. These are the people who hid Jews in their homes, produced false papers for them, and helped them to flee. Others took actions less in defense of Jews specifically and more against the regime itself, such as participating in protests, producing publications with dissenting views, resigning from institutions placed under Nazi control, etc. Of course, one can only guess how widespread indifference and willful ignorance may have been among the German population at the time too. These reactions, while not resistance, certainly did not constitute unquestioning support or loyalty to the National Socialist regime either. Ultimately, however, the regime provided a platform and rationale for the most hateful of voices. Many Germans did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon, and the indifference of many others became just as deadly.

Post-War Germany: East and West

When the war ended, Germany found itself the loser, at the mercy of foreign powers, once again. This time, their solution(s) would be quite different. Like before,

Germany’s borders were reconstructed, the country was demilitarized, and there were reparations to pay. However, this time, Germany was also divided into four zones, each

28 occupied by one of the victors: France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the

Soviet Union. This solution of isolation and containment also required the “transfer” of millions of ethnic Germans from former territories in the East, a period now known as

Vertreibung, or “expulsion.” Ironically, this policy would result in “a nation

‘ethniculturally homogenous’ to an extent even the Nazis had not dreamed about, though considerably decimated in number, size, and power status” (Kurthen 1995: 918). The process of homogenization that had already been occurring gradually throughout the history of the Germany nation, and that seemed to peak—at least ideologically—during the Nazi era, went even further. However, now it was a means to save everyone else from the Germans and the Germans from themselves.

In West Germany—the conglomeration formed in 1949 by the fusion of the

French, British, and American zones—the Allies realized they needed to play a much more sympathetic, supportive, and pragmatic role than they had after WWI. First, they helped the new Federal Republic of Germany develop its constitution, inspired greatly by

“liberal, republican and universalistic principles,” such as the individual right of asylum

(Kurthen 1995: 918). This move was primarily symbolic at the time, but its importance would grow later on. In order to get the West German economy back on its feet, the

Allies helped with currency reform within the new social market economy and the implementation of the United States’ Marshall Plan. These initiatives were so successful that they brought about a Wirtschaftswunder, or “economic miracle.”

West Germany, in need of labor to keep this momentum going, began the

Gastarbeiter, or “guest worker,” program, recruiting “others” from countries such as

Italy, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, and especially Turkey (Behr 2006:

29 469). The original intention was that they would serve for a few years and eventually return home. From 1960 to 1973 there were an estimated 18 to 19 million of these guest workers working in Germany; contrary to the German government’s plan, 4 to 5 million of them decided to stay (Kurthen 1995: 922). This unintentionally represented West

Germany’s first major taste of diversity. The naiveté of the guest worker policies would cause tensions, and still does. However, this program also offered the new Germany an opportunity to start facing its fears of “others,” or its fear of how it might act around those “others.” West Germany has also learned to play a more cooperative role within the

European community. The Bonn8 government was integral in the creation of the

European Economic Community, which, more than just an economic program, represented “a journey of integration into a wider European whole for a traumatized

German psyche that was deeply unsure of itself” (Green 2014: 221). Essentially, West

Germany saw in the European community a chance for both redemption and identity- building.

Meanwhile, the Soviet occupiers of East Germany handled things very differently.

The satellite state was “forced to make vast reparations to the Soviet Union in the form of materials, production facilities and labour,” starting them off at a disadvantage that would only persist due to the inherent weakness of a planned, collectivized economy (Green

2014: 212). Angered by the separation from their fellow Germans and highly aware of the advantages they were missing out on in West Germany, many East Germans decided to leave, using West Berlin as a loophole. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to put a stop

8 Bonn was the capital of West Germany until reunification.

30 to this, causing much anguish but also saving the GDR “from collapse through the hemorrhaging of human capital” (Green 2014: 222-23).

This physical divide solidified the division of the German identity, the two halves of which were now—at least officially—antagonistic towards one another. The governing

Socialist Unity Party (SED) even tried to rebrand the wall itself as an antifaschistischer

Schutzwall (anti-fascist protective wall); it was not a barrier to prevent the East Germans from leaving but a barrier to keep the fascist “others” from entering. However, no matter how hard the SED tried, life in the German Democratic Republic increasingly became defined by an awareness of the disconnect between the ideal of communism and its reality. There was widespread Stasi9-induced paranoia, conformity more for the sake of self-preservation than any ideological conviction, and ultimately a growing sense of frustration—behind closed doors—at being denied freedom. This sentiment would grow and become public during the peaceful Monday demonstrations that began to take place throughout East German cities in 1989, with their initial catchphrase: “Wir sind das

Volk!” (We are the people!). At first chanted to remind the East German government who they are supposed to be representing, the phrase would evolve into “Wir sind EIN Volk!”

(We are ONE people!), a blatant call for the reunification of the German identity.

Luckily for the East Germans, the formal relationship between the two German halves had begun to change starting in the 1970s. The first West German government coalitions, led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had taken a hardline policy against the GDR by not recognizing its legitimacy as a separate state. However, when

9 “Stasi” is a nickname for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Ministry for State Security, of the GDR. It was known for being highly effective and repressive due to its vast network of citizen informants and its use of psychological torture on political dissidents.

31 support shifted to Willy Brandt and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in

1969, they began to implement Ostpolitik, or new policies of loosened trade relations with Eastern European countries (Fulbrook 1990: 213). The hope was that trade, more than confrontation, would open up the Soviet bloc. Coupled with Mikhail Gorbachev’s later policies of “glasnost” and “perestroika”—openness and reform—this would contribute greatly to the eventual fall of the wall. After this historic event finally occurred, Willy Brandt summarized the sentiment perfectly: “’Es wächst zusammen, was zusammen gehört’—what belongs together is coming together” (Green 2014: 229). The

German identity finally seemed to be restored.

German Diversity Post-Unification

However, reunification was easier said than done. Formally, it involved the absorption of the German Democratic Republic, economically and politically, into the

Federal Republic of Germany. The necessity of this arrangement may seem obvious, as

East Germans had much more to gain through absorption than through consolidation. Yet it is impossible to spend 40 years living in what was virtually a different culture under a different political ideology without being affected by it, and this fact became apparent after the initial euphoria of reunification settled down. Many East Germans reminisce about certain GDR products, lament the loss of egalitarian services that supported working women and mothers, perceive West Germans as having a condescending superiority complex, etc. There is even a word for this phenomenon: Ostalgie.10 Whether these feelings are misguided or not, it is undeniable that the process of reunification was

10 Literally, nostalgia for the GDR. It is a play-on-words, incorporating the words “Nostalgie” (nostalgia) and “ost” (east).

32 not some quick fix. In fact, it is still under way. Many of these feelings stem from the fact that East Germany still has a considerable amount of catching up to do economically.

Germany’s reputation for a booming economy on the world stage is not the East German reality.

Furthermore, unaccustomed to the high degree of diversity in West Germany and witnessing non-German “others” succeed, seemingly at their expense, many East

Germans have become resentful of minorities in and newcomers to their country. By the end of 1994, there were approximately 7 million foreigners living in the united Germany; the majority of these were located in West Germany, with foreigners in the East primarily coming from other former Soviet satellite states (Kurthen 1995: 923). As I have already noted, West Germany itself was already realizing the ill-conceived nature of its guest worker program by the 1970s. The expenses of reunification combined with the drastic increase of asylum seekers following the collapse of the Soviet Union—Germany’s first major application of its constitutional asylum law—led to even more backlash against multiculturalist attitudes. In 1991-92, a wave of violent, right-wing arson attacks against immigrants surged through many eastern cities. Many Germans feared a revival of Nazi behavior patterns, and these fears were not necessarily unreasonable:

[Right-wing groups] propagated, for example, a drastic reduction of asylum seekers, foreigners and ethnic German resettlers as well, implying they were defending economic interests, cultural rights, national sovereignty, and self- determination of the native population. The right-wing agitated with völkisch, xenophobic, ethnocentric or racial slogans such as Heimatverlust (loss of home), Balkanization (fear of imported ethnic conflicts), Überfremdung (foreignization), and Überflutung (flooding). (Kurthen 1995: 927)

Many of these ideas came, quite literally, from National Socialist ideology. Fortunately, polls, surveys, and election results following this era suggest that the large majority of

33 Germans don’t hold these xenophobic, ethnocentric, and racist views (Küchler 1994 and

Thränhardt 1993: 352, in Kurthen 1995: 928). That is not to say that everyone is enthusiastic about the amount of people Germany has taken in.

In particular, it is worth considering how the other countries of the European

Union viewed the situation in the 1990s: “They feared that a continuation of Germany’s asylum practices would have a destabilizing effect not only on the domestic situation in

Germany but also on the consolidation of the European Union and its member states”

(Kurthen 1995: 928). As a leader within the European Economic Community for both pragmatic and identity-building, existential reasons, Germany cares deeply about the concerns of its fellow EU members. In attempting to address these concerns and find an answer to the economic strain of reunification, Germany took the lead in the 1990s project to develop the Eurozone (Green 2014: 296). With some hiccups along the way11, the Euro has undoubtedly been beneficial to the German economy, as evidenced by the

2014 Nation Brands Index results. However, in Chapter 1, I noted that this growing economic reputation, coupled with Germany’s still very liberal asylum law, is precisely why Germany has become the primary destination in the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Throughout its erratic “history of extremes,” as described by A. J. P. Taylor,

Germany has experienced “otherness” in all its iterations: as the undefined “others” to

11 The Eurozone faced a major economic crisis in 2009 when several weaker member states could not repay their debt and the more powerful ones showed reluctance to bail them out. Protests against Germany—most notably in Greece—featured posters of Angela Merkel with swastikas and Hitler’s iconic mustache. This crisis served as a reminder to Germany that it can always be held hostage by its past.

34 more established empires, “otherness” as an inherent part of the German identity, and a seemingly defined German identity in relation to other ethnicities, cultures, and religions

(some more “other” than others). This latter stage—throughout the 20th century—resulted in grave injustices but also, consequently, great strides in international cooperation.

However, the effects of the guest worker program and reunification demonstrate that

Germany is still grappling with the acceptance of domestic “otherness.” Now, the refugee crisis presents the country with the ultimate challenge of rapidly absorbing a large amount of people from entirely different regions, religions, and cultures. Just like in the

‘90s, the fears and resentments that accompany this challenge have fueled the fires of xenophobia and nationalism, particularly in the former East and perhaps most visible in the rise of political parties such as the Alternative für Deutschland.

But beyond pushing Germany to face its domestic struggles with “otherness,” the refugee crisis is also forcing Germany to take on a leadership role within the foreign affairs of the European community, which it has never had to do before. Post-war

Germany has always been a reluctant leader, “playing a role thrust on it largely by economics, not by any sense of destiny” (Green 2014: 298-99). This point will be explored more thoroughly later, but Germany’s response to the refugee crisis represents a significant break with the country’s largely passive post-war foreign policy. Perhaps, a new chapter of Germany’s Sonderweg (special path) has begun—one in which Germany will return to its more multicultural origins, maybe even setting an international precedent to make multiculturalism the new “normality.”

35 Chapter 3: Being German and (Legally) Becoming German

“Has anyone ever made you feel like you don’t belong here or that you’re not ‘German’ enough?” I asked Mathilde. “No. Look at me. I’m blonde, green-eyed. I stick to every cliché,” she chuckled. (Interview #2)

The last chapter was an attempt to explore how the geographic area we think of as

Germany today has been and, more recently, continues to be more “multicultural” than many people may have thought. Furthermore, I hoped to prove that the National Socialist myth of the Aryan ideal was just that—a myth, which failed, and still fails, to represent the diversity present in the German population itself. Yet the joke above suggests that the

Aryan ideal has left behind a very tangible legacy. Moreover, conceptions of pureblood

“Germanness” actually predate the National Socialist period. To identify what it has meant to be German over time, it is important to look to the laws of the nation from its very beginnings, since its downfall following the Second World War, and in its more recent emergence as a European leader. It is perhaps even more important to investigate how much of an effect these laws have on Germans’ actual ideas of what it means to be

German today. Therefore, this chapter will include my interviewees’ perspectives on both what their “Germanness” means to them and what it takes for them to see others as

“German.”

Ius Sanguinis and the Creation, Manipulation, and Reconstruction of the German

Identity

In the previous chapter, I described the growing desire for a unified German identity throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, based largely on new perceptions of a

36 cultural community that was distinct from the “others” that continuously preyed upon the

German lands. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck took the first step to transform this yearning into action by unifying the numerous German states into one nation in 1871.

Ideas of a contiguous German cultural/ethnic community were then formally codified in the 1913 Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (Nationality Law of the German Empire and States, RuStAG for short).12 The fundamental concept behind this law is citizenship through parental/ancestral ties (ius sanguinis, Latin for “right of blood”), as opposed to citizenship based on territory or political principles (ius soli, Latin for “right of soil”), such as that in the United States (Kurthen 1995: 929). Consequently, the RuStAG imparted the German identity with a sense of antiquity—that there were always

“Germans,” even before Germany became a political entity—and a sense of uniformity of language, history, culture, values, etc.13

This rhetoric is precisely what Benedict Anderson refers to in Imagined

Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, mentioned in

Chapter 1. Imagined communities are “communities” in that, regardless of the differences and inequality that may realistically exist within, “the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson 1983: 7). Anderson’s “imagined community” is somewhat similar to the concept of “civil society” explored by American sociologist

Jeffrey C. Alexander in his 2006 book The Civil Sphere. However, Alexander describes civil society as being rooted in both profound collectivism and the individual interests of

12 Up until this point, citizenship was decided on a state-by-state basis, with the majority of German states defining it by ius domicili, or the principle of residence. This changed in 1842, when Prussia switched to a ius sanguinis definition of citizenship (Brubaker 1992: 115, in Green 2004: 28). 13 Ius sanguinis is common throughout all European countries, so Germany is not unique in this regard.

37 private citizens (2006: 44). Anderson and Alexander acknowledge their respective concepts as limited, literally by geography: beyond the borders lie “others,” maybe even outright enemies (Anderson 1983: 7, Alexander 2006: 198). As a result, “imagined communities,” despite their imaginary nature, have very tangible consequences.

War comes most readily to mind, but there are consequences in times of peace as well. Prior to the modern age of globalization, and even still, many people prefer to marry and intermingle within the borders of their “imagined communities.” In this way, those subjective communities become somewhat objective ethnicities. These kinship processes were under way even before there were nations or laws, meaning that—even in a late- blooming country like Germany—Germans today can have a distinct sense of common descent from the Germanic tribes described in chapter 2. In fact, medical anthropologist

Paul Brodwin asserts in his 2002 article “Genetics, Identity, and the Anthropology of

Essentialism” that many people regard genes as “more stable over time than more putatively accidental aspects of identity” (328). One’s religion, citizenship, values, and even language can hypothetically change over time, but one’s blood—the biological core of who someone is—is immutable. This “essentialism,” or the belief that certain characteristics (in this case biological ones) are necessary to the “essence” of what it means to be German, is the guiding principle behind ius sanguinis citizenship. It is important to note that ius sanguinis did and does not restrict citizenship to pureblood

Germans, but the implication of this concept is that the only way to truly become German is for an individual to mix their genes with an ethnic German.

I should also note here that although Jews were present in the German lands from the time of the Germanic tribes onwards, their blood was seen as different. This

38 difference may actually stem from matrilineal understandings of Jewish genealogy, which endow Judaism with an exclusive, ius sanguinis-like essentialism of its own, regardless of the diasporic, then-stateless nature of the Jewish peoples. Therefore, Jewish

Germanness could only be acquired on the individual level, through interethnic mixing.

Jewish emancipation—or the 19th and 20th century European process whereby Jews acquired equality and citizenship rights on a communal, not just individual, basis—was a unique exception that will be explored more in chapter 6. By and large, citizenship within the German nation (and membership within the German “imagined community”) has historically called for biological homogeneity, with the assumption that cultural, linguistic, even religious (to a point—Christian, at least) homogeneity will inevitably follow.

Jeffrey Alexander’s concept of the “civil society”—which supports the individual rights of citizens as well as their belonging in the national collective—is perhaps a newer, more democratic, and more heterogeneous version of the “imagined community.” The importance of respecting individuality within the nation becomes obvious through

Alexander’s explanation of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth-century: they were able to consider themselves “people’s democracies”—even as they disqualified and repressed certain groups inside their borders—by emphasizing civil solidarity only in its purely collective sense (2006: 44, 194). Essentially, in the process of uniting people and giving them something to belong to, “imagined communities” and “civil societies” create their own “others” and enemies, not only outside the national borders, but within them too.

