3 - Labor Migration to West Germany

Summary

Between 1955 and 1973, 14 million labor migrants, “guest workers” (Gastarbeiter), were recruited to prop up West Germany’s booming economy; 11 million returned to their home countries. Those who stayed suffered from the fundamental mistake of their presence being viewed as temporary, foreclosing paths of integration in the Federal Republic’s civic nation. Many of them, their children (generation two) and grandchildren (generation three), succeeded nonetheless, fighting their way to the top. This chapter tracks across time, until the 2000s, their lived experience from recruitment health exams in Italy or Turkey and arrival in the German factory dormitories to the gendered experience of work, school, family, food, housing, social life, and summer holidays in their countries of origin, stereotyping, discrimination and sometimes murderous racism, but also solidarity and resistance, to retirement and death. It explores the impact of the 1967 and 1973 economic crises, deindustrialization, the conservatice “backlash” during the 1980s, unification after 1990, and globalization, closing with an optimistic outlook of just how impressive the Gastarbeiter achievements are – against all odds.