Ethnic Minorities in the FRG Flashcards
How many refugees were there in the FRG in 1947?
- 10 million
What impact did the FRG’s economic success in the 1950s and early 60s have? Give a figure.
- There was a need for more foreign workers, as by 1955 there was full employment
Which group was against the arrival of foreign workers?
- Trade unions
Give 2 reasons why trade unions were against the arrival of foreign workers.
- They were afraid an increase in the number of foreign workers would put wages down
- They also thought they would undercut existing workers by accepting worse working conditions
What 2 actions did the government take to respond to the fears of trade unions?
- The government guaranteed that non-German and German workers would receive the same wages
- They also agreed to prefer German workers over non-German ones when hiring
What other limitation was there on these foreign workers?
- The Basic Law stipulated that German citizenship was dependent on German blood rather than the number of years of residence
How was it decided which countries the government would recruit workers from? Give 2 examples.
- They signed labour recruitment treaties with them
- 1955: Italy
- 1961: Turkey
What were 2 requirements the government had of these foreign workers?
- They had a medical examination to check that they were physically fit for the job
- They signed a contract for a particular job (which they could not leave) for the duration of 1 year
Due to the temporariness of their stay in the FRG, what were these workers called?
- Guest workers
Why were West Germans against the permanent residence of guest workers?
- They thought of them as taking jobs away from ethnic Germans and being a burden on the state
How were guest workers generally treated by employers?
- They were given accommodation by their employers in the form of dormitories outside towns, which cut them off from the community
Did all guest workers receive good wages and accommodation? Give a detail.
- ‘Illegal’ foreign workers (those without contracts) did not
- They took the worst jobs for very low wages, and were provided with no accommodation
What did most guest workers tend to be like, and what sort of jobs did they tend to have?
- Men between 20 and 40
- Heavy manual labour
When was there a large increase in the number of guest workers, and why?
- 1961
- The Berlin Wall stopped refugees from the GDR from travelling to the FRG
How did the arrival of guest workers affect German workers? Give 2 figures.
- Many of them moved into white-collar jobs
- Between 1961 and 1973, 3 million Germans moved from industrial and agricultural jobs to white-collar jobs
- Between 1961 and 1971, 870,000 Germans left jobs in mining, and they were replaced by 1.1 million guest workers
Use a statistic to show how common it was for guest workers to have their contracts renewed.
- In 1964, 25% of guest workers had been in the FRG for over 3 years
How important were guest workers in the German economy?
- In 1964, to commemorate the arrival of the millionth guest worker, the labour minister Theodor Blank made a speech emphasising the role of guest workers in the FRG’s success
What were 2 other important parts of Blank’s speech?
- He invited them to bring their families over
- He said that DM50 million had been allocated for facilitating this, including having welfare and child benefits
What limit was there to the help unions gave guest workers?
- They helped them adjust to work, but did not help them to generally integrate
Name 2 types of organisations that helped guest workers.
- Church organisations such as Caritas, which was Catholic
- Their own organisations, such as ethnic associations
What issue existed with ethnic associations?
- Some of them were intended to help guest workers integrate
- Others focused on preserving their culture, which attracted a lot of suspicion and hostility from West Germans
When did guest workers come under a lot of pressure to leave their jobs and Germany?
- After the 1973 Oil Crisis
What 2 things did the government do in response to the 1973 Oil Crisis in relation to guest workers?
- The government stopped hiring them in November 1973
- They banned permits for families of workers already in the country
What were 2 things the state governments did in relation to guest workers to deal with the 1973 Oil Crisis?
- In 1975 Länder offered guest workers financial incentives to return home
- They imposed penalties for the illegal employment of foreign workers
How were guest workers especially disadvantaged during the 1973 Oil Crisis? Give an example.
- They weren’t aware of their rights
- In 1974, Ford car plants offered guest workers ‘voluntary severance packages’ as they said that mass layoffs were likely
- Many workers accepted as they weren’t aware of a points system dictating who would be laid off first; those with the greater need for money (e.g. those with larger families) would be laid off after German workers who had less need for the money
List 3 positive changes for guest workers in the 1970s.
- In 1975, the government gave the children of guest workers the same rights as German children, as there were now unemployed guest workers
- In 1978, Schmidt set up the Federal Commissioner for Foreigners’ Affairs to work for the rights of foreign workers and to promote their integration
- A set of rules for applying for unrestricted residence (not citizenship) were clearly laid out
What lasting difficulty did the arrival of guest workers cause?
- The education of their children
What were 2 reasons why the children of guest workers faced issues in education?
- Many struggled with the language and had no pre-school education as this was mostly run by Christian schools
- 70% of them failed to gain the Abitur at the end of school as there weren’t enough special provisions to help them