39 Nazi Germany is the ultimate example of this inner and outer exclusion. The ethnic definition of an essential, inborn “Germanness” already present in Germany was precisely what enabled the National Socialists to develop the pureblood, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan ideal and then further restrict citizenship with the 1935 Nuremburg

Laws. Sabrina Bebermann, a 57-year-old cultural studies professor of international students in Berlin, told me she would not even know about her Jewish background today if the National Socialists had never come to power and imposed these stricter definitions of nationality:

For my mother, because she felt completely German—maybe Austrian, but still she spoke German—it was her mother tongue. She had never seen a synagogue from inside, honestly. I think for her it was the experience of suddenly not belonging to it, because suddenly people turn you into something else. (Interview #1)

Jewish individuals who thought of themselves as part of the collective German identity— and were legally entitled to do so under the RuStAG—suddenly found themselves excluded. National Socialist ideology painted their supposed racial and cultural differences as not only irreconcilable with the ethnic German population, but also as an imminent danger to the common interests of the nation. Following this thinking, it could make sense that the National Socialists would see transportation and annihilation as viable methods to “protect” the country and its citizens.

After the war was lost and the horrors of genocide came to light, it was clear that the new Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Basic Law for the Federal

Republic of Germany) would have to include updated stipulations on citizenship.

However, even as the government removed the racist Nuremberg Laws that had stripped

German Jews (and other “racial” minorities) of their citizenship and added in an article

40 guaranteeing the individual right to asylum, it left the fundamental idea of ius sanguinis virtually untouched14. Simon Green, a scholar of European politics—particularly immigration, integration, and citizenship policy—at Aston University in the United

Kingdom, argues that the ethnic German “imagined community” was particularly important in helping to rebuild the German identity after the Second World War. In his

2004 book The Politics of Exclusion: Institutions and Immigration Policy in

Contemporary Germany, Green writes, “The idea that citizenship was inherited…enabled

West Germany to take in millions of refugees expelled from Germany’s former eastern territories after the end of the war” (31). The demolished Germany needed all the help it could get, and being able to absorb these ethnic Germans as Aussiedler (resettlers) rather than as immigrants helped to expedite the process of integrating them into the society and economy. As the Allies implemented their division of the country, ius sanguinis took on a distinctly political meaning as well. It guaranteed the continued possession of German citizenship for East Germans, effectively undermining the status of the GDR as a state

(Green 2004: 31). Preserving ethnic citizenship was a means to preserve the considerably weakened and literally divided German identity. Consequently, and as mentioned in

Chapter 2, Germany became even more ethnically homogenous than it was under the

National Socialists.

14 I should elaborate here that I mean ius sanguinis as defined by the 1913 law, which does not require pureblood Germanness. Victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants may reclaim German citizenship, and multi-ethnic children with one ethnic German parent are also entitled to German citizenship.

41 Increasing Diversity and its Challenges for German Citizenship Law

The guest worker program then represented Germany’s first major brush with ethnic diversity. The program was envisioned as a temporary, quick fix for the German economy, but it later became clear that many people—particularly those from non-

European countries, such as Turkey—were using it as a form of de facto immigration.

The governmental coalition under Willy Brandt put a stop to the program in 1973 (Green

2004: 36). However, immigration continued as many former guest workers now took advantage of residence permits to apply for family reunification visas. In 1977, the government developed the official Einbürgerungsrichtlinien (guidelines on naturalization); these required basic knowledge of Germany, a pledge to the country and its democratic values, an “active command” of the language, at least ten years residency in Germany, a secure job, no criminal record, and the renunciation of any other citizenships (Naturalization Regulations of Dec. 17, 1977, as quoted in Kurthen 1995:

932). These standards did not realistically enable many foreigners to seek out naturalization, because they were so strict to begin with. However, many scholars note that the length of the process and unwillingness to give up their native citizenship further limited naturalizations among even that small minority of foreigners who were eligible

(Kurthen 1995: 932, Laurence 1999: 11 in Behr 2006: 472). As a consequence of citizenship still being framed largely in terms of ius sanguinis, it is possible for people who have spent their entire lives in Germany to be legally considered “foreigners.”

Conversely, it is also possible for individuals of German ethnicity who have never spent a day on German soil nor speak a word of the language to claim citizenship relatively easily.

42 The strictness of German citizenship law began to change after the fall of the

Berlin Wall. Perhaps having to suddenly absorb a large amount of East Germans made

West Germans aware of the comparative failure of their 1977 guidelines to actually promote inclusion of ethnic minorities. In 1990, the law was reformed to promise foreigners that had lived in the country for at least fifteen years (or eight years for those ages sixteen to twenty-three who had attended a German school for six years) a

“simplified naturalization” procedure, still on the condition that they renounce their former citizenship (Green 2004: 79). This change did not make naturalization law easier, per se, but perhaps more consistent in its application. The collapse of the Soviet Union in

1991 then spurred a mass immigration movement to the West, with Germany being one of the main destinations for both economic and ethnic reasons. Germany responded to the flood of people by introducing reforms in 1993 that, for the first time ever, began to chip away at the fundamental idea of ius sanguinis. These reforms required certain prerequisites of Aussiedler, such as proof of ethnic discrimination and an adequate command of the language, as well as defining a deadline of 2010 for those born in 1993 or later, whereby the legal status of Aussiedler would expire (Dietz 2002, Martin 1998 in

Behr 2006: 469). Regardless of these efforts to promote the legal inclusion of ethnic minorities and limit the resettlement of ethnic Germans, statistics published by the

Independent Commission on Migration to Germany of 2000 demonstrated that the exclusion of non-ethnic Germans persisted: “approximately 20% of the foreigners living in Germany today were actually born in Germany” (Independent Commission 2001: 14 as mentioned in Behr 2006: 474).

43 The legislation that followed to address this problem represented a groundbreaking liberalization of German citizenship law. As of January 1, 2000, residency requirements for naturalization have been shortened to eight years. More importantly, a form of ius soli has been implemented which grants citizenship to the children of foreigners born in Germany if at least one parent has fulfilled eight years of residency and possesses a secure residence permit (Green 2004: 100). There is one major caveat: dual citizenship is still very restricted15, so the individual must choose between their German and their native citizenship when they turn 23 (Green 2004: 100).

Obviously, these newer routes to citizenship are still very strict in comparison to many other nations, but the 2000 citizenship law can effectively be seen as Germany’s “coming out” as an immigration country. More legislation came about in 2005 to ensure the realistic implementation of the 2000 law. This new Immigration Act expanded integration services—such as courses in the language, law, history, and culture of Germany—to all immigrants, while also emphasizing their obligation to take an active role in that integration (Federal Law Gazette 2004 as quoted in Behr 2006: 476; Gramling 2009:

132). Previously, integration services prioritized support for ethnic resettlers, so this law demonstrated a growing sense of obligation among Germans to support the integration of foreigners as well. Ultimately, the trend of increasingly liberal citizenship regulations demonstrates a de jure widening of the German “imagined community.”

15 Dual citizenship is allowed for immigrants from the former Soviet Union, those with US citizenship from birth, and for immigrants from other countries in the European Union. Dual citizenship may also be allowed if a country does not allow a citizen to give up their citizenship.

44 Defining “Germanness”: Perspectives from Interviews

Of course, it would be unrealistic to assume the legal definition of “Germanness” lines up with all people’s actual experiences and sense of identity. In conducting interviews, it was precisely this dichotomy—and/or possible relationship—between de facto and de jure definitions that I hoped to explore. How relevant is the concept of ius sanguinis to how ordinary Germans view themselves and their fellow countrymen? Some of my interviewees did feel that being German entailed a somewhat ethnic/cultural component, but in a much different form than before. For Johannes Siebert, an East

German artist and art history teacher in his seventies, his nationality is purely a “Zufall der Geburt” (coincidence of birth); he did nothing to earn it, so it is not something to be proud of (Interview #4). Johannes’ feelings are undoubtedly exacerbated by the discomfort of his own father having fought and died for the German side in the Second

World War and the resentment of having spent the next 40 years in the GDR, an environment that Johannes found artistically stifling. In its fatalistic tone, Johannes’ statement both undermines ethnic nationalism while also supporting the notion that nationality is conferred by birth, rather than earned.

On the other hand, nationality took on a much more active role for Uli Alsdorf, a retired engineer of 77 living in Hamburg. He believes that being German—or really any nationality—means being born and raised in the country. He speaks from the experience of growing up in Germany but being relocated to the United States, Italy, and China, often for multiple years at a time, for work. He spent by far the longest time in the United

States, specifically Texas, even having his own children there (who still live there to this day, with dual citizenship), but he told me he would never be able to consider himself a

45 true Texan. By this comment, Ulf could actually be viewing nationality in the ethnic and/or cultural sense, but either way it is clearly a process—one of being raised with the traditions, values, mannerisms, etc. of a certain group.

Christina Werner, a 64-year-old elementary school teacher in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, takes an even more active view of this process. She believes that being an ethnic

German means identifying with the German history. She specifically used the word auseinandersetzen, which translates to “grapple,” or perhaps “engage with.” For her, being German is much more than some mere coincidence or unconscious absorption of the culture that surrounds you; it comes with responsibilities, given Germany’s past. As a result, although her view is considerably more active than Johannes’, she shares his sentiment that her ethnicity is not something to be proud of. The sentiments of these three interviewees demonstrate that ethnic Germanness is still a very real concept, but it is hardly the measure of cultural superiority it was in the past. If anything, their ethnicity is something many Germans feel they cannot rid themselves of. They share blood and culture with the perpetrators of one of history’s greatest atrocities, giving them a sense of guilt and shame that non-ethnic Germans cannot possibly understand.

However, for many of my interviewees, “Germanness” has taken on a broader definition. The quote in the beginning of this chapter was said by 40-year-old Mathilde

Blau, a political scientist, professor, and head of an organization devoted to integration policy. Given this professional background, one can infer that Mathilde was playing off of historical ethnic stereotypes to show their enduring legacy, but also mock their ridiculousness. In reality, Mathilde views the German nationality, at this point, as something ideological:

46 I’m very much in favor of the French concept, which is like yours. To say: okay, if somebody wants to be German and is committed to our values, which are written in the Constitution and says, “Okay, I want to be part of your community, and I will stick to the rules.” This is, for me, a German. (Interview #2).

Germany’s history of ethnic cleansing has left in its wake a reluctance to express pride in the German ethnicity, as explored above. What the Germans can express pride in is their rise from the ashes—literally and figuratively—on the basis of a liberal, democratic constitution. There is even a word for this: Verfassungspatriotismus (constitutional patriotism). Despite her aforementioned conviction that ethnic Germanness is still relevant today, Christina Werner expressed similar sentiments, albeit not so explicitly linked to the constitution. She put it simply: “to be open-minded and to be respectful, I think that’s the most important for me” (Interview #3). It seems that many of the modern, liberal Germans I interviewed frame Germanness in terms of practical coexistence. As a result, the imagined community opens up into something less exclusive, something that can be assimilated into.

Continuing along with this line of thinking, I asked if any cultural norms were necessary for someone to qualify as truly “German.” Many of my respondents answered my question with classic references to German punctuality and lack of openness, but these were largely meant in jest. More seriously, Uli pointed out that great differences can exist between such German states such as those in the north and Bayern in the south.

This is precisely what I tried to prove in Chapter 2. Essentially, it is impossible to identify one way to be culturally German in the first place. Clara Werner—my youngest interviewee at 21, very liberal, and a Berliner all her life—complicated this idea even

47 further. As an avid traveler16 growing up in a highly globalized world, Clara felt that

“there is maybe the Western culture, but there is not a particular “German” culture, not really anymore” (Interview #12). It seems that many of the Germans I interviewed were more supportive than ever of an ideological, assimilative model of citizenship. Yet, apart from Western, democratic values, they were hard-pressed to identify any concrete culture to assimilate to. Of course, there are other, more conservative Germans who do believe that newcomers must adhere to certain fundamentally German behaviors and ways of thinking. This controversial concept, known as Leitkultur (guiding culture), will be addressed more in the following chapter. Mostly, in the absence of any one culture that could constitute Germanness or become a point of pride, I noticed that many of my participants—as well as many of the naturalization laws—turned to language as the one aspect of German culture that they could rally around, as well as demand of others.

Können Sie Deutsch?:17 Language and Citizenship

Just like ethnic citizenship, linguistic citizenship fits right into Benedict

Anderson’s concept of the “imagined community.” I already explored the historical significance of Martin Luther, the printing press, and the unification of the German language in the last chapter. More generally, Anderson explores how print-languages created “unified fields of exchange” that enabled people to become “aware of the hundreds of thousands, even millions of people in their particular language-field, and at

16 Clara spent six months traveling South America after her graduation from high school and had just returned from a six-week trip to Thailand. Compared to Germany, she felt that these kinds of places have a lot of culture that influences how people act, what they wear, etc. 17 Translation: Can you speak German?

48 the same time that only those hundreds of thousands, or millions, so belonged” (1983:

44). Anderson is essentially saying that language, not blood, more realistically facilitated the formation of nations. Regardless of which property came first, the two inevitably become intertwined over time. But notably, unlike ancestral ties, “language is not an instrument of exclusion: in principle, anyone can learn any language. On the contrary, it is fundamentally inclusive” (Anderson 1983: 134). This invitation—or rather expectation—forms the foundation of German naturalization law since the early 2000s.

David Gramling, an associate professor of German Studies at the University of

Arizona, sums up this juxtaposition quite nicely in his 2009 article “The New

Cosmopolitan Monolingualism: On Linguistic Citizenship in Twenty-First Century

Germany.” He notes that “in-take and assessment procedures that had previously been agnostic about an applicant’s language competence were re-written to gauge longitudinal progress and demonstrable effort in learning German” (Gramling 2009: 132). German citizenship standards may have loosened in terms of ethnicity, but they were growing ever tighter in terms of language. Gramling even goes so far as to coin the phrase “ius linguarum” to describe the expectation that all Germans have the “capacity to communicate across cultures”; the lingua franca, of course, being German (2009: 138).

Interestingly enough, almost all of my interviewees seemed to agree with this “right of language,” whether their views were premised on more conservative or more liberal principles.

For instance, Mathilde was adamant that “if you don’t speak the language very well, if you don’t speak fluent German, you will never be able to get a good job”

(Interview #2). She even pointed out how third-generation Turks who manage to work

49 their way into high level careers often speak better German than actual Germans, because they know they will be overlooked otherwise. Mathilde views German language competency as a necessity for ensuring better life opportunities. On the other hand, Clara views it as a necessity for preserving culture/nationhood. She lamented about how some immigrant and minority groups “try to just put their culture in our country,” explicitly mentioning never bothering to learn German as an example (Interview #12). I spoke earlier about Clara’s perception that Germany is basically devoid of culture, so her statement is perhaps motivated by the desperation of wanting to preserve any semblance of German culture left—most obviously, language. However, those who are more conservative and have faith in the existence of a distinct and robust German culture often make use of similar preservationist and linguistic arguments.

They may even see language as a gateway to cultural competency. Anthropologist

Janet McIntosh refers to this idea as “language transfer”: “a group’s properties are embodied in (have transferred onto it) its language” and these properties can then

“transfer from the language onto a new set of speakers” (McIntosh 2005: 1936). By this argument, learning the language is the first step in making immigrants, minorities, and refugees not only de jure Germans, but de facto Germans as well. Yet realistically, making citizenship contingent upon language abilities sometimes results in non-native speakers only using German in the public sphere. The language becomes a means to an end, performative in nature and not truly a part of the individual’s identity.

