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‘When I Marry a Mohammedan’: Migration and the Challenges of Interethnic Marriages in Post-War Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2013

JULIA WOESTHOFF
JULIA WOESTHOFF*
Affiliation:
Department of History, DePaul University, 2320 N. Kenmore, Suite 420, Chicago IL 60614; [email protected]
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Abstract

Discussions about intermarriage between foreign Muslim men and German Christian women from the 1950s to the 1970s shaped concepts of Islam, gender and difference found in more recent integration debates. Those insisting on inherent incompatibilities between Germans and Turks since the 1970s have drawn on these tropes developed decades earlier. Yet the post-war context differed from the later period in three important ways: the Muslim foreigners were students and interns, not guestworkers; it was German Christian women (not foreign Muslim women in Germany) who were the presumed victims of Muslim men; and it was principally national church institutions that formulated the language about difference.

‘si j’épouse un mahométan’: la migration et le défi des mariages mixtes dans l'allemagne de l'après-guerre

Ce sont les discussions sur les mariages mixtes entre Allemandes et musulmans d'origine étrangère entre les années 1950 et le début des années 1970 qui sont à l'origine des concepts de l'islam, du genre et de l'altérité culturelle tels qu'ils apparaissent dans les débats plus récents sur l'intégration. Depuis les années 1970, le discours sur l'incompatibilité profonde entre Allemands et Turcs s'inspire largement de ces conceptions issues des décennies précédentes, alors que le contexte de l'après-guerre différait de celui de la période ultérieure sur trois points fondamentaux: les musulmans étrangers étaient alors des étudiants et des internes plutôt que des travailleurs immigrés turcs; ce sont des chrétiennes allemandes qui étaient perçues comme les victimes de musulmans (et non des musulmanes d'origine étrangère en Allemagne), et ce sont des institutions chrétiennes – plutôt qu’étatiques – qui ont donné le ton et largement contribué à forger ces conceptions.

‘wenn ich einen mohammedaner heirate’: migration und die problematik binationaler ehen im nachkriegsdeutschland

Die Diskussionen über Ehen zwischen muslimischen Ausländern und deutschen Frauen ab den 1950er bis in die frühen 1970er Jahre prägten entscheidend die Konzeptionen von Islam, Gender, und kultureller Andersartigkeit. Der Diskurs über die grundsätzliche Inkompatibilität von Türken und Deutschen, der sich seit den 1970er Jahren entwickelt hat, hat sich weitestgehend dieser Grundvorstellungen bedient. Allerdings war der Hintergrund, vor dem die vorangegangenen Diskussionen stattfanden, ein nicht unwesentlich anderer: die besagten muslimischen Ausländer waren zumeist Studenten oder Praktikanten, nicht türkische Gastarbeiter; die vermeintlichen Opfer der muslimischen Männer waren deutsche Christinnen und nicht ausländische Musliminnen in Deutschland; außerdem waren es christliche – eher als staatliche – Institutionen, die in der Diskussion tonangebend waren und Konzeptionen wesentlich mitbestimmten.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 199 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

1 See especially the introduction in Chin, Rita, Fehrenbach, Heide, Eley, Geoff and Grossmann, Atina, After the Nazi Racial State (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for other extensive analyses about race discourse in the context of discussions about Turkish migrants, see Otyakmaz, Berrin Özlem, Auf allen Stühlen: Das Selbstverständnis junger türkischer Migrantinnen in Deutschland (Cologne: ISP, 1995), 11–42Google Scholar; Bojadzijev, Manuela, Die windige Internationale (Munster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2008)Google Scholar; Mandel, Ruth, Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Rita Chin and Heide Fehrenbach, ‘Introduction’, in Chin et al., Racial State, 29. The book does not focus only on post-war labour migrants but also discusses how difference was renegotiated in the context of so-called Mischlingskinder, born out of relationships between German mothers and African-American GIs; and on Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors in German displaced persons (DP) camps. These contributions also discuss how concepts of race were shaped by the American Occupation in the aftermath of World War II. The 2010 publication of Thilo Sarrazin's Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Is Doing Away With Itself) and the heated debate about Muslim immigration that has followed only prove the authors’ overall point about the continued salience of race and difference in Germany's post-war history.

3 See, for example, Motte, Jan, Ohliger, Rainer and Oswald, Anne von, eds, 50 Jahre Bundesrepublik – 50 Jahre Einwanderung: Nachkriegsgeschichte als Migrationsgeschichte (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1999)Google Scholar; Rieker, Yvonne, ‘Ein Stück Heimat findet man ja immer’: Die italienische Einwanderung in die Bundesrepublik (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2003)Google Scholar; Julia Woesthoff, ‘The Ambiguities of Anti-Racism: Representations of Foreign Laborers in the West German Media, 1955–1990’, PhD diss., Michigan State University, 2004; Hunn, Karin, ‘Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück . . .’: Die Geschichte der türkischen ‘Gastarbeiter’ in der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005)Google Scholar; Chin, Rita, The Guest Worker Question in Post-War Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Jennifer Miller, ‘Post-War Negotiations: The First Generation of Turkish “Guest Workers” in West Germany, 1961–1973’, PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2008.