50 The Dichotomy of Citizenship Versus Identity

Many non-ethnic Germans see beyond the constitutional and linguistic demands; citizenship is one thing, but to be “German” is something entirely different. This is certainly the case for Medina, a 43-year-old Muslim woman born in Germany to two

Turkish Gastarbeiter. Medina has lived in Germany all her life, but she admitted to me that she has never felt German, nor been perceived as German by others. If anything, she feels most connected to Turkey: “Teil von meinem Herz ist immer noch da” (a piece of my heart is always still there) (Interview #5). Medina actually has German, not Turkish, citizenship, but she values it mainly for its practicality—namely, enabling her and her

Turkish husband to work. Galina, a 57-year-old Russian woman, feels much the same way. She fled the Soviet Union and came to Germany as a refugee, after she discovered she had Jewish roots, so she is undoubtedly thankful for the opportunities afforded to her in her new country. However, she regards Germany as a “ziemlich geschlossene

Gesellschaft mit ziemlich grosser Distanz” (fairly closed society with a rather large degree of distance) (Interview #9). She described to me the feeling of waiting so long for citizenship, receiving it, and then thinking, “What now?” as she realized she is still

Russian. She still has a Russian mentality and speaks exclusively Russian at home with her children. Galina does see potential for bridging this gap, but she firmly believes “das ist die Aufgabe von Generation danach” (that is the job of the next generation) (Interview

#9). She sees this even in her own sons,18 who she described as growing up in a

18 Galina has three sons, two of which were born in the Soviet Union and fled with her to Germany and one of which was born in Germany. All three were young enough that they went through the German school system, are multilingual, and have thus developed more hybrid identities.

51 globalized world and who would probably consider themselves German, despite having conflicts with their Russian roots.

Those with migrant backgrounds are not the only ones with conflicts of identity, either. Some of the ethnic Germans I interviewed expressed hesitation to identify themselves with their country. Sabrina, the cultural studies professor with Jewish roots whom I mentioned earlier, has had opportunities to teach in the United States and Russia as well as her native Germany. In these larger contexts and as compared to these different cultures, Sabrina realized that she felt more European than distinctly German. Stefan, a

29-year-old American Studies student who has lived in Berlin all his life, sought to do much the same thing, but by minimizing his contexts: “When people ask me where I’m from, I would probably always say, ‘I’m from Berlin,’ rather than, ‘I’m from Germany.’

Berlin is a very different city and I don’t necessarily identify with the rest of Germany”

(Interview #6). For both of these participants, the common theme seemed to be identification with the more globalized, cosmopolitan aspects of German society, rather than the country itself. However, the important point that distinguishes Sabrina and

Stefan’s experiences from that of Medina or Galina, is that the sense of “otherness” they feel is largely self-imposed.

Accordingly, I finished up this section of my interviews by asking my respondents if anyone had ever made them feel like they don’t belong in Germany or are not “German” enough. While most of my ethnic German participants echoed Mathilde’s sentiments from the beginning of the chapter, a small minority expressed that—like

Medina and Galina—they too were sometimes made to feel excluded. More than a matter of ethnicity, Sabrina attributes this to class. Class determines one’s opportunities for

52 education or forming relationships with people from other cultures. In the presence of those lacking in these sorts of experiences, who frequently have a strong sense of their own Germanness in substitution, Sabrina told me she senses the implication that she is not German enough. Johannes, the East German artist, told me he has even had people explicitly tell him that he’s not a proper German. He has been told that he drinks too much, is not punctual enough, is not reliable enough, has befriended too many women, etc. However, Johannes explained to me that fellow Germans view him, patronizingly, as an exception: “Ich darf so sein, weil ich Künstler bin” (I’m allowed to be like that because I am an artist) (Interview #4). There is a clear privilege here. Ethnic Germans may remain German in spite of supposedly improper behavior, while non-Germans may be denied citizenship or recognition as Germans because of it.

It is undeniable that the German “imagined community” or “civil sphere” has opened up over time, but through what Jeffrey Alexander would refer to as an assimilative “mode of incorporation.” Outsiders can become members if they “learn to wear the primordial camouflage of the core group” and “keep their stigmatized qualities hidden behind the wall of private life” (Alexander 2006: 8). Integration is another buzzword in this context, and despite its seemingly positive and welcoming connotations, it is inherently exclusive and implies that the process is a one-way street. However, assimilation can be a first step for another mode of incorporation, most notably associated with the United States: hyphenation. It is common for waves of immigration to be met with resistance from those already established in a country, the United States being no exception. However, Alexander notes that “long-term presence in the essentialized place

53 can cleanse and purify primordial qualities, allowing what were once considered fundamentally different characteristics to be seen, instead, as variations on a common theme” (2006: 201). This process is how you arrive at such identities as African-

American, Chinese-American, Mexican-American, etc. There is some evidence that this is starting to happen in Germany as well. The number of people with dual citizenships from countries such as Turkey or the former Yugoslavia is increasing, and many political parties are now realizing the difficulty of asking those conferred German citizenship at birth to choose one nationality by age 23 (Kurthen 1995: 934). This change demonstrates a growing willingness to allow Germans to straddle multiple legal, and ultimately cultural, identities.19

Alexander also notes that incorporation—whether through assimilation, hyphenation, or the ultimate mode of multiculturalism (which will be explored in later chapters)—may be easier in societies that are and historically have been legitimated by democratic ideology as opposed to ethnicity (2006: 425). Once again, the United States can be seen as a model. I should also emphasize that the United States is clearly not devoid of its own ethnic and particularly racial problems. But it is easy to see how, like

Benedict Anderson’s characterization of language, democratic ideology is (hypothetically at least) “fundamentally inclusive,” with pathways of integration available regardless of a person’s ethnicity or culture. Along this line of thinking, there is potential for better incorporation in the German government’s move away from ethnic conceptions of

19 However, I should note that this issue is highly contested. I saw this myself while in Germany. In April 2017, there was a constitutional referendum in Turkey to essentially expand Erdogan’s power. It passed, with statistics showing that a large majority of German-Turks supported the measure (Huggler 2017). Merkel and Erdogan have had an increasingly antagonistic relationship, so this incident fueled fears that dual citizenship is not actually producing loyal, democratic German citizens.

54 citizenship and towards the more democratic ideals of the post-war constitution. I saw this on a more personal level in many of my interviewees’ feelings that their own

Germanness is based much more in democratic values than in their ethnicity and culture.

Germany’s “imagined community” is still very limited and closed-off for many, but time has shown that the blonde-haired, blue/green-eyed ideal Mathilde joked about at the beginning of this chapter is gradually losing its relevance. It remains to be seen if and how this trajectory may change as the refugees that most recently arrived grow in number, get settled into German society, and—later on, possibly—pursue naturalization.

55 Chapter 4: Getting to Know You: German Attitudes Towards and Experience With

Minority Groups

For instance my mother, she’s this real conservative person. She would say, “Ah, the Turkish…” And then I brought [my friend] home, and she loved [her]. “Oh, I mean, I don’t mean [her]!” She’s the exception. That’s typical, you know. When you get to know someone then you just forget everything what you argued before. (Interview #3)

The above quote describes Christina’s experience introducing her best friend, a

Turkish woman, to her mother. It demonstrates the power of personal encounters in alleviating what many of my interviewees called Angst vor Fremden. This phrase can translate to “xenophobia.” However, I’m going to grapple with the more literal translation

“fear of strangers,” and particularly the word “stranger.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a stranger as “a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar” (2018). This definition seems to have two parts: intimate acquaintance and knowledge or understanding. Through being intimately acquainted with someone, you know of and (hopefully) understand them. These people are one’s friends and family, the opposite of strangers. However, it is also possible to have knowledge and understanding of people you don’t know. For example, the previous chapter addressed how many of my respondents think of themselves as being a part of a larger Western, rather than specifically German, culture. Most Americans, Brits, Italians, etc., may spatially be strangers, but their cultures are not all that “strange.”

Then there are true strangers: those who one does not know and cannot hope to understand. Many Germans today view the Muslim world in this way, and these views have consequences for the integration of dark-skinned, non-Western, and non-Christian immigrants and refugees to and minorities in Germany. Encounters such as the one

56 described by Christina demonstrate that what is “strange,” spatially and ideologically, can still become familiar. Yet, for certain groups, these encounters are still few and far between. This chapter will focus on the extent of exposure my interviewees have had to non-ethnic German populations. I will then examine how structural factors limit this exposure in the first place, how added cultural factors uniquely disadvantage Muslim immigrants, refugees, and minorities, and how both of these marginalizations intersect to keep Muslims in a separated and relegated position in German society.

Professional and Personal Exposure

Several of the people I interviewed happened to have a lot professional experience with minority and immigrant populations. In addition to being professors, particularly of international students, Sabrina and Mathilde both worked on integration initiatives.

Sabrina organized both an intercultural training program for the management of

Volkswagen and a global network of young scholars. She noted, however, that the latter project consisted of individuals who don’t live in Germany, but just come to the country for conferences and projects. Mathilde similarly led a four-year integration program that targeted disadvantaged young people in Germany and France from different ethnic backgrounds. Gabi Heinicke, a 64-year-old Sozialpädagogin (probably best translates to

“social education worker”) took a perhaps more on-the-ground approach. Seeing a lack of concrete solutions to empower young, disadvantaged girls in the Neukölln district of

Berlin, she founded an after-school center that promotes equality and feminism. This mission does not restrict itself to ethnic minority populations, but Gabi has found that the makeup of her clientele and fellow workers has shifted over the years to focus more on

57 Turkish- and Arabic-Germans. Galina, on the other hand, has used her own minority background to aid fellow Russian speakers from the former Soviet Union as a psychologist. These people may not be foreign to her, but they are certainly foreign to

Germany.

Christina has direct, daily contact with minorities and immigrants in another way: as a teacher. After earning her degree, she travelled to the Americas and spent a period of time teaching English to children in Mexico. Because of this experience, she was recruited to teach Turkish children in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin once she returned, and she has been doing so ever since.20 In her position as a music and gym teacher,

Christina told me she finds multicultural ways to engage the children, such as singing songs in different languages. Christina’s husband—Hugo, who I also interviewed—also works in a Kreuzberg school, as an Erzieher.21 He told me that many of his students have different or mixed cultural backgrounds. However, Hugo works at a unique private school that focuses on holistic education. Given the tuition involved, I infer that admission is restricted to only those minorities and foreigners privileged enough to afford it.

Experience with the most recent refugees was considerably more limited, but this may just be attributed to the newness of the phenomenon. In addition to working with

20 This is a position where the demand is considerably higher than the supply of teachers who are willing, because of both perceived and experienced behavioral problems among non-German children. This theme will be explored later in the chapter. 21 This word does not have a very direct English translation, but “early childhood educator” suffices to a certain extent. The verb erziehen means “to nurture” or “to raise,” so individuals in this position play more of a supportive role in development and don’t necessarily teach concrete subjects, as teachers do. However, it is important to note that there are also Erzieher for adolescents, adults, and those who are disabled physically and/or mentally.

58 Russian speakers, Galina spends about ten hours a week offering psychological help to traumatized refugees from countries such as Croatia, Afghanistan, and Syria. However, she lamented to me that her sessions feel considerably less effective when she has to work with a translator. Other than Galina, Uli is probably my interviewee with the most experience working with refugees. Now that he is retired, Uli works as the treasurer of his local prevention council, which focuses on crime among young Middle-Eastern and

African refugees. He and his wife also work in what he called an “international café,” directly helping these young men through their personal problems (Interview #8). All of this exposure tells me that many of my interviewees genuinely care about the social harmony of their multicultural surroundings. Yet it is important to note that most interactions happen with those less fortunate in a professional, hierarchical context that doesn’t necessarily translate to personal relationships.

In fact, most of my interviewees told me similar stories about growing up in small villages and not really encountering diversity until they got older. By nature of being raised in largely middle-class environments, even those born in Berlin, such as Stefan, could describe their upbringings as somewhat “sheltered“ (Interview #6). Naturally, some of my respondents had bad experiences to share. Hugo grew up in the southern German city of Freiburg, next to a settlement camp of Roma and Sinti. He told me there was often physical conflict between his friends and the children from the camp, and this experience left a lasting impression on him. Gabi had a somewhat similar experience growing up in

Berlin and living near student housing consisting of mainly African men. She remembers her mother warning her to avoid that area and its inhabitants. In hindsight, Gabi told me she isn’t sure whether this was racism or just her mother being wary of all the single,

59 young men. Regardless, for every negative experience, there were also positive experiences. Katrin told me about a group of young, friendly, and well-integrated Afghan men now living in her town. She spoke approvingly about how they are taking German lessons in the next town over. Clara related how her upbringing in the Neukölln and

Kreuzberg districts of Berlin meant she was accustomed to going to multicultural businesses, such as Turkish bakeries or Italian restaurants. She explained, “For me it’s normal to see people from other countries every day”; however, she noted, “I didn’t interact with them so much” (Interview #12). All of these accounts, good and bad, convey this same—at most neighborly, but certainly not deep—type of relation.

A small handful of my respondents did share stories about minorities and immigrants who they consider close friends. While growing up, Mathilde participated regularly in exchanges with other countries such as Hungary, France, and the United

States. She even pursued a dual degree/exchange program in college that required two years at a German university and two years at a French one. She gained strong friendships through these experiences. However, as she pointed out, these friendships with primarily European (or at least Western) individuals constitute a different kind of ethnic diversity: “It’s a more elite concept” (Interview #2). Similarly, Stefan gained a whole cohort of international friends while studying abroad in the United States. He admitted that the majority of them were mostly privileged students from Western countries, but he also befriended a Muslim student for the first time. Stefan joked to me about initially finding the frequent prayer sessions strange but eventually just “let[ting] him do his thing” (Interview #6). Of everyone I interviewed, Christina and Hugo probably have the closest relationship to any non-Western immigrants or minorities. They

60 both told me about their best friend—the woman from Turkey, mentioned earlier, who is married to a man from Argentina—through whom they gained “Zugang zu den

Türkischen” (access to the Turkish) (Interview #10). They have visited the woman’s family multiple times in Istanbul, and Hugo, who is a cooking enthusiast, told me excitedly about how they taught him how to prepare Turkish food. It is important to note that the Turkish woman was the Erzieherin (female version of Erzieher, or “early childhood educator”) of Christina and Hugo’s first daughter and went on to become a psychologist, so she is evidently quite well-integrated and well-off. Therefore, even this example fits the trend I was noticing: to the extent that ethnic Germans have personal relationships with others, they tend to be with well-integrated, highly cosmopolitan, and/or privileged minorities and immigrants from other European (or at least Western) countries. Personal relationships with refugees were virtually non-existent. As I mentioned before, there are a number of structural and cultural reasons for this.

The Structure of Dis-integration: Separation and Relegation

I do not think it is a generalization to say that most people meet their friends through proximity. As people spend most of their time in their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, these are often where they meet some of their closest friends. For the majority of my interviewees, these spaces were made up mostly of fellow Germans. This is no mere coincidence.

The immigrants who came to Germany as guestworkers after the Second World

War settled down in areas where there were jobs to be had—Berlin, the highly industrial

Ruhr area in West Germany, etc.—meaning this newfound diversity first concentrated in

61 certain areas of the country. This is why many of my respondents had never really encountered significant diversity until moving to Berlin. However, filter mechanisms were, and continue to be, present even within these more diverse areas. In particular,

Stefan Luft—a political science professor at the University of Bremen whose personal research focuses on migration and integration—mentions apartment prices, word of mouth, and landlord discrimination as factors that concentrate minorities further (2014:

5). By extension, they are segregated from the mainstream population.

Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist who was forced out of his country by the communist government and ultimately settled down in the United Kingdom, also explored this phenomenon of “ethnic enclaves,” albeit from a more empowering perspective. He wrote about how, within the enclave, “the individual’s visible difference from the mainstream through ethnic and cultural markers disappears because everybody inside the enclave is visibly different from the mainstream” (Bauman 1995 in Hinze

2013: 24). There is protection and comfort to be had from somewhat familiar surroundings and people in a very unfamiliar country. As the country becomes more familiar and the foreign individual becomes more economically established, the ethnic enclave can be rendered obsolete. However, this is not guaranteed: to this day, the concentration of Turkish immigrants and minorities in certain areas of Germany and certain districts within those areas remains very high, whereas virtually all other guestworker nationalities have dispersed and blended into the overall population (Luft

2014: 5).

In Berlin, in particular, the construction of the Berlin Wall transformed certain areas of the city near the wall, such as Neukölln and Kreuzberg, into no man’s lands.

62 Consequently, this is where many guestworkers—most notably, Turks—first settled upon arrival into Berlin. To this day, both of these districts retain high Turkish populations.

Kreuzberg is slowly being gentrified and has thus gained a more recent reputation as one of the coolest, most diverse districts of Berlin, but Neukölln is still very much looked down upon. The host family I stayed with actually lives in Neukölln, albeit in a majority ethnic-German community. While exploring the district further away from my homestay,

I saw for myself something Christina articulated to me:

They [Turks] have their own barber shop, their own supermarkets, their own shops for anything! They book their flights, they have their Moschees [mosques], they have everything. There is no need to go outside.... And I think this is kind of sad for me, because Berlin is bigger. (Interview #3)

These “ethnic enclaves,” in their sometimes empowering self-sufficiency, are simultaneously extremely isolating.