4 See Mandel, Cosmopolitan Anxieties; see also Chin et al., Racial State; Hunn, ‘Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück . . .’.

5 See, for example, Otyakmaz, Auf allen Stühlen; Erdem, Esra and Mattes, Monika, ‘Gendered Policies – Gendered Patterns: Female Labour Migration from Turkey to Germany from the 1960s to the 1990s’, in Ohliger, Rainer, Schönwälder, Karen and Triadafilopoulos, Triadafilos, eds, European Encounters (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 167–85Google Scholar; Woesthoff, , ‘The Ambiguities of Anti-Racism’; Monika Mattes, ‘Gastarbeiterinnen’ in der Bundesrepublik: Anwerbepolitik, Migration und Geschlecht in den 50er bis 70er Jahren (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2005)Google Scholar; Chin, The Guest Worker Question; Mandel, Cosmopolitan Anxieties. For a critical discussion of the ways in which Turkish-German feminists have depicted Islam as inherently patriarchal and oppressive and therefore detrimental to integration and equality, see Erdem, Esra, ‘In der Falle einer Politik des Ressentiments: Feminismus und die Integrationsdebatte’, in Hess, Sabine, Binder, Jana and Moser, Johannes, eds, No Integration? Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Integrationsdebatte in Europa (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009), 187–202Google Scholar; Sieg, Katrin, ‘“Black Virgins”: Sexuality and the Democratic Body in Europe’, New German Critique, 36, 1 (2010), 147–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a study exploring the pervasive stereotypes about Muslim men as inherently dangerous and antithetical to democratic values, see Ewing, Katherine Pratt, Stolen Honour: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar

6 The first issue of Jugend unter dem Wort appeared in 1947. It was the magazine of the Christlicher Verein Junger Männer (CVJM) – the German Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) – and had both a boys’ and a girls’ edition. The magazine folded in the late 1960s.

7 See Herbert, Ulrich, Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2001), 198–9.Google Scholar

8 The numbers are for winter semester 1961/2. See Auslandsstelle des Deutschen Bundesstudentenringes, Das Studium der Ausländer in der Bundesrepublik (Bonn: Auslandsstelle des Deutschen Bundesstudentenringes, 1963), Vorwort, 16. Many of these students came in the 1950s and 1960s at the invitation of the German government. By the mid-1950s, the Federal Republic had recovered remarkably well from the worst effects of the war and the country experienced what has been characterised as ‘Aufbruchstimmung’ – the dawning of a new era. At the time, some members of parliament began debating the merits of educational aid for developing countries in the context of larger development policy objectives geared towards the Third World. As a result, the West German government encouraged students and trainees from Africa and Asia to undergo part of their training in Germany. See Schmidt, Heide-Irene, ‘Pushed to the Front: The Foreign Assistance Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1958–1971’, Contemporary European History, 12, 4 (2003), 487CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 104.

9 Stories about German men courting foreign women did not draw as much attention. This can be partly attributed to the lower number of women in the foreign workforce – they made up about 25 to 30%. However, generally speaking – and this was also true for the organisations hotly debating these interethnic relationships – unions between German men and foreign women were seen as much less problematic. The law at the time bore out this skewed view, as discussed elsewhere in this article.

10 Walter Unger, ‘Die deutschen Frauen laufen uns nach’, Stern, 1 Dec. 1968.

11 Herbert, Ulrich, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880–1980 (Ann Arbor: University of Ann Arbor Press, 1990), 230.Google Scholar

12 This topic was also discussed in the German press, which characterised the problems students encountered when seeking housing as a widespread issue. Prodosh Aich argues that the press exaggerated in their reporting, not only generalising from individual cases but also singling out students’ skin colour as the primary reason for their difficulties in finding accommodation. See Aich, Prodosh, Farbige unter Weißen (Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch, 1963), 21ff, 85–133.Google Scholar

13 That year, 26,554 German women married a foreigner compared to 28,306 German men who did so. Among German women, Turkish men were by far their favourite partners, followed by Yugoslavs, Italians and Americans (2001/2002). In those same years, German men by far preferred Poles, ahead of Thai and Russian women (in places two and three respectively). See Stöcker-Zafari, Hiltrud and Wegner, Jörg, Binationaler Alltag in Deutschland (Frankfurt: Brandes und Apsel, 2004), 18, 20–1.Google Scholar

14 See Schönwälder, Karen, Einwanderung und ethnische Pluralität (Essen: Klartext, 2001), 516.Google Scholar

15 See Eisfeld, Jens, Die Scheinehe in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005)Google Scholar, 221f; see also, Schönwälder, Einwanderung, 517; and Nathans, Eli, The Politics of Citizenship in Germany (New York: Berg, 2004), 239Google Scholar.