The German education system, in its merit-based and divisive nature, does little to alleviate this isolation. All children in Germany must attend a Grundschule (primary school), but—as is the case in many countries—the quality of public school education can vary dramatically depending on where someone is. I explored above how the financial situation of many immigrant families leads them to settle in poorer areas. It also restricts their mobility to pursue better educational opportunities elsewhere. As a result, immigrant and minority children end up being the primary occupants of disadvantaged, inner-city schools. The disadvantages are further emphasized in grades five and six, when teachers begin evaluating their students and recommending them for one of three secondary school types. There is Hauptschule, the lowest level which prepares students for vocational, blue-collar work; Realschule, with both academic and vocational elements to prepare students for average, white-collar work; and Gymnasium, the highest and only

63 path that will enable a student to attend university. The Internationale Grundschul-Lese

Untersuchung of 2011 (known internationally as the “Progress in International Reading

Literacy Study”) found that children with migration backgrounds are five times less likely to be recommended for Gymnasium and are therefore over-represented in

Hauptschulen and even schools for children with learning disabilities (Britz 2011: 2, 8).

Consequently, to the detriment of their own intercultural competence, German and migrant children are educated largely separate from one another.

Another study in 2000, the Programme for International Student Assessment, shed light on one particular aspect that facilitates this segregation: language. As explained by

Lisa Britz, a researcher in the Department of Intercultural Education at the University of

Cologne, a student’s German language ability affects their reading comprehension, which affects their performance in all subjects, which ultimately determines their educational opportunities (2011: 9). Being surrounded mostly by fellow foreign students makes it even more difficult for a child with a migrant background to learn German. Christina, the teacher of Turkish children in Kreuzberg, also shared with me the difficulty of trying to communicate with parents who don’t speak German. This language barrier not only prevents teachers and foreign parents from working together to discipline a misbehaving child or support a struggling one, but it also gives the child little motivation to learn the language themselves. Longer residence in Germany, as well as more generations being born in Germany as opposed to the homeland, does correlate to a better command of the

German language and therefore better educational opportunities (Britz 2011: 9).

However, prior to that point, intelligent students with a migration background may find

64 themselves on lower educational tracks simply because of their sub-par language abilities.

Naturally, these discouraging conditions can lead some migrant children to give up on school entirely. Statistics show that, throughout all of Germany, about 20% of students with a migrant background drop out of school, as compared to 8% of German students (Britz 2011: 2). This was actually the case for Medina, who did not pass her final tests to receive her “MSA,” or Mittlerer Schulabschluss.22 She went on to get married, have two children, and work odd jobs in German chain supermarkets and bakeries for about 20 years. By the time I interviewed her, Medina had decided to go back to school and finally earn her MSA in order to become an Erzieherin (“early childhood educator”).

This development is wonderful to hear, but it was very clear to me that it was self- motivated and not necessarily something that those immigrants and minorities who fall through the cracks of the educational system are commonly encouraged to do.

Galina, as a first generation immigrant who received her education in her home country, had a slightly different experience. She studied psychology in St. Petersburg, taught, and worked in a clinic. Upon arrival in Germany, Galina worked lots of odd jobs: cleaning, caring for the elderly, sewing, giving Russian lessons, selling insurance, etc.

Eventually, her education and experience landed her a job as part of a mobile psychological service dedicated to helping German kindergartens. Galina described to me how her boss gave her a six month trial period—in which she must learn German and at the end of which she must give a report—and, if she succeeded, she was guaranteed a job

22 This certificate is received at the completion of any of the secondary school types below the Gymnasium level, sort of like a high school diploma. However, an MSA will not enable a student to go right to university. To do that, a student must attend another school of the Gymnasium level and pass the matriculation exams there, called the Abitur.

65 for at least three years. Evidently, it all worked out. Galina’s experience demonstrates what Sabrina would call her “social cultural capital,” or the skills you bring with you and how dependent you are on ethnic networks (Interview #1). Someone like an IT specialist at a global company, or even Galina, is going to be viewed as more useful and is therefore going to fare better than a refugee or an unskilled immigrant. Yet Galina’s experience is probably the exception, rather than the rule.

Instead, the lower educational status—completed, or not, in either the home country or Germany—of immigrants and minorities frequently funnels them into industrial labor, unskilled service jobs, or “ethnic economies.” Malcolm Collier, anthropologist and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State

University, defines the latter term as “an economic sub-system within the larger...economy in which most of the capital, business ownership, workers, and customers are associated with a particular ethnic group” (2001: 1). Christina’s earlier quote about the variety of businesses within Neukölln and Kreuzberg is an example of this phenomenon and demonstrates how ethnic economies and ethnic enclaves are inherently connected. Like ethnic enclaves, ethnic economies have certain advantages: they offer specialized goods and services that might not be available in an individual’s new country, as well as providing business and job opportunities for those who face economic hurdles such as language barriers, lack of experience or education, workplace discrimination, etc. (Collier 2001: 3). However, there are also disadvantages. Ethnic economies tend to consist of small businesses with few employees (meaning low wages and no benefits), there is a lack of upward mobility other than opening a business yourself, and the chances of these businesses expanding into the larger economy are slim

66 to none (Collier 2001: 4-5). As longer residence in Germany is linked to better educational opportunities, it can be inferred that succeeding generations become more and more competitive in the overall job market. Yet as it stands now, workplaces—just like neighborhoods and schools—still tend to be very ethnically homogenous.

For the ethnic Germans I interviewed, there are certain benefits to these ethnic enclaves and ethnic economies. Hugo feels that foreigners have “enriched” Germany, particularly Berlin: “Was du erlebst in Berlin, das gab’s früher nicht” (What you experience in Berlin, that didn’t exist before) (Interview #10). Immigrants have brought new foods, ideas, music, etc. Mathilde joked with me that “there are many Germans who think Döner23 is our national meal” (Interview #2). Hugo pointed out how Spätis24 have changed the opening hours of German shops, which are notorious for closing early and completely shutting down on Sundays. Even those immigrants who don’t work directly in the ethnic economy, but end up in unskilled jobs within the larger economy by nature of their lower educational status, have made an important impact. As Sabrina asserted to me,

“If you think of Germany, and especially if you think of a city like Berlin and, say, just for three days, all people with an immigrant background would refuse to work, the city would not function” (Interview #1). The extent of ethnic influence has made Berlin what it is today and is a contributing factor to why many people, including many of my

23 Döner is a dish similar to shawarma or Greek gyros. It contains thinly sliced meat (usually lamb or chicken) cooked rotisserie style on a kebab, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, onion, and a variety of sauces in a pita. Though these ingredients were brought over from Turkey, they were never officially combined in this way, so Döner is technically a German invention. It is typically sold from street stands run by Turkish immigrants and minorities and is the most popular fast food in Germany. 24 This is a colloquial name for convenience stores that remain open late into the night, typically run by immigrants from Arabic countries. The German word “spät” literally means “late.”

67 interviewees, move there. However, numerous scholars have also noted what I have tried to demonstrate thus far: that pro-multicultural rhetoric among the white middle classes of a variety of countries rarely translates into actually diverse social networks (Blokland and van Eijk 2010; Butler 2003; Butler and Robson 2001; Kleit 2005; May 1996; Tissot

2011; Barwick 2016: 22). Whether physically near or far from each other, ethnic

Germans and minorities—particularly non-Western, non-Christian, and non-white minorities—remain virtual strangers.

The Culture of Dis-integration: Preserving Islamic Values in a New Country

In addition to their physical separation from the ethnic German population, non-

Western and non-Christian minorities, immigrants, and refugees have an added religious/cultural/ideological element that makes them especially “strange” in the eyes of many Germans. The guestworker program after the Second World War was characterized by the migration of people—Christian and Muslim—from rural, highly religious areas to secular cities (Fuhse 2006: 54). Jan Fuhse, Professor of Macrosociology at Berlin’s

Humboldt University, points out that the very act of immigration itself can make people cling even more to their religion:

“In der Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Fremdheit in der Aufnahmegesellschaft gibt die Religion Halt und Orientierung. Und sie hilft eventuell, die Erfahrungen von kultureller Differenz und Diskriminierung umzudeuten” (Religion provides support and orientation for dealing with one’s own strangeness in the host society. And it may help to reframe the experiences of cultural difference and discrimination). (2006: 54)

However, this coping mechanism is not necessarily problematic for those immigrants from Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Croatia, etc. These countries, even if they represent different sects, are still ultimately Christian. The Turkish guest workers, on the

68 other hand, represented the large-scale introduction of Islam to Germany. As Turks were and continue to be the largest immigrant population, their religious differences could not easily be ignored.

Furthermore, I spoke in Chapter 3 about how many of my interviewees identified themselves more as Europeans rather than Germans. Annika Marlen Hinze, a native

German now teaching political science at Fordham University in New York, complicates this transnational identity in her 2013 book Turkish Berlin: Integration Policy and Urban

Space. She says that while “real and imagined borderlines between Germany and other

European countries” have loosened, “boundaries towards non-European ‘outsiders’” have solidified (Hinze 2013: 2). I would go so far as to argue that this phenomenon concerns the entire Western world, not just Europe. An example Sabrina told me illustrates this point: her children attended a German-American school, often alongside American children whose parents work with global companies. Some of these families have lived in

Germany for ten years and yet have never truly learned the language. Yet unlike immigrants from Arabic or even eastern European countries, Sabrina pointed out that these people would never be told they need to get integrated, “because this is perceived as a superior culture, as a Western culture” (Interview #1). Non-Western immigrants and minorities are subject to heightened pressures to integrate because of their perceived, inherent cultural differences and backwardness.

Alternatively, these perceptions may lead some German conservatives to argue that integration is not possible, or not even desired in the first place. Thilo Sarrazin, an executive board member of the German federal bank, made this argument most explicitly in his controversial 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Does Away With

69 Itself). He portrays Muslims as a “dangerous species, seeking to take over the society and its resources with higher birth rates and economic dependence” and argues that the

German Leitkultur must distance itself from their “anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny and anti-modernism” (Abadi et al. 2016: 560). German-Arab sociologist Bassam Tibi first coined the term Leitkultur, which translates to “leading culture,” in 1998 (Abadi et al. 2016: 579). This term assumes European cultural superiority and implies the expectation of assimilation to this superior culture. Though Sarrazin certainly concurs with the first part, he believes it is impossible to elevate Muslim populations to a culturally superior position and argues that their sheer number, their economic dependence, and incompatible values will only drag German society down with them. His book unleashed a big debate within German society and government, and Sarrazin ultimately met considerable backlash and resigned from his federal position. However, every debate has two sides, and it is undeniable that Sarrazin’s argument also resonated with many Germans.

In many ways, Sarrazin merely made explicit perspectives about Leitkultur that were already implicit in de facto and de jure expectations of cultural assimilation. To illustrate this point, I will examine the controversy surrounding headscarves, as written about by Heiner Bielefeldt, Professor of Human Rights and Human Rights Policy at the

University of Erlangen and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of

Religion or Belief from 2010 to 2016. In 2003, a case came before the Federal

Constitutional Court of Germany concerning a Muslim woman who was barred from teaching at a Stuttgart school because of her hijab (Bielefeldt 2004, 4). At issue was whether the teacher’s freedom to express her religion can have psychological effects on

70 her students, akin to subjecting them to religious influences against their wills. Bielefeldt points out that the hijab is a particularly controversial expression of religion because it can objectively be used to suppress women; it is compulsory to wear some form of head covering in certain countries such as Saudi Arabia, and even in places where women can hypothetically choose, conservative social pressures can overshadow that choice

(Bielefeldt 2004, 8). Clara illustrates the latter case quite well:

I think, more or less, nobody chooses for themself…. It’s kind of a brainwash, I think. If everyone around you and like your friends are doing it…you have to be really strong to say, ‘I think that it’s not right, and I don’t want to wear it.’… I think I would also wear it if I would be in this culture. (Interview #12)

Resistance can be not only futile, but also socially damaging. However, Bielefeldt also notes that some women may freely choose the headscarf for themselves, as a part of their religious practice, as a means of preserving cultural identity, and/or even in protest against discrimination by German society (Bielefeldt 2004, 8-9). Medina’s reasoning is certainly more in line with these ideas. I was surprised to learn that she had actually only started wearing her hijab about three years ago. Medina’s ultimate reason for beginning to wear it was that she did not want to find herself on her deathbed without it. More immediately, she saw it as a symbol of the new chapter she was starting in her life: her training to become an Erzieherin (“early childhood educator”). It was wholly her choice, just as her future students’ religious convictions would be wholly theirs.

In the end, the Federal Constitutional Court did rule in favor of the Muslim teacher. Their verdict rested on the idea that public institutions are religiously neutral, permitting the religious freedom of all faiths; however, as Aleksandra Lewicki elaborates in her 2014 book Social Justice Through Citizenship?: The Politics of Muslim Integration in Germany and Great Britain, the court did suggest that their ruling lacked any legal

71 precedent to further specify this issue (156). Lewicki, a political sociologist at the

University of Sussex whose research focuses on Islamophobia, goes on to describe the measures individual German states took in the wake of this court case. Berlin banned all religious symbols in schools, while Bavaria banned only Muslim ones (Lewicki 2014:

157). These two states are clearly approaching the issue very differently. In Berlin,

“religious neutrality” is taken so literally that even the teachers themselves must be religiously neutral. In Bavaria, a heavily Catholic state, headscarves are distinguished— from nuns’ habits, for example—as distinctly political. Regardless of the intentions behind the various bans, the Antidiskriminierungsverband Deutschland (Anti- discrimination Association of Germany) has reported a rising number of court cases regarding employers, in both public service and private industries, denying Muslim women jobs because of their hijabs (Lewicki 2014: 157). The problem has come full circle: perceptions that oppressed Muslim women in public service positions will spread their views of gender inequality are barring those same women from realizing their full economic potential in their new homeland.

My interviewees, perhaps because the large majority of them are very liberal

Berliners and are more accustomed to seeing veiled women in public service positions, actually have little to no problems with hijabs. Repeatedly, they told me it is just something the Germans have to get used to. Where they do draw the line is with burkas.25

Johannes was quite blunt about this: “Warum soll ich mit einem solchen schwarzen

25 German politicians were in fact debating at least a partial burka ban while I was there. There are little to no statistics about how many women in Germany actually wear a burka; however, Egyptian-German political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad estimates around 200-300 in the entire country (Taylor 2016). Though hijabs are quite common, I only saw one woman in a burka the entire time I was in Germany. The infrequency of this sight is precisely what made it so jarring and memorable for me.

72 Monstrom reden? Was ich nicht sehen kann?” (Why should I talk to such a black monstrosity? That I can’t see?) (Interview #4). The main concerns here regard security and the anxiety of not being able to guage facial expressions during a conversation.

Katrin brought up another problem that can arise as a result of Muslim expectations of modesty, such as the burka: young German women being harassed and assaulted because of the comparatively free way they dress. Katrin claimed that Turkish men defend themselves by saying, “Warum zeigt ihr euch so? Bei uns in der Turkei werdet ihr als

Prostituerte gelten” (Why are you showing yourself off like this? In Turkey you would be considered a prostitute) (Interview #7). Clara, as my youngest female interviewee, confirmed Katrin’s claims with her own anecdotes, telling me she gets the sense that

Turkish and Arabic men consider her “less valuable” (Interview #12). Regardless of these concerns, debates about the hijab or the burka only scratch the surface of the Leitkultur debate.

Also under scrutiny are problematic beliefs stereotypically attributed to Muslims, such as forced marriage, pulling female students out of coed PE classes, terrorist threats, homophobia,26 honor killings, etc. In fact, these beliefs can play a decisive role in determining a Muslim immigrant or minority’s eligibility for citizenship; the Ministry of the Interior of the state of Baden-Württemburg caused quite a controversy when it developed a guide for naturalization seekers in 2006 asking questions about these specific issues (Bielefeldt 2006, 5). In this way, the guide clearly targeted Muslims, portraying

26 Gay marriage only became legal in Germany in June 2017, while I was there. It was widely publicized that Angela Merkel encouraged members of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, to “vote their conscience,” freeing them from the expectation of voting along party lines. However, Merkel herself still voted against the measure. Given the considerable ambivalence to the issue among Germans, it seems hypocritical to criticize Muslims for their homophobia, real or not.