16 See Schönwälder, Einwanderung, 521.

17 In 1975, the age of consent to marry was set at eighteen for both men and women.

18 See, for example, Tränhardt, Dietrich, ‘Established Charity Organizations, Self-Help Groups and New Social Movements in Germany’, Beiträge zur Politikwissenschaft und Verwaltungswissenschaft, 3 (1987)Google Scholar; Sachße, Christoph, ‘Von der Kriegsfürsorge zum republikanischen Wohlfahrtsstaat’, in Röper, Ursula and Jüllig, Carola, eds, Die Macht der Nächstenliebe: Einhundertfünfzig Jahre Innere Mission und Diakonie 1848–1998 (Berlin: Jovis, 1998), 194–205Google Scholar; Thomas Olk, ‘Die Diakonie im westdeutschen Sozialstaat’, in Die Macht der Nächstenliebe, 274–85.

19 By 1961, the Federal Administrative Office for the first time published the supplement ‘Muslim Marriage Contracts’ in its Bulletin for People Working Abroad and for Emigrants: Women's Emigration. See Merkblätter für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer: Frauen-Auswanderung. Beilage: Islamische Eheverträge no. 10 (Cologne: Informationsstelle für Auswanderer und Auslandstätige, Bundesverwaltungsamt, 1961). While it is unclear whether these bulletins were published at the behest of organisations such as Diakonie or St. Raphaels-Verein, concerned staff apparently did take the initiative to spread the word. A footnote in an article published in 1961 in the professional journal Das Standesamt stated that ‘The suggestion for this overview came from Frau Elisabeth Zillken, head of the ‘Katholische[r] Fürsorgeverein für Mädchen, Frauen und Kinder’ in Dortmund: Neuhaus, Paul Heinrich, ‘Eheliche und außereheliche Verbindungen deutscher Frauen mit ausländischen Arbeitern oder Studenten’, Das Standesamt, 14, 5 (1961), 136 n. 1Google Scholar. The material usually contained a covering letter by the BVA–AfA as to the value of the material, at times also providing a synopsis of the information contained in the documents that were sent on and comments on how to use it. In those notes the BVA–AfA assessed, for example, how indicative the given information was for the situation of intermarried couples in the Middle East. Echoing much of the content provided in what little literature on intermarriage existed, the stories detailed the difficult living conditions abroad. See, for example, BVA–AfA, Az.: 400–04–2745/59 (47), 28 Oct. 1959, Archiv für Diakonie und Entwicklung, Berlin (hereafter ADW) HGSt 2512; BVA–AfA, Az.: 450–04–689/62 (109), 20 Dec. 1962, ADW HGSt 2512.

20 As an example of the cross-confessional fertilisation and exchange, an article published in Herder Korrespondenz was republished in a pamphlet entitled ‘Marriage in the Orient’, by the Protestant Württembergischer Landesverein der Freundinnen junger Mädchen. For the original article, see ‘Mischehen zwischen Christen und Muslimen’, Herder Korrespondenz, 14, 4 (Jan. 1960), 150–2. For the reprint, see Württembergischer Landesverein der Freundinnen junger Mädchen, ed., Ehe im Orient [1960]. Moreover, in a letter in March 1966, the catechistic office of the Protestant regional church in Brunswick (in charge of appointing religious education teachers) requested material from the Innere Mission (Home Mission) Central Office dealing with the topic of intermarriage. It explained its request with the observation that in the vocational schools (Berufs- und Berufsfachschulen) female students were forming intimate friendships with guestworkers and foreign trainees. See Katechetisches Amt der Braunschweigischen Ev. Luth. Landeskirche to the Hauptgeschäftsstelle der Inneren Mission, 24 March 1966, ADW HGSt 2991. In its response, the Innere Mission office referred the sender to the evangelical Orientdienst, as well as the state-run Aktion Jugendschutz (Campaign for the Protection of Youth). See Isolde Traub (from the Innere Mission) to Katechetisches Amt der Braunschweigischen Ev. Luth. Landeskirche, 5 April 1966, ADW HGSt 2991. For a similar response see also the letter by Christine Winzler of the Diakonie/Innere Mission Central Office to Dr Goldacker from the Department of Children and Families (Jugendamt) in Mannheim, 16 Aug. 1966, ADW, HGSt 2991.

21 Vermerk für Frl. Urbig, gezeichnet: Schäfer, 1 Dec. 1965; ADW, HGSt 2512.

22 Denffer, Ahmad von, Mission to Muslims in Germany (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 1980), 12–17.Google Scholar Orientdienst emerged out of the Europäische Mission in Oberägypten (Protestant Mission to Upper Egypt), founded in 1900 and headquartered in Wiesbaden.

23 Mittmann, Thomas, ‘Säkularisierungsvorstellungen und religiöse Identitätsstiftung im Migrationsdiskurs’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 51 (2011), 271.Google Scholar

24 As Karen Schönwälder has argued, government officials at the time attempted to inhibit labour recruitment from what they labelled as ‘Afro-Asian’ countries, a policy based on ‘the principles of an at least partly racially motivated selection underlying West Germany's guestworker policy’. A variety of policy decisions made in this context also had dire consequences for men from third countries married to or intending to marry German women. Amazingly, according to the author, such racial views never evoked a ‘wide-ranging public debate’. Karen Schönwälder, ‘Why Germany's Guestworkers Were Largely European: The Selective Principles of Post-War Labour Recruitment Policy’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27, 2 (March 2004), 249.

25 Zimmer, Norbert, ed., Heirat mit Ausländern (Hofheim/Ts.: Verlag des Auslands-Kurier, 1968), 16, 36Google Scholar; Volandt, Erich, Ausländer zum Heiraten gesucht (Gladbeck: Schriftenmissions-Verlag, 1963), 4Google Scholar.

26 ‘Mischehen’, Herder Korrespondenz, 151.

27 News reports generally echoed this assessment, but hardly any made it as forcefully as the popular magazine Stern, which published a fifteen-part series published between 9 July and 15 Oct. 1961 entitled ‘Die Braut hat ihre Schuldigkeit getan’ (‘The Bride has Done Her Duty’). The series provided glimpses into the lives of four women who had met an Oriental, either in Germany or the Middle East, had married him, and ultimately lived with him in a Middle Eastern country. Despite the foreign partners’ varied backgrounds (both socially and geographically), the outcome of the relationship was always a version on the same theme. The Oriental husband, who was either rich, or had posed as being rich, was always loving and caring in the beginning, and then was later exposed as a selfish individual, who was either physically harming his wife or forcing her to live under untenable (that is, uncivilised) conditions. In each instance, if the husband became violent, then his actions were explained by the fact that he was a Muslim.

28 Willi Höpfner, ‘Die Stellung der Frau im Islam’, in Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, 28. The idea of outward adoption of norms and inward retention of values was a persistent theme in the literature on intermarriage. See, for example, ‘Ein Graf Amore war in Messina nicht bekannt’, Tagesspiegel, 10 May 1962; Becker, Walter, Ehen mit Ausländern, 1st edn (Hamm: Hoheneck Verlag, 1965), 6Google Scholar; Haeberle, ‘Ehen mit Moslems’, in Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, 36.

29 Württembergischer Landerverein, Ehe; Becker, Ehen mit Ausländern; Orientdienst, Die christlich-islamische Mischehe [1963]; Orientdienst, ed., Seine Frau werden? [1965]; Volandt, Ausländer.

30 This is one of the only times that distinctions between different countries are made within publications concerned with Christian–Muslim marriages. See Bundesverwaltungsamt – Amt für Auswanderung, eds, Merkblätter für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer.

31 Volandt's work elicited some concern that the drawings could be offensive to the Muslim groom. Christiane Winzler to Frau Dr Goldacker, Jugendamt Mannheim, 16 Aug. 1966, ADW, HGSt 2991.

32 The contract was just labelled as a ‘Muslim Marriage Contract’. No differentiations were made between different forms of Islam practised in different parts of the Middle East.

33 ‘Vermerk, Betr: Die christlich-islamische Mischehe’, Stuttgart, 13 March 1963, ADW, HGSt 2958.

34 Volandt, Ausländer, 25.

35 Haeberle, ‘Ehen mit Moslems’, 37.

36 Walter Posth, ‘Traum und Wirklichkeit’, Jugend unter dem Wort (May 1962), 5.

37 Ruth Braun, Jugend unter dem Wort, 9.

38 ‘Mischehen’, Herder Korrespondenz, 151.

39 BVA–AfA, Az.: 400-04–2745/59 (47), 28 Oct. 1959, ADW HGSt 2512. idem, Az.: 450-04–689/62 (109), 20 Dec. 1962, ADW HGSt 2512.

40 Volandt, Ausländer, 11.

41 Haeberle, ‘Ehen mit Moslems’, 38.

42 Pfarrer Unkrig, ‘Impressionen und Erfahrungen bei Ehen deutscher Frauen mit Ägyptern’, Anlage 3, Jahrestagung der evang. Auswanderer-Berater im Dominikaner/Kloster Frankfurt/M am 29./30.4.1975, 2, ADW, Abgabe 396/107. On this issue see also ‘Referat Pastor Slaby, Islam – Erfahrungen bei Ehen deutscher Frauen mit Türken, Zusammenfassung’, Anlage 2, Niederschrift der Jahrestagung der evangelischen Auswanderer-Berater im Dominikaner/Kloster Frankfurt/Main am 6./7.5.1976, ADW, Abgabe 396/51.

43 ‘Mischehen’, Herder Korrespondenz, 150.