73 them as misogynistic, aggressive, backwards, and particularly unfit to become Germans.

Although other states might not be so explicit in their expectations of conforming to the

Leitkultur, the implication is often still there.

My interviewees similarly expressed concerns about the more general misogyny and machismo they believe they observe among Muslim and Arabic immigrants, minorities, and refugees. Mathilde told me about a friend of hers who runs an integration center in Neukölln for refugee women. The friend lamented that many husbands do not allow their wives to come in or, if they allow them, they accompany them. These phenomena are counterproductive to the mission, which is to provide these women with

“a safe room where they can exchange and learn and not be under permanent surveillance of their husbands” (Interview #2). Hugo told me that, while teaching pottery voluntarily at a children’s center in Neukölln, he had to be very strict and authoritarian with the

Muslim and Arabic boys, “sonst hätten sie mir das Heft aus dem Hand genommen”

(idiomatic: “otherwise they would have seized control”) (Interview #10). He also ranted about Turkish gangs in Neukölln driving around aggressively in big cars and not following the rules. Gabi attributed this machismo, at least amongst refugee men and boys, to the fact that some of them have already handled weapons themselves and/or have seen people killed in front of them. From this more sympathetic view, Gabi told me she finds discussion of Leitkultur to be largely counterproductive and exclusionary.

Regarding blatantly unconstitutional practices such forced child marriage, however, Gabi told me she fights back against her colleagues who claim, “It’s a different culture, we need to understand” or “Give it 50 years, it will change.” Gabi’s response is blunt and uncompromising: “When you talk like that, nothing will change” (Interview #11). Gabi’s

74 view, as well as many of my other interviewees’ qualms with Muslims, is a prime example of the anthropological debate between cultural and ethical relativism.

Cultural Versus Ethical Relativism: Merits and Faults

In his 2000 work “Of Headhunters and Soldiers: Separating Cultural and Ethical

Relativism,” anthropologist Renato Rosaldo explores the important distinctions between these two concepts. He says that cultural relativism, as defined by anthropologist Ruth

Benedict, propounds that “each [culture] makes sense in its own context” (Rosaldo 2000).

Cultures should not be measured against one another, because they are all equally valid in their proper contexts. For instance, Germans should not assume the hijab is always an imposition, just because the vast majority of German women choose to dress more freely.

Rosaldo goes on to explain how anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn complicated Benedict’s theory, criticizing how it can be taken to “precludes moral criticism of any cultural practice, including slavery, cannibalism, Nazism, or communism” (2000). Just because a practice may be understood as morally right in one culture does not mean every other culture has to agree with it. As an example, just because it may be okay to force a female child into marriage in Turkey does not mean Germans have to tolerate that as a cultural practice, particularly when it is happening in their own country.

Ethics and culture are inherently intertwined, and Rosaldo’s point is that it is possible to be a cultural relativist without being an ethical relativist. Many of my interviewees seem to share this sentiment. They are willing—perhaps even enthusiastic, as the above section regarding ethnic economies demonstrated—to accept other cultures, but only to the point that those cultures do not promote what they regard as blatantly

75 unethical and unconstitutional practices (such as burkas or forced marriages) or problematic values (such as misogyny and machismo) that they believe could lead to these kinds of practices becoming prevalent in Germany in the future.

However, the association between unethical practices and certain cultures does not always reflect the beliefs that said cultures actually hold and the practices they realistically follow. As compared to the secularism of German society, many of my respondents view Islam as deeper and less modern, affecting all aspects of Muslim life.

Hugo even referred to it as an Identitätssache (matter of identity) for many Muslims.

Statistics paint a more nuanced picture. A survey facilitated by the Konrad Adenauer

Foundation, a nonprofit organization associated with the Christian Democratic Union, found that 43 percent of German Turks “organize their lives completely or mostly according to the rules of Islam,” while 27 percent do so only partially and around 25 percent don’t do so at all, identifying themselves as essentially secular (Von Wilamowitz-

Moellendorff 2001 in Hinze 2013: 132). These results demonstrate that the majority of

German Turks are not actually by-the-book, conservative Muslims and are thus unlikely to hold strictly traditional beliefs. Certainly, the percentage of Muslims in Germany who identify as being very religious is high. Yet Haci-Halil Uslucan, research director of the

Centre for Turkish Studies and Research on Integration, found ethnic Germans of similar socio-economic standing are almost alike in their religiosity and traditional views

(Uslucan 2009 in Lewicki 2014: 75). German Turks are no more religious or conservative than ethnic Germans of the same social status.

Even for those who do define their everyday lives by the traditional rules of

Islam, this religiosity does not imply that they support highly aggressive and misogynistic

76 interpretations. Katrin, curious about what messages the Quran actually contained, told me she has read it herself, and found it to be “das friedlichste Buch der Welt” (the most peaceful book in the world) (Interview #7). Many Western stereotypes of Islam—such as burkas, Jihadism, etc.—are radical interpretations, not supported by the Quran itself.

Moreover, it is fallacious to misconstrue any semblance of traditional, patriarchal belief or indication of aggression as the start of a slippery slope towards these radical interpretations. As explored above, women may have multiple motivations for covering up, and frustrations are perhaps an unfortunate but inevitable part of the integration process.

In addition, there is a tendency among the majority population to lump all

Muslims together, ignoring the possible cultural and religious variation that can exist between Turks, Syrians, Somalis, etc., not to mention the variation that can exist within each of those cultures themselves. One example of this latter phenomenon would be the

Kurds, some of whom fled to countries like Germany precisely to escape the discrimination they faced as an ethnic minority group in Turkey. Gabi told me that, prior to befriending a “Zaza,”27 she didn’t realize these distinctions: “Für uns waren das alle

Türken” (They were all Turks to us) (Interview #11).

These generalizations about religiosity and ethnic uniformity can then result in discrimination against Arab and African minorities, whether they are practicing Muslims or not. Members of these minority groups find themselves having to answer for extremist

27 This is a subset within the Kurdish nation itself, describing those Kurds who live in the Anatolia region and speak the Zaza language.

77 Muslim views and rationalize their own, 28 which only breeds resentment for, not solidarity with Germany. For instance, Medina told me about a black classmate of hers who has German citizenship and considers himself German but gets pulled aside for extra airport security screenings every time he travels. He told Medina that these occurrences make it hard for him to feel wholly German, because Germans take one look at him and write him off as “strange”—a threat, even. Cultural relativism can only go so far when cultures have to constantly prove that they are not inherently unethical.

The Overlap Between Structure and Culture

For many, the simple act of implanting oneself into a new context through immigration demonstrates a certain amount of willingness, perhaps even desire, to moderate one’s own ethics and culture, so as to fit into the dominant culture.

Similarly, immigration demonstrates a willingness/desire to work within the structure of the new country to achieve heights not available in the homeland. However, Gabi described to me how repeated rejection by the dominant society and comparatively bleaker prospects—particularly among Muslim immigrants and minorities—can understandably push them to see themselves as victims, and maybe even push them to radicalize. Thus, the ideas of structural and cultural integration are inherently connected.

28 I actually noticed this myself when attending Friday services at a mosque in Kreuzberg. I was warmly welcomed and showed where the women pray, where to put my shoes, and how to cover my hair. The services were read aloud in Arabic, with screens featuring translations into Turkish, German, English, and other languages. The main topic of the service that day was Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, and the importance of charity. Also highly emphasized was the proper interpretation of Islam. I assume this sentiment stems from wanting to disassociate from the terrorist/Jihadist reputation of Islam.

78 It is a similar, and yet slightly different, story for refugees. Drastic cases such as the infamous drowned Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, elicit a more personal sense of sympathy for refugees, as compared to immigrants and minorities. In fact, Merkel’s decision to open the German borders and aid the Syrian refugee crisis came shortly after Kurdi’s death. Many Germans responded enthusiastically, donating supplies and greeting refugees upon their arrival with welcome banners. However, those initial feelings soured just a few months later after multiple women were sexually assaulted in Cologne on New

Years Eve, and they soured further after the 2016 terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market. These incidents contributed to many Germans’ beliefs that Islam is ultimately incompatible with German culture. As a result, subsequent measures to aid the structural integration of refugees have lost support.

Once again, structural and cultural integration are dependent on one another.

The lower economic status of immigrants, minorities, and refugees separates them from the dominant culture, contributing to cultural misunderstandings and discrimination.

Discriminatory views then rationalize and sustain their lower economic status. And so on.

This catch-22 ultimately prevents interaction between ethnic Germans and non-ethnic

Germans. It can affect virtually all immigrants, minorities, and refugees, but it is particularly difficult for Muslims, whose cultures are perceived as especially “strange.”

Spatially and ideologically, they remain “strangers” in their new land.

79 Chapter 5: Schaffen Wir Das?:29 Global Governance in the Refugee Crisis and

National, Local, or Individual Responsibility for Integration

I don’t think we have a real integration policy, that’s the problem. No, what we have is a sequence of short-term measures, but no integrated, strategic policy. There’s no coherence. There is no vision. I still don’t know where our government is heading to. I don’t know where Angela Merkel wants us to be in, let’s say, 10/15 years. I have no idea. It’s…what would you call…muddling through? (Interview #2)

Chapter 3 described the reactive nature of German citizenship policy, due largely to Germany’s considerable delay in even thinking of itself as an immigration country.

The above quote from Mathilde suggests that this problem of reactivity extends to the subsequent integration of immigrants and minorities in Germany. However, citizenship is at least a long-term commitment. Integration policy, on the other hand, has been characterized by ambivalent, short-term policies that do not truly help ethnic minorities integrate into the social fabric of Germany. So while Germany may show a new openness to the idea of ethnic minorities eventually becoming de jure Germans, there is still great hesitation in regards to helping them become de facto Germans.

This chapter will first begin with a discussion of Germany’s asylum laws,

Merkel’s decision in the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis, and my interviewees’ suggestions about what needs to be done going forward. This topic may seem tangential, but Germany’s asylum policies—particularly in regards to the Syrian refugee crisis—fall into the same trend of reactivity as its citizenship and integration laws, and the same trend of short-term measures as the latter. Furthermore, individuals may be granted refuge for a number of years, but the goal of asylum is not necessarily permanent residence or

29 Translation: “Can we do it?” playing off of Angela Merkel’s 2015 catchphrase “Wir schaffen das” (we can do it), in regards to the refugee crisis.

80 citizenship. Thus, a refugee, once approved, can end up sharing many of the same integration experiences as immigrants and minorities, without even the benefit of the more long-term status as a de jure German. Essentially, Germany’s “muddling through” ends up affecting immigrants, minorities, and refugees in similar ways. Accordingly, the chapter will then go on to focus on what those integration policies that have been implemented thus far for immigrants, minorities, and refugees (at both the national and local levels) actually are, as well as the integration policies my respondents feel still need to be implemented.

The Development of German Asylum Law, the Refugee Crisis, and Global

Responsibility

Chapter 2 touched upon some of the fundamental changes that took place within the German psyche after the Second World War. Germany became what many scholars would call a “civilian power,” or a country that “promotes multilateralism, institution- building and supranational integration” (Markowitz and Reich 1997; Katzenstein 1996;

Rittberger 1999; Maull 2004: 89). In summary, German became the ultimate team player.

Additionally, “never again” took on a special importance, endowing Germans with a great respect for human rights and a strong antipathy to nationalism and militarism. The

1949 constitution’s granting of asylum to anyone being persecuted for political reasons is perhaps the best reflection of this attitude.

However, through experiences such as the flood of refugees after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Germany learned that human rights, international cooperation, and pragmatism do not always go hand-in-hand. Needless to say, German (and European)

81 asylum law has changed considerably since 1949.30 By 2015, the faults of the newer asylum policies became obvious, as certain countries—most notably, those surrounding the Mediterranean—had to bear the brunt of the overall global refugee crisis, concerning migrants from both the Middle East and Africa. These developments presented Germany with a dilemma: what happens when the international institutions Germany has come to trust lack strong leadership, are hampered by self-interest among their members, and are lacking in resources to adequately address international human rights problems? Angela

Merkel’s answer was to open the German borders and begin processing asylum applications from Syrian refugees, even those who may have previously touched down in a safe third country. I explored the initial enthusiasm and eventual anger over this decision in the previous chapter. Now I will look more closely at the nuanced views of my interviewees, addressing their dilemma between human rights and pragmatism and their sense that a solution will be neither truly helpful nor truly practical without concerted, global effort.

My respondents’ reactions to Merkel’s decision reflected a somewhat ambivalent support; there was little to no outright enthusiasm, nor outright rejection. Stefan explained, “I thought that was good, that someone would do something on the basis of her conscience rather than on the basis of politics” (Interview #6). Many of my interviewees believed that the Syrian refugee crisis is more of an ethical than political

30 Specifically, the German Asylum Compromise established that any asylum seeker who has previously reached a “safe third country” (any other EU member, as well as a few other countries) can be denied entry; the Dublin Regulation then essentially expanded this idea to apply to all of Europe, requiring refugees to apply for asylum in the first country they reach. However, the fundamental principle still stands: those facing genuine political persecution in non-“safe” countries and who can make their way directly to Germany will not be turned away.

82 issue, and that human rights must therefore take precedence. At the same time, they had pragmatic considerations. Stefan admitted that “the different institutions were overwhelmed by [the refugees]” and that there wasn’t really a way to prepare, “because it was just so many people…and nobody really knew how long the war in Syria…would last” (Interview #6). Johannes was my only interviewee who blatantly told me he did not think Merkel’s opening of the borders was right. However, he went on to qualify his statement, saying, “Sie hat sie unkontrolliert reingelassen” (She let them in unregulated)

(Interview #4). His view comes more from a place of criticism for how the refugees were let in, not whether they should be let in or not. He feels that within Germany, mechanisms of registration need to be more thorough and efficient.

Ultimately, however, Johannes expressed exasperation at Germany being left alone in this situation. Uli agreed, asserting that the refugees should be divided between all countries. He implicated the United States, in particular, as needing to take responsibility for the Syrian refugee crisis, due to its aggressive foreign policy in the region. Both Uli and Johannes agreed that the refugees should return to Syria when the conflict is over and help to rebuild. Furthermore, Europe—and the rest of the world, especially world powers like Russia, the United States, and China—should supplement these efforts in the Middle East, and Africa too, to ensure that no one has reason to leave their country in the first place.

I see clear parallels between these views and Germany’s post-war experience.

Collaborative, international efforts helped Germany become what it is today, and thus many Germans believe in the power of global governance to solve the present refugee crisis. Yet, as I mentioned above, international institutions are increasingly seen as

83 ineffective, which is reflected in secessionist movements such as Brexit. Germany, as a country that benefits considerably from institutions like the EU and UN, errs on the side of addressing these problems through reform and renewal instead31. Obviously, these are long-term projects that will take some time to reach agreement and ultimately implement.

Until that time, the large-scale international cooperation Uli and Johannes propose for solving the refugee crisis is unlikely. In the meantime, it is probably more productive to explore how my interviewees believe the crisis should have been handled and should be handled, going forward, in their own country.

Sabrina was adamant that decisions about whether those who come to Germany seeking refuge are allowed to stay or not should be made more quickly. The process of applying for asylum in Germany involves an investigation that can last months, and rejected applicants can appeal, potentially extending the process multiple years. In the meantime, asylum seekers must be housed (in refugee camps or more formal reception centers and collective accommodations) and cared for at public expense. German sociologist Hermann Kurthen calculated that the annual cost, at least during the 1992

31 The reforms suggested for the UN so far have revolved around refiguring the antiquated and exclusive structure of the UN Security Council, demanding more economic support and manpower for UN peacekeeping operations, and establishing clearer parameters for when and how to intervene, in order to strengthen the UN’s capacity to handle development and environmental problems (Knapp 2004: 205-214). In regards to the EU, the younger generation in general—having grown up entirely within the structure of the EU and within a world without Cold War political divisions—are some of its most ardent supporters. I had the opportunity to attend an event regarding the “Rome Manifesto,” a document developed by a group of young European scholars and professionals with the support of the German-Italian Centre for European Excellency Villa Vigoni and United Europe, a Hamburg-based pro-European non-profit. The manifesto declares that “the European Union of today is unfit to face the major challenges of our time,” reaffirms that the European identity is diverse, rejects nationalism, and ultimately proposes the creation of a new “European Federal Union.” This institution would be more democratic and transparent, featuring checks and balances between a legislative, executive, and judicial branch (Rome Manifesto 2017).

84 post-USSR flood of refugees, was about 22 billion US dollars (1995: 925). By not making their decisions more quickly and definitively, the German government is wasting large sums of money on people it may not even accept into the country. Even those who are ultimately granted the more permanent status of refugee cannot join the economic fabric of Germany and, hypothetically at least, be less of a burden on the state until that point of approval.

Furthermore, the lengthy duration of the application process leaves tons of asylum seekers in limbo, unsure of whether they could be approved or deported at any moment.

As Sabrina explains, “I guess you don’t get well-integrated as long as you don’t have the feeling that you can stay here” (Interview #1).32 Even for those who are eventually approved, the numerous months they spent in limbo do not start them off on a good path towards integration in German society. In regards to those who are rejected, for whatever reason, Sabrina believes that it would be best for them to go back to their home countries.

Gabi concurred with this, saying the deportation system is too lenient, even for noncitizen immigrants and minorities. She understands that deportation can be a human rights issue, but if Germany does not stand by its asylum and residency rejections, those decisions will have no effect and encourage people to remain in the country illegally.

As for the number of refugees that Germany has accepted, when I asked my interviewees if they believed it was too many, or at least too many at one time, Gabi answered bluntly, “Hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette” (Interview #11). This phrase is idiomatic, but the roughly translated equivalent would probably be “would’ve, could’ve,

32 To a lesser degree, this phenomenon affects immigrants and those with migration backgrounds as well. Prior to becoming citizens, these people live in Germany on the basis of residence permits, sometimes temporary, and have to regularly renew them.

85 should’ve.” Essentially, those decisions are in the past, and now that the refugees are here, Germany must provide the necessary humanitarian help. Mathilde meets this challenge with optimism: “I think actually both our democracy, our society, but also our economy are strong enough to take them on” (Interview #2). The Syrian refugee crisis is a very new (and ongoing) phenomenon, so it is difficult to evaluate whether Germany has succeeded according to Mathilde’s expectations. Therefore, from this point on, I will be exploring the measures various levels of German government have historically taken to promote integration among Muslim immigrants and minorities, with the assumption that those measures do and will affect Muslim refugees as well.

Integration at the National Level: The German Islam Conference

Chapter 2 explored the naiveté of the guest worker policies in Germany, with the government assuming that these laborers, largely Turkish Muslims, would only remain in

Germany for their designated period of employment. Accordingly, the guest worker program did not include any comprehensive integration plan, and certainly no cultural integration plan catered specifically to those workers deemed especially “strange,” such as Muslims. Why try to integrate those who the German government did not envision as future citizens, or even long-term residents? Instead, the government largely pursued a policy of salutary neglect. In his 2012 book Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The

State’s Role in Minority Integration, Boston College political science professor Jonathan

Laurence notes that from 1960 to 1990, the management of Islam was outsourced (14-

86 16). For example, imams33 would be largely foreign themselves and receive their training in Turkey or other Muslim lands, as opposed to Germany. So even as many Muslim guest workers chose to remain, reunite their families, and have children in Germany, their cultural and religious lives remained tied to their Muslim homelands. These insufficient integration measures have resulted in the ethnic enclaves, interethnic conflict, and increasing fears of terrorism described in the previous chapter, making it clear over time that outsourcing would not be a sustainable solution for Germany.

Thus, in 2006, the Deutsche Islam Konferenz (German Islam Conference) was established. This forum seeks long-term dialogue between the German state and the

Muslims within its borders and has met repeatedly since its inception. It consists of

German politicians, representatives from Germany’s largest Muslim associations, and

“public intellectuals” to represent “the majority of non-organized Muslims” (Deutsche

Islam Konferenz 2009: 8, in Lewicki 2014: 64). The goals, on the German side, have been to “free European Muslims from direct foreign government oversight” and “to marginalize a fringe, vocal, and occasionally violent minority by incorporating the moderate silent majority” (Laurence 2012: 12, 135). Essentially, the German Islam

Conference represents the government’s first formal effort to go beyond tolerating Islam in their country to actively encouraging the development of a moderate German Islam.

The goals, on the Muslim side, have centered around what political philosopher

Will Kymlicka would call “polyethnic rights.” Kymlicka defines this term in his important 1995 work Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights:

33 This is the title for the Islamic leadership position responsible for leading worship in mosques.

87 Polyethnic rights…are intended to help ethnic groups and religious minorities express their cultural particularity and pride without it hampering their success in the economic and political institutions of the dominant society….These polyethnic rights are not seen as temporary, because the cultural differences they protect are not something we seek to eliminate (31).

Essentially, measures beyond the common rights of citizenship (freedom of assembly, religion, expression, etc.) are sometimes necessary to accommodate and integrate the cultural/religious differences of minority groups. These measures may include financial support, representation, group-specific rights and exemptions, etc.

This arrangement is not actually new to Germany. Other religions or religious sects, such as Catholicism and Judaism, have gained polyethnic rights through agreements made in the 19th and 20th centuries.34 Aleksandra Lewicki explains that the

German constitution actually permits a closer state-church relationship, in which religious communities deliver social services like healthcare and social work, while receiving funding from tax dollars35 in return (2014: 63). Furthermore, those religious communities get a certain amount of political influence as well. If formally recognized as

“corporations of public law,” they may attend parliamentary hearings and participate in various committees meant to represent German society and its interest groups (Lewicki

2014: 63). Beyond funding and representation, these groups also gain rights and exemptions specific to their faiths, for instance “ritual animal slaughter facilities, separate

34 Clearly, this process has been historically problematic for German Jews, and this fact will be addressed in the next chapter. But today, Germany’s dark history surrounding the Jews is precisely what makes these agreements with the contemporary Jewish community so enduring. 35 Germany actually does have a church tax, for those who affiliate themselves with a a religion while filling out tax forms. I learned from my host family that it is possible to get around this by officially declaring yourself nonreligious, even if you are religious, so the number of people paying the tax doesn’t necessarily reflect the size of the religious community. Church taxes are collected for the Christian and Jewish communities.

88 cemetery sections, sufficient places of worship, recognized parochial schools and/or religious education in public schools36, routine procedures for the appointment of chaplains in the public institutions, and so forth” (Laurence 2012: 106). Gaining official recognition as a “corporation of public law” would undoubtedly be beneficial for Muslim integration in Germany as well, and it has thus been one of the primary goals of the

Muslim representatives invited to the German Islam Conference.

Indeed, the conference has resulted in some concessions for German Muslims over the years: halal slaughter permissions, the nomination of military chaplains, permission to begin organizing public school religious education, funding to establish

Islamic theology departments in universities, civic education for imams, support for promoting proficiency in multiple languages, the inclusion of Muslim history and culture in school curricula, and so on. (Laurence 2012: 26, Lewicki 2014: 87). Laurence also highlights the 2008 election of Ahmed Aboutaleb as the mayor of Rotterdam and Cem

Özdemir as the chairman of the German Green Party as evidence of increasing political integration (2012: 259). Yet designation as a “corporation of public law” and many other privileges afforded the Jewish and Catholic communities still elude the Muslim community. Furthermore, the second phase of the German Islam Conference—started in

2010 to focus on the actual implementation of the agreements reached from 2006-2009—

36 Religious education is actually part of the public school curriculum in Germany. Students have the choice between Catholic or Protestant classes, and many schools now have a non-religious “ethics” option as well. Judaism classes are limited, probably because there are simply not many Jews in Germany anyway, and Islam classes are virtually nonexistent.

89 basically reversed many of these agreements37. Ultimately, the German Islam Conference can hardly be considered a groundbreaking success.

The minimal achievements of the conference can probably be attributed largely to its unequal nature. Laurence describes the negotiations as very “neo-corporatist” in style, with the “interest group” of Muslim representatives “not only represent[ing] the interests of their members vis-à-vis the state but also the state’s interest vis-à-vis their members”

(2012: 123). The state then grants the “interest group” certain advantages, but also obligations, and it seems that the government took its latter role more seriously. As

Lewicki explains, “The government drew on statistical and especially legal expert knowledge to justify its pre-set policy objectives, while the actual democratic input – the equality claim articulated by Muslim representatives – was side-lined” (2014: 86). The government has prioritized its interests over compromise, leading the forum in the direction of predetermined, moderate, and self-serving outcomes.

Annika Hinze attributes this result to the general lack of culturally competent

Germans in politics, as well as the reluctance to address the exclusion of immigrants for fear of losing voters (2013: 72). German politicians still represent and are beholden to citizens that are mainly fellow ethnic Germans and thus feel little obligation to educate themselves about and address the needs of an unpopular minority. What may finally change this tendency is the simple fact that the German electorate is changing. Laurence explains that—with the introduction of ius soli citizenship in 2000, as explained in

37 The new Minister of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich announced that Islam is not a part of German culture and reconfigured the representatives invited to the forum, blatantly excluding or at least discouraging many of the organizations previously involved from participating (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2011 and Busch and Goltz 2011: 33-35, 41, in Lewicki 88-89).

90 Chapter 3—Germany has been gaining 50,000 to 100,000 newborn German citizens with a Muslim background every year, the first full generation of which have only recently become eligible to vote (2012: 258). As more and more German Muslims gain the right to express themselves, not just to the German political structure but rather from within it, democratic processes will inevitably kick in. In the meantime, Laurence remarks that

“local pragmatism” can be more productive than national-level consultations, where the stakes are often too high (2012: 195). To illustrate this point, I will examine Neukölln, the district I lived in, as a case study.

Integration at the Local Level: Buschkowsky’s Ten-Point Integration Plan in

Neukölln

During my first few days in Germany, I learned about Neukölln’s reputation. My professors told me that, ten years ago, if you told someone you were from Neukölln, you would be met with a look of horror. The district was known for its ethnic conflict, drug- dealing, crime, bad public schools, etc. This reputation has improved in recent years, probably partly because of the gentrification spilling over from the neighboring, equally affordable, and yet undeniably hipper district of Kreuzberg. Even more integral, however, was the local government’s acknowledgement and direct engagement, finally, with

Neukölln’s problems. This policy change took place under Heinz Buschkowsky, who instituted a ten-point integration plan while serving as mayor of the district from 2001 to

2015.

As part of this plan, the administration proposed an unofficial quota, whereby the district should seek “to educate and hire between 30 percent and 45 percent of its

91 workforce among immigrants.” They also acknowledged that female immigrants need extra support, calling attention to non-profit centers such as Gabi’s that promote female empowerment. The House of Juvenile Justice in the Lessinghöhe subdistrict began a free legal counseling service for foreign children and parents. In regards to education, the administration began subsidizing afterschool programs in the arts and requiring schools to hire social workers/intercultural moderators to advise and mediate between schools, parents, and students. They even created the new Campus Rütli, a merging of three previously independent Neukölln schools (a Grundschule, Hauptschule, and Realschule), to promote integration and concentrate funding and opportunities. Buschkowsky also initiated the highly unique Stadtteilmütter, or “District Mothers” program, which trains non-German mothers to spread the word about important matters such as language classes, kindergarten enrollment, regular medical checkups, etc. to their own ethnic communities. The administration also established a formal advisory council in 2002— consisting of representatives from immigrant and charitable organizations, schools, police, and local government—that discusses issues and makes policy recommendations.

(Hinze 2013: 171-2, City Council of Berlin-Neukölln 2009: 7-13). It is evident that these policies are all highly practical and structure-focused, in comparison to those discussed during the German Islam Conference.

However, even the Buschkowsky administration ended up playing a somewhat similar, subjugating role. The ten-point integration plan, for all its progressiveness, still implied that immigrants simply lack the motivation to pursue an education or a career, their criminal activities need to be policed particularly rigorously, and they need to be

“reminded of and educated about the ‘free democratic basic order’ outlined by the

92 German constitution (Hinze 2013: 172, 131). This rhetoric depoliticizes ethnic problems, attributing them to the individual’s own culture or religion and demanding a more total assimilation. This total assimilation clearly has not happened yet, as the structural and cultural dis-integration described in the last chapter demonstrates. So, despite all that the

Buschkowsky administration’s measures have achieved in bettering Neukölln and its reputation, there is still much more work to be done.

Necessary Measures Going Forward

This section will address the solutions my interviewees put forward for addressing many of the enduring problems of integration. Perhaps the most important focus of their suggestions was education. Statistics show that earlier, more tailored programs for immigrant children correspond to a considerably higher probability of them achieving a higher education level overall (Wagner et al. 1998: 44). Some German cities have already been taking this information into account with new programs, and Hugo told me about an initiative at his school to establish a “welcome class.” These classes focus on early language education, both for refugees and those whose language abilities are generally lacking, with the intention of eventually integrating the students into regular German schools. Hugo told me that he was skeptical at first, but that his school took twelve children, many of whom were then able to join the regular classes after just one year.

Speaking both from her own and her children’s experience, Medina expressed to me her belief that the education system works better when Germans and Turks aren’t separated, and programs such as welcome classes can evidently help in this regard. Medina also brought up the fact that most of her teachers growing up were ethnic Germans. Gabi’s

93 experience employing those with a migrant background at her center has shown her that their similar life experiences and perspectives allow them to better understand and help the center’s multicultural clientele. Similarly, non-German schoolchildren could only benefit from having teachers, not just school service workers, who look and think like them. Like Neukölln’s unofficial job quota, this kind of measure would require the state to commit to training and hiring non-German educators.

As for older children, Gabi suggested the implementation of apprenticeship programs for Muslim men, in order to earn them a little money, get them acquainted to the German language and culture, and re-educate them to reject their ultra-masculine ways. Similarly, Christina emphasized the necessity of after-school centers for teens, to provide them with a place to go (preventing them from falling in with a bad crowd) and guidance they can’t always get at home.

Regarding life after schooling, many of my interviewees lamented Germany’s loose social assistance yet strict employment policies38 for noncitizens, the combination of which naturally contributes to a high degree of welfare dependency among immigrants, refugees, and their subsequent generations who have yet to attain citizenship.

In fact, statistics show that from the mid-1980s to 1993, the number of non-Germans on welfare increased fourfold (Voges, Frick, and Büchel 1998: 164). This dramatic increase has led some Germans to frame this dependency as abuse and push for cutting welfare assistance for non-Germans. Medina points out the double standard in this thinking, since many Germans also rely on social welfare, and Germany can hardly be considered too poor to provide it. Furthermore, according to scholars Hermann Kurthen, Jürgen

38 Employers must prioritize workers from EU countries, unless an immigrant has particularly in-demand and high-level skills and qualifications.

94 Fijalkowski, and Gert Wagner, welfare dependency should theoretically be a “transitory” phenomenon and abuse is usually “quantitatively rather insignificant,” unless “conditions in the host society hamper an adequate accumulation of knowledge, abilities, and credentials” (1998: 215-6). Welfare can be an investment for the future, when used as a supplement to, not a substitute for, economic integration.

Many of my interviewees understood this fact. Sabrina told me she thinks the government should allow more immigrants and refugees to work and even encourage them to take risks, similar to the “pull yourself up by your own boot straps” American attitude (Interview #1). One concrete form of encouragement, as suggested by Galina, would be incentivized employment, since it makes little sense to get less social assistance for more effort and end up just as poor, or even poorer, than before. Of course, Clara pointed out the perhaps more obvious, self-serving benefit, which is that that allowing more immigrants and refugees to work would be cheaper overall for the Germans.

However, she also noted that it could benefit those individuals’ own social and cultural integration, as they would inevitably come in contact with German coworkers and learn the language in the process.

Along this same line, many of my respondents emphasized the importance of civic and linguistic education, but also called attention to the need for stricter standards of achievement. Galina feels that, by immigrating to a country, you are signing an

Ehevertrag (marriage contract) of sorts with that country. Like any contract, there are conditions, such as learning the language, history, and culture. Gabi told me that— provided that these conditions are fairly communicated in a way that is neither racist nor

95 condescending39—both her and her non-German coworkers support putting more pressure on immigrants, refugees, and minorities to fulfill them. One method of pressure could be incentives: “Wer ein Deutschkurs macht, und die Deutschprüfung gut macht, kriegt vom Staat 100 Euro mehr im Monat” (Those who take a German class and do well on the test will receive 100 Euros more from the state every month) (Interview #11). Gabi even suggested making weekly calls to ensure that immigrants and refugees are keeping up with their classes. Overall, she feels that it is important to treat them like capable people, and that also means holding them accountable.