44 A burgeoning body of scholarship has explored these questions of secularisation within the churches since 1945. See, for example, Bösch, Frank and Hölscher, Lucian, eds, Kirchen – Medien – Öffentlichkeit: Transformationen kirchlicher Selbst- und Fremddeutungen seit 1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2009)Google Scholar; Greschat, Martin, Die evangelische Christenheit und die deutsche Geschichte nach 1945 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2002)Google Scholar; Edward Ruff, Mark, The Wayward Flock: Catholic Youth in Post-War West Germany, 1945–1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Hermle, Siegfried, Lepp, Claudia and Oelke, Harry, eds, Umbrüche: Der deutsche Protestantismus und die sozialen Bewegungen in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren (Göttingen: Vendenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007)Google Scholar; Ziemann, Benjamin, ‘Die katholische Kirche als religiöse Organisation: Expertenberatung und Reformdiskussion in Deutschland und den Niederlanden, 1950–1975’, in Wilhelm Graf, Friedrich and Kracht, Klaus Große, eds, Religion und Gesellschaft: Europa im 20. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2007), 329–51.Google Scholar

45 Posth, ‘Traum und Wirklichkeit’, 5.

46 ‘Verheiratet in Teheran’, Jugend unter dem Wort, 10.

47 Hunn, Nächstes Jahr, 138, 139.

48 ‘Muselmanen beten im Kölner Dom’, Die Zeit, 12 Feb. 1965.

49 Stuckenberg to Dambacher, 11. Feb. 1965, ADW, HGSt 2599.

50 Various sources quoted a failure rate of over 90% among these interethnic couples, though the evidence for such a pronouncement was lacking. See, for example, Becker, , Ehen mit Ausländern, 3rd edn (Hamm: Hoheneck Verlag, 1974), 23Google Scholar. Norbert Zimmer, editor of Auslands-Kurier, just asserted a failure rate of 90% without referring to any sources. See Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, ‘Vorwort’, 6. Becker claims to quote ‘the head of an emigration mission’ regarding this information while Gutermuth references the Foreign Office of the Protestant Church in Germany, quoting a failure rate of 95%.

51 Orientdienst, ed., Die christlich-islamische Mischehe, n.p.

52 Volandt, Ausländer, 33.

53 Posth, ‘Traum und Wirklichkeit’, 5.

54 ‘Wenn ein katholisches Mädchen einen Moslem heiratet’, in Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, 75.

55 Haeberle, ‘Ehen mit Moslems’, 37. Haeberle pointed out that he had years of experience working in ‘the Orient’ but did not state in what country. Specifics like this seemed secondary to Haeberle, who talked about ‘the Oriental’, thereby underscoring the general view at the time of a culturally unified population in Africa and Asia.

56 See Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, 26, 61, 64, 66.

57 Stratenwerth, ‘Ergebnisse einer Ausländerkonferenz’, in Zimmer, Heirat mit Ausländern, 61.

58 In another part of his report, Stuckenberg called the prospective foreign husbands ‘Fremdlinge’, a term one might translate as ‘aliens’. Karl-August Stuckenberg, ‘Information über Entwicklungsländer für Fach- und Führungskräfte’, Niederschrift über die 11. Arbeitstagung der Leiter der öffentlichen Auswanderer-Beratungsstellen am 2. und 3. Februar 1961 in Köln, 14, ADW, HGSt 2514.

59 Letter sent by Diakonie headquarters in response to a query from FS [initials given to preserve letter writer's privacy], 9 Nov. 1966, ADW, HGST 2523; Gretemeier, Regina, ‘“Wohin Du gehst, will auch ich . . .”: Es wird immer noch ins Ausland geheiratet’, Caritas, 80, 2 (1980), 94Google Scholar.

60 Becker, Ehen mit Ausländern, 1st edn, 5. The assertion that ‘What is true for religion, folk traditions [Volkstum] and language, is even more relevant for the differences between the races’ was still part of the 1974 edition, as was the conviction that ‘The equality of all humans has become self-evident for us’. Becker, Ehen mit Ausländern, 3rd edn, 7.

61 Paul Rieger, ‘Der schwarze Bräutigam: Ein Beitrag zur Rassenfrage’, radio play for the Bayerischer Rundfunk–Kirchenfunk, broadcast 6 Jan. 1967, ADW, HGSt 2513.

62 Minning, Friedrich, ‘Eheschließung deutscher Frauen mit Ausländern’, Informationen für die Frau, 21, 7/8 (July/Aug. 1972), 22Google Scholar; emphasis added.

63 Enver Esenkova, ‘Die moslemische Ehe und das Problem der christlich-islamischen Mischehe’, 29, Konferenz für Ausländerfragen am 6. Nov. 1973 im Dominikanerkloster in Frankfurt/Main, 16, ADW, Abgabe 395/51.

64 Pfarrer Unkrig, ‘Impressionen und Erfahrungen bei Ehen deutscher Frauen mit Ägyptern’, Anlage 3, Jahrestagung der evang. Auswanderer-Berater im Dominikaner-Kloster, Frankfurt/Main am 29./30.4. 1975, ADW Abgabe 396/107. Unkrig followed this assessment with a racist-sexist joke about emancipation in Egypt, which supposedly manifested itself in the fact that the woman was now allowed to walk in front instead of behind the donkey carrying the man.