These last suggested measures ultimately shift the responsibility of integration away from the receiving society and to the immigrants, refugees, and minorities themselves. Indeed, Johannes told me he is more conservative in this regard and feels that the arrangement should not be 50/50. Galina, from her own experience, surprisingly concurs: “Wenn ich habe diese Land für mich gewählt, dann soll ich lernen, mich glücklich in diese Land zu fühlen. Das ist meine Verantwortung; das ist nicht Aufgabe von Deutsche das ich glücklich hier bin” (If I chose this country for myself, then I should learn how to be happy in this country. That is my responsibility; it is not the Germans’ job to ensure that I am happy here) (Interview #9). Mathilde points out that refugees, whose migration was motived more by what they were running away from and not what they were running to, cannot be held to this same standard. Otherwise, however, she feels

39 Hugo also addressed the fact these conditions should have been communicated earlier, during the guest worker period. Because this program was envisioned as temporary, Germany was not committed to dealing with these issues at the time. As a result, Germany now has difficulty integrating not only newcomers, but also long-standing immigrant groups already in the country.

96 that Germany offers immigrants and minorities wonderful opportunities, and it is on them to seize those.

This attitude ultimately reflects the same rhetoric present in the German Islam

Conference and Buschkowsky’s integration plan, what Aleksandra Lewicki would call

“conditionality.” Conditionality “assumes that individual and collective rights to political, cultural and economic participation are conditional upon further efforts on the part of the minority” (Lewicki 2014: 62). Foreigners can only make incremental gains towards equality in accordance with their level of conformity to their new homeland, rationalizing economic and political marginalization until they reach a satisfactory level of integration.

Even once foreigners do reach this level, their conditional integration helps to sustain the cultural hegemony of the majority group. Germany’s only “real integration policy” is to make immigrants, minorities, and refugees as German as possible, and as Mathilde expressed at the beginning of the chapter, this plan is simply not a strategic or sustainable solution.

97 Chapter 6: Jews and Muslims: Applying the Lessons of the Past to the Present

through Holocaust Education

The Jews’ tragedy was not only their persecution and extermination because they were different, religiously, ethnically, and according to the Nazis racially, but also the fact that in Germany their common ties through citizenship and nationhood meant nothing. (Peck 2006: 103)

I ended the previous chapter by explaining Aleksandra Lewicki’s theory of

“conditionality,” which requires foreign individuals to satisfy certain conditions of integration in order to earn rights to political, cultural, and economic inclusion. The above quote—written by Jeffrey Peck, a Jewish American cultural studies scholar who currently teaches at Berlin’s Humboldt University—demonstrates how Jews in 20th century Germany can be seen as a perfect example of this conditionality. They satisfied all the conditions of integration, even developing “common ties through citizenship and nationhood” with Germans. Yet German Jews were never truly seen as German. Thus, in this chapter, I hope to break down exactly why conditionality did not work and will not work, going forward.

I will begin by sharing my interviewees’ views on the differences between Jews and Muslims, which I will then complicate. The next section will address the development and efficacy of Holocaust education in Germany as a method of overcoming the past. I will then detail my respondents’ suggestions on how Holocaust education can be improved and expanded to make its lessons feel not only more personally relatable, but also more applicable to the present and future.

98 Historical Comparison: Jews and Muslims

When I asked my interviewees whether they think views of Muslims today are at all similar to views of the Jewish people in earlier historical eras, many of them told me they did not think this was the case. Hugo said, “Diese jüdischen Menschen…die sind ja jetzt nicht fremd hierher gekommen. Mit dem hat man zusammen gelebt” (These Jewish people…they did not come here just now as strangers. The Germans have lived together with them) (Interview #10). With this statement, he is calling to mind the more than

2,000-year history of the Jews in the German lands, making it abundantly clear that the

Jews were not strangers. Mathilde went a step farther, problematizing talk of “Jews and

Americans” or “Jews and Germans”:

You compare a religion with a nationality. It’s a religion. So there were Jewish people living at that time in Germany. They were ordinary German citizens, in all parts of society, everywhere. They participated in life, they worked, they contributed, they fought in World War I. (Interview #2)

Jews were not only not strangers, they were Germans themselves.

Comparatively, my interviewees feel that Muslims are new and undeniably foreign. As explained by Mathilde, the current refugees and immigrants are literally

“from a different country”—in a way that Jews, prior to the founding of Israel, were not—and “they have a different culture. They don’t speak our language, they have a different religion” (Interview #2). Clearly, the latter point applies to the Jews as well, but

Mathilde explained that it is not so much the difference in religion, but the way Muslims practice it, that is the problem. For example, Hugo said that Muslims are often seen as

“aggressive,” “eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth,” and “warlike.” (Interview #10). Many

Germans worry that Islamic leaders do not educate worshippers on faith, but on conflict, power, and terror, values that are inherently incompatible with German society.

99 Furthermore, Sabrina pointed out how visible Muslims and Arabs are, aesthetically and numbers-wise, in their difference. There are plenty of other “others” in Germany, such as

Poles and Russians, but they can virtually blend as long as they don’t speak and reveal their accents. All of these factors combine to distinguish Muslim immigrants, refugees, and minorities as particularly non-German.

Another point that many of my interviewees made is that Jews were highly successful Germans. Despite being frequently limited to hated occupations, usually concerning finance, many Jews were able to make the most of their situations, sometimes becoming more successful than non-Jews. Johannes even pointed out that many of the most important literary figures and musicians throughout German history have been

Jewish. Given these circumstances, Uli felt it was almost inevitable that Jews would become objects of jealousy and resentment.

On the other hand, the Muslims and Arabs coming to Germany now have the reputation of being a burden on the state. Jeffrey Peck explains that most of them are poor, uneducated, and “have come from economically disadvantaged countries and nations ravaged by war, some as legitimate political refugees threatened with death, torture, or imprisonment, and others as economic refugees, seeking a better future” (Peck

2006: 103). They have little to offer but need a lot of help. Johannes, in particular, expressed dismay and doubt about how allowing the Arabs to empty out their own continent and come to Germany could possibly function long-term. Now that many of them are here, Katrin described how some Germans fear that these newcomers will take their jobs, take their pensions, seduce their children, etc. Christina spoke about how Arab gangs have created a dangerous and criminal “second society” that the police can’t do

100 anything about (Interview #3). All of this rhetoric is quite different from that surrounding the Jews prior to the Second World War. The attitude towards Muslims seems to be more one of bitterness at the possibility of them dragging the entirety of German society down with them.

While I respect and agree with my interviewees’ opinions to a certain point, I also want to challenge them, because they have the invaluable benefit of hindsight. In order to do this, I will be exploring the characteristics of genocidal nationalism, as elucidated by

Elizabeth Hope Murray in her 2014 article “Re-evaluating Otherness in Genocidal

Ideology.” Murray is a scholar of African history, genocide, and climate change at the

University of Hamburg.

In Chapter 3, I spoke about how identifying the “self” inherently means identifying the “other.” Otherness is not inherently bad, as the relatively easy, or at least easier, integration of countless non-ethnic German immigrants demonstrates. For otherness to be at risk of genocidal nationalism, Murray explains that it must occupy the ideological role of “absolute antithesis to the nation,” what she calls the “anti-nation”

(2014: 44). This description may seem dramatic, but Murray breaks it down further into a number of characteristics that identify a group as an anti-nation. One is religion, as

“religion streamlines customs, provides structure for a belief in common descent and unifies historical perceptions, thereby becoming one of the primary culture bearers—even in seemingly secular states” (Murray 2014: 44-5). Muslims and Jews are clearly different in this regard, although Judaism is probably more accepted by and certainly more familiar to the Western world at this point. However, Jeffrey Alexander explains how Christianity enabled the creation of the community and institutions of civil society as we understand

101 them today: “As a universalizing cultural code, Christianity saw itself as creating a community of equals in which membership was voluntary and interpersonal relationships were trusting and solidary” (2006: 462-3). The Jews, historically seen as hegemonic and exclusive, certainly did not fit into this civil society in its beginning stages.

Another characteristic of the anti-nation is alliances with national enemies, painting the former as an “enemy within” (Murray 2014: 45). This implication was somewhat present in many of my interviewees’ characterization of Muslims as truly foreign. Germany’s relations with the African and Middle Eastern nations from which refugees and immigrants are coming are probably more tenuous than outright antagonistic. However, it is an undeniable fact that those refugees and immigrants will have some degree of foreign alliance, or at least connection. The case of the Jews is a bit different, and my respondents acknowledged this fact in describing just how long the

Jews had occupied German lands and distinguishing them as strange, but not foreign. The fact is, as I mentioned earlier, the Jews previously lacked a homeland. However, Peck explains that this lack of a fixed home was, in and of itself, seen as untrustworthy (2006:

102). The Jews lacked accountability to anyone but their individual selves.

The final characteristic of the anti-nation is historical animosity. This may be the biggest difference between Jews and Muslims. Certainly, anti-Semitism is unique. As summarized by Johannes, “Das ist eine uralte Haßliebe” (That is an ancient love-hate relationship) (Interview #4). Sabrina pointed out that Muslims, on the other hand, benefited historically from fantasies of “the Orient.” Problematic or not, their culture was seen as exotic. Sabrina explains the distinction between these historical attitudes as “the near and the far other,” saying that aggression is usually directed against the “near”

102 others (Interview #1). The Muslims only became the “near” others—for many nations, not just Germany—fairly recently, so Islamophobia is a comparatively newer phenomenon.

All of the above-mentioned characteristics combined to make Jews the ultimate anti-nation throughout all of their diasporic history. Yet, paradoxically, before the horrors of the mid-20th century, many European countries began pursuing policies of Jewish emancipation. Jeffrey Alexander explains that, in exchange for privileges such as citizenship and equality, these policies required Jews to “stop being the other and become, as much as possible, like the founders themselves” (2006: 456). Essentially, emancipation relied on an assimilative mode of incorporation. Alexander warns that it is important not to view this demand “ahistorically”:

In the context of a deeply anti-Semitic civilization, to suggest that Jews had the capacity to act like Christians actually was enlightened and progressive, for it reflected the universalistic belief that, somewhere inside themselves, Jews possessed the same fundamental capacities as other persons (2006: 465).

Assimilation was an invitation, allowing the Jews to absolve themselves from their role of anti-nation. Realizing this opportunity, many Jews were willing and eager to overlook the conditionality of the arrangement. For example, even famed Jewish enlightenment thinker Moses Mendelsohn advised his fellow Jews in 1783 to “adopt the mores and constitution of the country in which you find yourself, but be steadfast in upholding the religion of your fathers, too” (Alexander 2006: 477). The hope was that Jews could maintain a split between their public and private lives.

Of course, we know now that no extent of assimilation would ever be enough, nor would the stigma of the anti-nation ever fully disappear. In fact, Alexander uses Germany as an example that “the more successful at assimilation the Jews were, the more anti-

103 Jewish antagonism could actually be produced” (2006: 496). Murray also categorizes “a persistent perception of the anti-nation thriving in a time of national decline” as the first step in the “ideological progression of radicalization” (2014: 52). Jewish history demonstrates the inherent instability of the assimilation project. It is a project intended to fail, if groups only retain the stigma of the anti-nation and become targets of jealous resentment the more they assimilate. So while my respondents were absolutely correct in pointing out the difference between the jealousy towards the Jews higher up versus the bitterness towards Muslims lower down, I think this observation negates their continued insistence on conditional, assimilative policies to integrate Muslims. Integration must be a two-way street. Accordingly, in the same way that my respondents emphasize the role of education in helping Muslims integrate, I think education could be integral to helping

Germans, on an individual level, become more accepting of otherness. Holocaust education perhaps represents the first attempt at this kind of program in Germany, so I will examine its history and current form before sharing my interviewee’s suggestions on how to improve and/or change it.

Holocaust Education: Development and Effects

The majority of my respondents are in or past their middle age, meaning their school years constituted the first few decades following the war. Despite all of

Germany’s economic achievements during this time, the Holocaust was still a traumatic, suppressed elephant in the room. Therefore, I was not surprised to hear that most of my older interviewees received little to no information about the Holocaust in school. The unique exception would be Johannes, who grew up in the GDR. He told me he learned a

104 great deal about the crimes of the Nazis. He also declared, “Ich bin für das Rest meines

Lebens ein Antifaschist” (I am an anti-facist for the rest of my life), showing just how effective these history lessons were (Interview #4). However, Peck notes that historians in the GDR largely neglected to engage with the racial dimensions of the Holocaust

(2006: 98). The SED’s widespread use of the specter of Nazism was ultimately self- serving, helping them to rationalize the need for their own socialist ideology.

This lack of engagement would change, at least in West Germany, with the student movement of 1968. This movement was characterized by younger generations beginning to question their elders about what they had been up to during wartime and pushing for the shame and secrecy surrounding the Holocaust to be brought out into the open. As a result, engagement with the Holocaust changed dramatically; you can hardly go anywhere in Germany now without being bombarded by plaques, memorials,

Stolpersteine, etc. Of course, Holocaust education in schools has changed dramatically as well. Mathilde told me it is now a part of the curriculum in almost every subject, from

12-years-old up to Abitur, sometimes to the point of being too much. In fact, all of my younger interviewees—and some of my older ones as well, in speaking about their children’s experiences—expressed similar frustrations.

These frustrations are perhaps even more pronounced among Germans from other parts of the former East, excluding the unique case of Berlin. Now that the initial euphoria of reunification has died down, the reality of economic inequality has set in.

Peck explains that all the financial support that goes towards Germany’s miniscule

Jewish population, not to mention the Muslim newcomers, is a “slap in the face” to the disadvantaged Easterners (2006: 99). Sabrina feels that many of them see pushing down

105 others, such as Jews and Muslims, as the only way to elevate themselves. Since the main leverage they have over these populations is their ethnic-Germanness, some East

Germans turn to the exact neo-Nazi notions of purity they are reminded (constantly) to avoid. It is important to note that the circumstances of history have left the East less multicultural than the West anyway, so these frustrations are largely symbolic. Their development does not require the presence of actual Jews or Muslims, and might even happen quicker without those human encounters undermining racist attitudes.

In addition to being frustrated with just how much focus is put on the Holocaust, many young Germans feel like they should not have to carry this historical burden. As

Clara explained, “Okay, I am German, yes, and maybe my ancestors did this, but I didn’t live in this time, so it’s not my fault” (Interview #12). Feeling the impossible weight of crimes they did not commit and of which they cannot be absolved, many young Germans simply try to distance themselves from the hereditary guilt. On the other hand, those with immigrant backgrounds don’t have any literal connection to this history. Gabi told me that many of them then use that as an excuse to avoid engaging with the themes of the

Holocaust: “Es geht mich nichts an. Meine Eltern sind später gekommen” (It has nothing to do with me. My parents came later) (Interview #11). Either way, both groups see the

Holocaust as an isolated phenomenon that they should not have to concern themselves with.

Ultimately, it is undeniable that Germany’s efforts to address the Holocaust are tremendous. To a certain extent, they have succeeded. Many of my interviewees expressed that—within the institutions of politics and civil society—the lessons have absolutely been learned, and there are certain lines that cannot be crossed. However, on a

106 more individual level, there seems to be a sort of cognitive dissonance between the past and its applicability to the present. Galina told me that she thinks the Germans still have a

“Skeleten im Schrank” (skeleton in the closet): “Die versteckte Antisemitismus

Deutschlands sehr sehr sehr verbreitet ist” (The hidden anti-Semitism of Germany is very very very widespread) (Interview #9). These thoughts may not be so blatant and aggressive as before, or as the neo-Nazis now, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Unchecked, they can then go on to affect interactions with other, particularly foreign non-

Germans, such as Muslims. Medina ranted to me about the widespread rhetoric of “I have nothing against foreigners, but…” She feels that the “but” contradicts the prior statement, making the racism and xenophobia of the average German harder to gauge than those who at least are obvious in their hatred. To address both Galina and Medina’s problems, I think a more forward-thinking, empowering form of Holocaust education is needed.

Holocaust Education Going Forward: Guilt vs. Responsibility and Cultural

Connections

For all the time and effort spent on Holocaust education, I was surprised to learn from Mathilde that the focus seems to mostly be on the facts of what happened. She also told me that most ideological and theoretical discussions tend to be at the “macro-level,” discussing the forces of good and evil, for example. By isolating Holocaust education to either the basic facts or hyperbolic, unrelatable moral discussion, students do not learn to engage with the ideology of National Socialism itself. In his 2014 work “Managing Hate:

Political Delinquency and Affective Governance in Germany” anthropologist Nitzan

Shoshan describes how “critical-rational debate (auseinandersetzung) with National

107 Socialist and other racist, ultra-nationalist ideologies is vital for preventative work with politically rightist youths.” One example might be “’argumentation training workshops,’ where guides lead exercises and simulations of actual or possible debates” (Shoshan

2014: 160). Though Shoshan’s article focuses on already at-risk adolescents, I think these kinds of measures could be equally effective and proactive for the population at large.

Methods such as the aforementioned “argumentation training workshops” would encourage open discussion about taboo themes, helping young Germans to understand not just that nationalist ideologies are bad, but why. Furthermore, they would come to understand why people may be attracted to them regardless and, by extension, how best to challenge these ideologies if they encounter them in others, or even themselves.

Similarly, Sabrina suggested opening up Holocaust education to a more general study of genocides, which would help Germans better understand the trajectory, not just of National Socialism, but of genocidal ideologies overall. Mathilde was quick to point out that comparing the Holocaust to other genocides could “relativize” it, making it seem

“less evil, less harmful” (Interview #2). However, Germany’s experience with Holocaust education thus far has also demonstrated that there are dangers in distinguishing the

Holocaust as something unique. What results is a competition of oppression where certain groups, such as the Jews, are given what Galina calls a sense of “Besonderheit,” or exceptionalism (Interview #9). The belief that Jews have suffered the most negates the supposedly lesser suffering of any other group. In Germany, this attitude precludes

Muslims from getting the rights and acknowledgement they need, and it also blinds

Germans from realizing that their treatment of Muslims can be unfair.

108 Stefan also introduced a more personal motive for putting the Holocaust in context with other genocides: “For me, as a German, it would have also been good to learn in school that it’s not just Germans who did that, that it’s also other countries who have their dark history” (Interview #6). To learn that genocide is not just a German, but a human problem would ease some of the guilt that Germans are taught they have to feel by nature of their birth. In fact, Gabi feels that Holocaust education as it currently stands is entirely too moral. She suggested a shift from the theme of guilt to that of responsibility:

“Verantwortung für die Zukunft” (responsibility for the future) (Interview #11). Teaching

German children to feel burdened by the past is unproductive; they should learn to take the lessons of the Holocaust and apply them. Consequently, this rhetoric would also prevent ethnic minorities and subsequent generations alike from claiming that the

Holocaust has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with them, because they are the future of Germany.

Overall, relying less on classrooms and textbooks and more on personal connections would also help German students understand the Holocaust better. Galina told me about how much the experience of visiting Auschwitz and seeing the mountains of hair, shoes, etc. affected her son, as compared to the facts he learned in school. She also highlighted how art installations, such as those at the Jewish Museum, can similarly facilitate emotional connections. Stefan recommended that teachers focus on books with personal stories that people can identify with, such as The Diary of Anne Frank. Gabi even told me that she’s seen classes get involved with the Stolpersteine project, conducting research on the victims themselves. These sorts of field trips, reading

109 material, and projects are by their very nature more engaging for students, so they will get more out of the experience as a result.

Finally, since it is the case that immigrants, refugees, and minorities will be a part of the country’s future, I think Germany should implement mandatory intercultural education to help Germans get over their “fear of strangers.” As explained by Sabrina, these classes would introduce children to the basics of different religions, such as why they have the rules and customs that they do. I believe these classes could take the form of a supplement to Holocaust education or its own separate discipline, and Sabrina even suggested them as a replacement for religious education altogether (like a mandatory ethics class). After the wave of violent, xenophobic attacks in the 1990s, Germany’s

“Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs” actually made a similar recommendation of intercultural education for all children, not just foreign ones

(Britz 2011: 10). However, I think it is important that this kind of measure be seen as long-term and proactive, rather than reactive.

Intercultural education must also work to challenge the negative reputation many minority groups gain through the media and facilitate encounters as well. As Mathilde said, “The problem is that out of 100 refugees, you can have 80 or 90 that put much efforts into their integration, really want to do it. Nobody talks about them. And then something happens like…New Year’s Eve in Cologne….These are maybe the 10 refugees, the exceptions” (Interview #2). Only calling attention to these negative stories has consequences for the whole community. Intercultural education must seek to even the balance through creating positive representations of minority groups, or better yet, organizing encounters between minority and majority groups. Gabi told me she has

110 organized forums between different cultural groups such as Muslims and Jews at her center and believes very strongly in the “Moment der Begegnung” (moment of encounter) (Interview #11). Indeed, if the situation between Christina’s mother and her

Turkish friend proves anything, it is that personal encounters have the power to change minds completely.

Some of my younger interviewees were resentful about how Holocaust education—in its current seemingly ever-present, shame-inducing form—does not allow them to express any pride whatsoever in being German. Ironically, national pride is more closely associated with neo-Nazis than average Germans. While nationalism may be dangerous, feeling a deep sense of shame, inescapable in its biological nature, can also have negative side effects. Implementing some of the previously discussed ideas— particularly Gabi’s, about shifting the focus of Holocaust education from guilt over the past to responsibility for the future—would allow Germans to take that which makes them ashamed and turn it into a point of pride.

Furthermore, updating Holocaust education into a more relatable and diversity- embracing form would help put Germany on the path towards Jeffrey Alexander’s last mode of incorporation: multiculturalism. In this mode, “difference gains recognition not because it is separate and distinctive per se or because recognition is merited in normative terms, but because core group members have learned to perceive difference as a variation on shared humanity” (Alexander 2006: 544). The “common ties through citizenship and nationhood” mentioned by Jeffrey Peck would not develop in spite of religious and ethnic differences, but because of them. A variety of different ways to be “German” already

111 exists among ethnic Germans; now it is time to expand what it means to be “German” further.

112 Chapter 7: Conclusion

All in all, this thesis has been an attempt to understand how ordinary Germans today conceptualize their own identity (or identities), particularly in relation to “others.”

Furthermore, I have tried to illuminate the implications those conceptions have for

“others” who want to be a part of that German identity. While Germany’s progress is undeniable—even statistically so, as the 2014 Nation Brands Index demonstrated—many of the attitudes and structures present in Germany society today are, regrettably, still not succeeding in fostering real, widespread, and enduring incorporation. This failure ultimately demonstrates what anthropologist Janet McIntosh would call the ethnic

German majority’s “structural oblivion.” McIntosh coined this term to describe how elite social groups “refus[e] the experience of and/or reasons for the resentment of less privileged groups, and [overlook] the ways in which [their] ideologies, practices and very habits of mind continue to uphold [their] privilege” (2016: 10). In setting the conditions of integration, ethnic Germans can frame it as a welcoming gesture, ignoring their biases for their own culture and against others.

Yet, if foreigners need to assimilate to such a degree that they are effectively

German, in order to gain acceptance, does this truly represent acceptance on the part of the Germans? Jeffrey Peck vehemently disagrees, challenging Germany to view its “so- called foreigner problem” as a “German problem” instead (2006: 104). As Galina explains, drawing from her own experiences, “Ich kann, egal wie gut Deutsch lernen und

Geld verdienen und europäisch aussehen, aber wenn die Gesellschaft ist nicht bereit oder nur auf Papier bereit sich zu öffnen für mich…” (Regardless of how well I learn German,

113 earn money, look European, if the society is not prepared or only prepared on paper to open up to me…[I will never be considered truly German]) (Interview #9). The integration project will remain incomplete as long as Germans are exempt from the difficult, identity-shaping work already demanded of immigrants, refugees, and minorities.

Indeed, some German politicians are aware of this need for a two-way street. I wrote in chapter 4 about how Thilo Sarrazin’s 2010 book reinvigorated the integration debate by questioning why Germans should have to feign acceptance of Muslims at all.

Christian Wulff, then German president, replied with an equally controversial, yet entirely opposite alternative. While giving a speech to commemorate the 20th anniversary of German reunification, he connected the infamous 1989 East German chant “We are the people, we are ONE people” to the theme of immigration:

We need an understanding of Germany, of ‘belonging,’ that is much broader than a passport, a family history, or one’s faith. Without a doubt, Christianity is part of Germany. Without a doubt, Judaism is part of Germany as well. This is simply our Judeo-Christian history. By now Islam is also a part of Germany. Nearly 200 years ago, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expressed this very sentiment in the ‘West-Eastern Divan’: ‘He who knows himself and others will recognize it here: Orient and Occident are inseparable.’ (Wulff 2010 in Hinze 2013: 16)

By asking Germans to widen their sense of “belonging” and highlighting the relationship between Orient and Occident as interdependent, rather than hierarchical, Wulff’s speech is a quintessential example of multiculturalism.

As explained by anthropologist Terence Turner, multiculturalism “challeng[es], revis[es], and relativiz[es] basic notions and principles common to dominant and minority cultures alike, so as to construct a more vital, open, and democratic common culture”

(Turner 1993: 413). What makes multiculturalism so controversial is that it makes both

114 the minority and majority culture subject to change, inherently critiquing Western cultural hegemony. It requires Westerners to be “structurally aware,” and take an active role in dismantling that structure. As a result, Wulff’s declaration, like Sarrazin’s, incited considerable pushback, even from his own chancellor.

Angela Merkel rejected both Sarrazin and Wulff’s arguments, bluntly declaring that multiculturalism had failed while emphasizing the expectation that immigrants make a cultural commitment to Germany in return for support. In short, her argument represents a reiteration of the current conditional, assimilationist policy. It also represents, unfortunately, a misguided notion of what multiculturalism actually is.

Multiculturalism, according to Turner, means way more than just multiple cultures in one place, at one time. Like the American concept of the “melting pot” (whether it truly exists in America or not), multiculturalism requires a sort of “melting” together of those cultures, to create a more all-encompassing one. So to counter Merkel’s declaration: how could multiculturalism in Germany have failed if it has only just begun?

Certainly, the rhetoric of multiculturalism may sound overly idealistic, but some countries have already begun embracing it. For example, Canada’s post-1970 immigration policy promotes polyethnicity rather than conditional assimilation

(Kymlicka 1995: 17). Immigrants, minorities, and refugees are allowed, and even encouraged, to identify with multiple ethnicities. To gauge my interviewees’ opinions on the applicability of this sort of policy in Germany, I actually asked them outright the main question of this thesis: do you believe Germany has the capacity to be a “melting pot”?

Many, in their initial reaction, expressed doubt. Mathilde feels that a “melting pot” might only be achievable in Germany’s ethnically mixed, urban areas, as opposed to

115 rural areas where policies are “more like adaptation than integration” (Interview #2).

Mathilde’s distinction here brings to mind Buschkowsky’s integration plan in Neukölln.

At least, in big cities, there are measures to help with structural and cultural integration, while in rural areas, it may truly be more of a one-way street. However, Johannes expressed that, even in Berlin where you can see so many different types of people on any given day, there is still no inner unity between those people. He even admitted to me that he doesn’t think he will ever be able to see certain practices, such as praying five times a day, as “German”: “Ich kann es akzeptieren, selbstverständlich akzeptiere ich das, sonst wäre ja furchtbar. Aber ja, das ist vielleicht der Unterschied. Akzeptieren kann ich, integrieren…das ist ein bisschen anders” (I can accept it, of course I accept it, otherwise that would be horrible. But yeah, that is perhaps the difference. I can accept it, but integrate, that is a bit different) (Interview #4). Johannes—and perhaps many other

Germans—are open-minded about accepting people into the German culture, but there is hesitation about making any fundamental changes to that culture.

At the same time, some of my other interviewees expressed a somewhat cautious optimism that Germany could become a “melting pot.” Going against Mathilde’s point about rural versus urban areas, Katrin and Uli (who both live in suburbs) described how their smaller surroundings can actually be conducive to more personal relationships and more effective integration initiatives than in “großen, anonymen Städten” (large, anonymous cities) (Interview #8). Many of my respondents noted that support for the blatantly xenophobic and Islamophobic Alternative für Deutschland political party comes largely from more rural areas where there are few immigrants, minorities, or refugees. So

Katrin and Uli’s anecdotes provide hope that time and exposure can undermine radical,

116 right-wing views and bolster the idea of Muslims and other ethnic minorities as

“Germans” over time, throughout all of Germany, not just in the big cities.

Stefan also expressed his opinion that—although some Germans still hold highly conservative, hateful views of immigrants, refugees, and minorities—the average

German’s view is much more open. He placed hope, particularly, in his own, younger generation of Germans. These young adults grew up after the wall (and therefore after the restoration of the German identity), in a highly globalized world that has fundamentally changed Germany’s interactions with “others,” and with extensive knowledge (and guilt) about their country’s role in the Second World War. Stefan joked that as long as that history is applied and not forgotten (perhaps through some of the suggestions addressed in the previous chapter) Germany “has potential as a ‘melting pot’ to not screw it up too much” (Interview #6). There is a sense that—precisely because of its past failures and present success—Germany can be held accountable (and often does hold itself accountable) for the well-being of immigrants, minorities, and refugees in a way that other countries can and do not. There is hope that young Germans will not only continue the globalizing trends of interconnectedness and cross-cultural interaction they grew up with, but also apply the lessons of the past to the present better, to truly open up German society to ethnic minorities. A multicultural “melting pot” might not become a reality now, or even during my lifetime, but there is potential in the future.

Certainly, a sense of Germanness will not, and should not, disappear any time soon. As Hermann Kurthen explains, “idea[s] of nationhood…correspond with people’s need for belonging, security, group formation, and collective identity” (1995: 934). There is comfort and familiarity in being a part of an identity that no one can take away from

117 you. However, identities are also not static; they can and should be subject to change.

Therefore, the aim, going forward, should be “to regain a new stability and postnational identity that mirrors the realities of transnational migration and refugee flows, the development of new rights and supranational memberships, and the adherence to the republican and universalistic principles of the German postwar constitution, democratic institutions, and liberal political culture” (Kurthen 1995: 935-6). To continue conditional, assimilationist policies would be a denial of the German reality, which has almost always been culturally and ethnically diverse and, more recently, has committed itself to multilateralism and democratic values. Embracing a more multicultural mode of incorporation is simply proactive.

It is easy to imagine how multiculturalism can benefit immigrants, minorities, and refugees, but it is important to note how it can benefit Germany as well. Reginald

Whitaker, a political science professor at York University in Canada, explains the merits of allowing ethnic minorities to identify with both their old and new culture at the same time: “The experience to date suggests that first- and second-generation immigrants who remain proud of their heritage are also among the most patriotic citizens of their new countries” (Whitaker 1992: 255 in Kymlicka 1995: 178). Having all aspects of their identities supported is precisely what makes ethnic minorities more likely to feel a sense of belonging in the new culture. Pragmatically, multiculturalism would also benefit

Germany economically and demographically. As a country with “below-replacement level fertility,” Germany is beginning to feel the pressure of demands for young labor and an impending pension and healthcare crisis (Behr 2006: 466). So whether it wants them or not, Germany needs immigrants. Similarly, as Sabrina pointed out, climate change and

118 global economic inequality guarantee that there will be more immigrants and refugees in the future. The Syrian refugee crisis will not be the last of its kind, so Germany needs to develop a realistic integration policy, sooner rather than later.

It will take considerably more support from open-minded politicians and years to work out the kinks of multiculturalism, as is the case with any dramatic governmental change. As Galina explained, “Es ist sowie bei Kindern. Die Kindern, bevor die laufen, die fallen auf die Nase” (It’s the same case for children. The children, before they run, they fall on their noses) (Interview #9). But the least the German government can do, at all its various levels, is commit to trying something new. Germany already has quite liberal asylum laws, and though they have become increasingly more restrictive (or perhaps realistic) over time, those restrictions still did not stop Angela Merkel from intervening in the Syrian refugee crisis. Germany has also shown progress in liberalizing its citizenship laws. Now, the country needs to develop comprehensive, multicultural integration measures to support those asylum and citizenship laws. Of course, the law does not always reflect the views of ordinary people, but it is a good place to lay the groundwork for newer, more progressive ideas that the general population can then adopt themselves.

In chapter 2, I presented the idea of the German Sonderweg (special path) to nationhood. Many historians now express doubt about how special Germany’s path was, or if any sort of “normal path” even exists. What is certain, however, is that—if Germany were to commit to multiculturalism now—it would be forging its very own, very different, and very new kind of “special path” that could make it a role model for all other nations.

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