65 Pfarrer Unkrig, ‘Impressionen und Erfahrungen bei Ehen deutscher Frauen mit Ägyptern’, Anlage 3, Jahrestagung der evang. Auswanderer-Berater im Dominikaner-Kloster, Frankfurt/Main am 29./30.4.1975, ADW Abgabe 396/107.

66 ‘Betr.: Ausländerheiraten: Auszug aus einem Brief von Schwester Liselotte Köhler, Evangelische Gemeinde deutscher Sprache in Kairo vom Juli 1973’, ADW, Abgabe 396/51.

67 Hans Vöcking (of the order of the White Fathers), a speaker at the 1984 meeting of emigration counsellors, seemed reluctant to be explicit but thought it an important enough issue when he stated during a Q&A session that ‘in the German colonies abroad there is very little contact with German women in interethnic marriages. I know of a case, though I want to name neither the place nor the country. A German woman married to a Muslim has been working at the German Institute [there] for twenty years. Often, parties and receptions are held there and one is always willing to invite each other to dinner. But this woman and her husband have not been invited once. Therefore, selection is also practised among Germans abroad’. ‘Diskussion zum Thema’, Niederschrift über die 33. Jahrestagung des Bundesverwaltungsamtes für die Leiterinnen und Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer vom 15.–18. Mai 1984 in Trier, 130, Archiv des Raphaels-Werks e.V. (hereafter ARW). Dr Elsbeth Nachtigall-Khalil, herself residing in Egypt, at the 1995 annual meeting of emigration counsellors explicitly addressed what she called the ‘particular problem that German women in German–Egyptian marriages face: it's not coming from the Egyptian side (Germans are generally well liked and highly regarded in Egypt) but from the German side’. The attitude exhibited ‘by the members of the so-called “German colony” towards the German woman who has an Egyptian husband is surprising time and again’. See Elsbeth Nachtigall-Khalil, ‘Möglichkeiten und Probleme deutscher Frauen in Ägypten’, Niederschrift über die 33. Jahrestagung des Bundesverwaltungsamts für die Leiterinnen und Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer 19.–22. Juni 1995 in Aachen, 78, ARW.

68 See Mittmann, ‘Säkularisierungsvorstellungen’, 276.

69 Minning, ‘Eheschließung’, 23.

70 Friedrich Minning, ‘Grundlagen und Umfang der Arbeit öffentlicher und privater Stellen zur Beratung von Ehen mit Ausländern’, 29, Konferenz für Ausländerfragen am 6. Nov. 1973 im Dominikanerkloster in Frankfurt/Main, 6, ADW, Abgabe 396/51.

71 Even as the total number of unions with foreigners declined between 1965 (18,700) and 1970 (14,645) intermarriage experts were not reassured but argued that the numbers only reflected the years of low birth rates, rather than a decline in the intermarriage trend itself. The numbers for 1965 were discussed at the second meeting of the workshop on ‘Marriage with Foreigners’. See Elisabeth Maschat ‘Ehe mit Ausländern’, Arbeitstagung des Arbeitskreises ‘Ehe mit Ausländern’, 8 March 1972, 2, ADW, HGSt 2501; the numbers for 1970 can be found in Stöcker-Zafari and Wegner, Binationaler Alltag, 18. Both sources draw their information from reports of the Statistisches Bundesamt (the Federal Statistics Office), Wiesbaden.

72 The document has no title or date but can be clearly identified as the annual report of the Department of Migration of the Diakonie for 1972, 2, ADW, Abgabe 396/27; ‘Referat Wanderung’ [The annual report of the Department of Migration of the Diakonie for 1973], 1; ADW, Abgabe 396/27. By 1973, counselling sessions made up 3.5% of the information centre's overall meetings with clients. In absolute numbers that meant around 200 women and girls sought out Protestant emigration information centres in 1972. Their numbers doubled to more than 400 the following year. Most probably these numbers were also in part due to the strenuous efforts on the part of all involved in providing and making accessible information about marriage to foreigners to as many young women as possible.

73 Schrey to Direktor Pastor Hahn, 18 March 1974, ADW, Abgabe 396/51.

74 Niederschrift über die 1. Arbeitstagung des Arbeitskreises ‘Ehe mit Ausländern’ – Stellung der Frau in Ehe und Öffentlichkeit im Ausland am 27. Okt. 1971, ADW, HGSt 2501.

75 The best exposure – if not entirely ideal in terms of results – was the participation of an employee of the BVA–AfA in one of the most popular game shows of the period. A staff member at Raphaels-Werk first suggested this as early as the mid-1960s, and Frau Maschat from the BVA–AfA finally participated on ‘Was bin ich’ in 1972, a show similar in concept to the American ‘What's My Line’, featuring a panel of (moderate) celebrities charged with guessing the guest's professional occupation after he or she had provided a small clue in performing a hand gesture characteristic for the job in question. While well over a thousand queries reached the BVA–AfA after the show had aired, it seems that it might not have been clear enough that the candidate's job was the guidance of couples considering interethnic marriage rather than marriage counselling more generally. However, the response to the show apparently also threw into stark relief how relatively common intermarriage had become, with people from virtually all corners of the globe writing in. See Niederschrift über die Regionaltagung der Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätgige und Auswanderer im Bereich Nord am 7. Nov. 1972 in Hamburg, 2, ADW, Abgabe 396/62.

76 ‘Wenn der Ehepartner Ausländer ist: Was Frauen in der Fremde passieren kann’, TV Hören und Sehen, 45 (1975). In a subsequent issue, the magazine published letters to the editor in response to the article: ‘Wenn der Ehepartner Ausländer ist: TV-Leser berichten über eigene Schicksale’, TV Hören und Sehen, 1 (1976). While the outlook on intermarriage was overwhelmingly negative, and the arguments for failure plentiful, the counsellors conceded that some marriages did succeed. These arguments were based on assumptions about class and education, though the overwhelming differences could, it seems, sometimes be overcome. More educated, better-off couples were better able to discuss their differences, to appreciate them and work through them intellectually. Moreover, their higher education at least made it possible to achieve a higher income, which would mean that they would eventually be able to afford a place of their own, thus escaping what was always depicted as the suffocating presence and dominance of the extended family in the husband's home country. Some measure of sexism was not absent from these assessments either. As the head of the Department of Migration at Diakonie, Dambacher, remarked, ‘Furthermore I want to note that educated, adaptable German marriage partners are generally more capable of dealing with problems [resulting from interethnic marriage] than dowdy [hausbackene] German girls of humble means’. Dambacher to Hauser at St. Raphaels-Verein Hannover, 24 June 1965; ADW, HGSt 2523.

77 See, for example, interview with Siegrun Yazdan Pourfard, ‘Verheiratet in Teheran’, Jugend unter dem Wort, 10; Seine Frau werden? rev. edn (n. p., 1982); a letter by a German woman that had reached the BVA–AfA and depicted the husband as ‘European’ because he helped with the housework, and let his wife leave the house by herself, was not published in the office's newsletter because the depiction of the husband's behaviour could ‘not be viewed as universally valid’. BVA–AfA, Az.: V 2 452–04–1518/63 (61), 1 July 1963.

78 Friedrich Minning, ‘Die Beratung bei Ehen mit Ausländern: Ein Erfahrungsaustausch im mitteleurpäischen Raum und Überlegungen für eine engere Zusammenarbeit’, Anlage 7, Niederschrift über die 22. Jahrestagung der Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer am 29./30. Mai 1973 in Stuttgart, 14–15, ADW, Abgabe, 396/62.

79 According to a note relating to a meeting about intermarriage with representatives of the KA, Minning referred to the conference as a ‘major mishap’. See Vermerk, 24 Jan. 1973, KA 955/73, Evangelisches Zentralarchiv (hereafter: EZA) 6/9561.

80 Today, the organization is called Verband bi-nationaler Familien und Partnerschaften, IAF (Association for Bi-national Families and Partnerships, IAF), reflecting the changes in contemporary understanding not just of romantic relationships and the effect they have on partners as well as their children, but also of the potential need for advice to all people in bi-national relationships, not just German women. A history evaluating this grass-roots organization's anti-racist efforts has yet to be written.

81 Schönwälder, ‘Why Germany's Guestworkers Were Largely Europeans’, 255f.

82 Schönwälder, Einwanderung, 521.

83 Katsoulis, Haris, Bürger zweiter Klasse (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1978), 74Google Scholar; Schönwälder, Einwanderung, 519ff.

84 Karl-Heinz Kopetzki, ‘Ehen mit Ausländern’, Anlage 3, Arbeitstagung der Auswandererberater des St. Raphaels-Vereins e.V. im St. Jakobushaus in Goslar vom 23.–28.10.1972, 21, ARW.

85 Ibid., 22.

86 Einleitende Bemerkungen von Oberkirchenrat K. Kremkau, 29, Konferenz für Ausländerfragen am 6. Nov. 1973 im Dominikanerkloster in Frankfurt/Main, 2ff, ADW, Abgabe 396/51. Earlier assessments of interethnic couples concluded that intermarriages in Germany usually had the same success rate as German–German ones. Legal hazards that might trouble the marriage were never mentioned.

87 Katharina Jacobsen to Dambacher, 23 July 1973, ADW, Abgabe 396/117.

88 Protokoll über die Tagung der Leiter der Beratungsstellen für Auswanderer und Auslandstätige am 30. und 31. Okt. 1973 in Hamburg, ADW, Allg. Slg. 1308.

89 ‘Zusammenfassung der Aussprache durch Oberkirchenrat K. Kremkau’, 29, Konferenz für Ausländerfragen am 6. Nov. 1973 im Dominikanerkloster in Frankfurt/Main, ADW, Abgabe 396/51. Over the years, IAF and the various emigration information offices exchanged information and at times attended each other's meetings. See, for example, Katharina Jacobsen from the Diakonisches Werk in Hessen und Nassau to Walter Dambacher, 9 Apr. 1973, ADW, Abgabe 396/117; Raphelswerk Tätigkeitsbericht 1979, 6, Diözesanarchiv Hamburg (hereafter DH), 06-41-01-04; Raphelswerk Tätigkeitsbericht 1980, 12, DH, 06-41-01-04.

90 Note dated 12 June 1974 and signed ‘uh’ (Ursula Hasubek of the Department of Migration at Diakonie). To illustrate the shift in sensibilities here, it is instructive to note that in 1962, Jugend unter dem Wort had published interviews with Muslims, the first of which pointed out the misuse of the term ‘Mohammedan’. Ignoring this intervention at the time, the term ‘Mohammedan’ was applied to the followers of Islam throughout the series of articles in the issue. See Jugend unter dem Wort, 6.

91 Elisabeth Maschat, ‘Ehen mit Ausländern’, 2. Arbeitstagung des Arbeitskreises ‘Ehe mit Ausländern’ – Stellung der Frau in Ehe und Öffentlichkeit im Ausland, 8 March 1972, ADW, HGSt 2501.

92 Fingerlin, Erika and Mildenberg, Michael, eds, Ehen mit Muslimen: Am Beispiel deutsch-türkischer Ehen (Frankfurt/Main: Otto Lembeck Verlag, 1983)Google Scholar. The publication was vetted by a number of Protestant and Catholic committees and experts.

93 Ibid., 21–2.

94 Ibid., 9,17, 21, 25, 31.

95 It is now called Referat für Interreligiösen Dialog (Department for Interreligious Dialogue), REFIDI for short.

96 Markus Kampmann, ‘Ein “weißer Vater” macht seinem Orden alle Ehre’, Ibbenbürener Volkszeitung (IVZ) Online, 18 March 2010. CIBEDO was an organisation founded in 1978 by the Catholic missionary society of the White Fathers devoted to interfaith dialogue. In 1997 it became a Fachstelle der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (department of the Conference of German Bishops).

97 See Kirchliches Außenamt der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, ed., Moslems in der Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt/Main: Otto Lembeck Verlag, 1974); Mohammed, Abdullah, Moslems unter uns: Situation, Herausforderung, Gespräch (Stuttgart: Quell Verlag, 1974)Google Scholar; Jasper, Gerhard, ed., Muslime, Unsere Nachbarn (Frankfurt/Main: Otto Lembeck Verlag, 1977)Google Scholar; Christen und Muslime im Gespräch (Frankfurt/Main: Otto Lembeck Verlag, 1982).

98 According to Gerhard Jasper, one of the Protestant pioneers of Christian–Muslim dialogue in Germany, the publication was only a ‘first venturing forth into unknown territory’, and its character was ‘akin to a premature birth’. He particularly criticised the mentioning of the AfA among the addresses where one could seek advice about intermarriage, because it sounded to him as if ‘the question of emigration for the Christian partner was inevitable’. Having the benefit of hindsight, Jasper deemed the list of recommended literature to be ‘completely inadequate’. Jasper, Gerhard, Unterwegs im Dialog (Berlin: LIT, 2008), 89Google Scholar, 90.

99 Mittmann, ‘Säkularisierungsvorstellungen’, 270.

100 Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, ed., Muslime in Deutschland (1982), 46, 48.

101 Wanzura, Werneret al., Ehen zwischen Katholiken und Moslems in Deutschland (Cologne: Erzbischöfliches Generalvikariat, Hauptabteilung Seelsorge, 1983).Google Scholar

102 Ibid., 7.

103 Werner Wanzura, ‘Ehen zwischen Christen und Muslimen – interkultureller und religiöser Dialog’, Niederschrift über die 41. Jahrestagung des Bundesverwaltungsamtes für die Leiterinnen und Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer, vom 2.–5. Juni 1992 in Heidelberg, 156, ARW.

104 See Wanzura et al., Ehen. In 1984, two issues of the journal CIBEDO-Dokumentation were dedicated to the question of intermarriage.

105 Hans Vöcking, ‘Die islamisch-christliche Ehe als bikulturelle Ehe’, Niederschrift über die 33. Jahrestagung des Bundesverwaltungsamtes für die Leiterinnen und Leiter der Auskunfts- und Beratungsstellen für Auslandstätige und Auswanderer vom 15.–18. Mai 1984 in Trier, 112–24, here 113, ARW.

106 Vöcking, ‘bikulturelle Ehe’, 121.

107 To counter such dependencies and therefore work against traditional social patterns, Vöcking advocated a woman's financial independence in case of marriage with a Muslim, arguing that this made a big difference in the way the couple's life together would be shaped. Ibid, 120.

108 Wanzura, ‘Ehen zwischen Christen und Muslimen’, 149; emphasis in the original.

109 Ibid., 153, 159.

110 Ibid., 156.

111 Wanzura, ‘Ehen zwischen Christen und Muslimen’, 158.

112 Ibid., 157.

113 Chin, ‘Guest Worker Migration’, 99.