Turks in Germany
Turks in Germany, also referred to as German Turks and Turkish Germans, are ethnic Turkish people living in Germany. These terms are also used to refer to German-born individuals who are of full or partial Turkish ancestry.
However, not all people in Germany who trace their heritage back to Turkey are ethnic Turks. A significant proportion of the population is also of Kurdish, Circassian, Azerbaijani descent and to a lesser extent, of Christian descent, such as Assyrian, and Armenian. Also some ethnic Turkish communities in Germany trace their ancestry to other parts of southeastern Europe or the Levant. At present, ethnic Turkish people form the largest ethnic minority in Germany. They also form the largest Turkish population in the Turkish diaspora.
Most people of Turkish descent in Germany trace their ancestry to the Gastarbeiter programs in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, in the midst of an economic boom that resulted in a significant labor shortage, Germany signed a bilateral agreement with Turkey to allow German companies to recruit Turkish workers. The agreement was in place for 12 years, during which around 650,000 workers came from Turkey to Germany. Many also brought their spouses and children with them.
Turks who immigrated to Germany brought cultural elements with them, including the Turkish language and Turkish food.
History
Turkish migration from the Seljuk Empire and the Rum Seljuk Sultanate
During a series of invading Crusades by European-Christian armies into lands ruled by Turkic rulers in the Middle East, namely under the Seljuk Turks in the Seljuk Empire and the Rum Seljuk Sultanate, many crusaders brought back Turkish male and female prisoners of war to Europe; women were generally baptised and then married whilst "every returning baron and count had prisoners of war in his entourage." Some of the Beutetürken taken to Germany during the Crusades also included children and young adults.The earliest documented Turk in Germany is believed to be from the Anatolian Seljuk lands. According to Streiders Hessisches Gelehrtenlexikon, Soltan was a Turkish officer who was captured by Count von Lechtomir during his return to Germany from the Holy Land in 1291. By 1304 Soltan married Rebekka Dohlerin; he was baptised the following year as "Johann Soldan", but "out of special love to him", the Count "gave him a Turkish nobility coat of arms". Soldan and his wife had at least three sons, including Eberhardus, Christanianus and Melchior. Another source specifies that Soltan came with Count Reinhart von Württemberg to the residential town of Brackenheim in 1304 and was then baptised in 1305 at S. Johannis Church as "Johannes Soldan". There is also evidence that Soltan had a total of 12 sons born in 20 years with Anna Delcherin and Rebecca Bergmännin; eight of his sons passed to the clergy and do not appear in genealogy records due to compulsory celibacy associated with the clergy.
For example, through his maternal grandmother, the renowned German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe belonged to the descendants of the Soldan family and thus had Turkish ancestry. Bernt Engelmann has said that "the German poet prince with oriental ancestors is by no means a rare exception." Indeed, other descendants of the first recorded Turk in Germany include the lawyer ; the city architects and wine masters Heinrich Soldan and his son Johann Soldan who both served as Mayor of Frankenberg; the sculptor and artist ; and the pharmacist Carl Soldan who founded the confectionery company "". Carl Soldan's grandson, Pery Soldan, has said that the family continue to use the crescent and star on their coat of arms. According to Latif Çelik, as of 2008, the Soldan family numbered 2,500 and are also found in Austria, Finland, France and Switzerland.
Turkish migration from the Ottoman Empire
The Turkish people had greater contact with the German states by the sixteenth century when the Ottoman Empire attempted to expand their territories beyond the north Balkan territories. The Ottoman Turks held two sieges in Vienna: the first Siege of Vienna in 1529 and the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. The aftermath of the second siege provided the circumstances for a Turkish community to permanently settle in Germany.Many Ottoman soldiers and camp followers who were left behind after the second siege of Vienna became stragglers or prisoners. It is estimated that at least 500 Turkish prisoners were forcibly settled in Germany. Historical records show that some Turks became traders or took up other professions, particularly in southern Germany. Some Turks fared very well in Germany; for example, one Ottoman Turk is recorded to have been raised to the Hanoverian nobility. Historical records also show that many Ottoman Turks converted to Christianity and became priests or pastors.
File:Fryderyk August Rutowski.jpeg|thumb|left|upright|Of Turkish origin through his mother Fatima, Frederick Augustus Rutowsky became the commander of the Saxon army during the Siege of Pirna.
The aftermath of the second siege of Vienna led to a series of wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League, known as the "Great Turkish War", or the "War of the Holy League", which led to a series of Ottoman defeats. Consequently, more Turks were taken by the Europeans as prisoners. The Turkish captives taken to Germany were not solely made up of men. For example, General Schöning took "two of the most beautiful women in the world" in Buda who later converted to Christianity. Another Turkish captive named Fatima became the mistress of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony of the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. Fatima and Augustus had two children: their son, Frederick Augustus Rutowsky, became the commander of the Saxon army in 1754-63 whilst their daughter, Maria Anna Katharina Rutowska, married into Polish nobility. Records show that at this point it was not uncommon for Turks in Germany to convert to Christianity. For example, records show that 28 Turks converted to Christianity and were settled in Württemberg.
With the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Turkish people continued to enter the German lands as soldiers employed by the Prussian kings. Historical records show that this was particularly evident with the expansion of Prussia in the mid-18th century. For example, in 1731, the Duke of Kurland presented twenty Turkish guardsmen to King Frederick William I, and at one time, about 1,000 Muslim soldiers are said to have served in the Prussian cavalry. The Prussian king's fascination with the Enlightenment was reflected in their consideration for the religious concerns of their Muslim troops. By 1740 Frederick the Great stated that:
File:Dresden Yenidze2.jpg|thumb|The mosque-style Yenidze tobacco factory in Dresden is a symbolic reminder of the trading relations between the Ottomans and the Prussians. It was named after the importing tobacco region of Ottoman Yenidze.|left
File:Berlin IslamischerFriedhof 05.jpg|thumb|left|Berlin's Turkish cemetery alongside the Şehitlik Mosque, a classic Ottoman style mosque.
By 1763, an Ottoman legation existed at the Prussian court in Berlin. Its third envoy, Ali Aziz Efendi, died in 1798 which led to the establishment of the first Muslim cemetery in Germany. However, several decades later, there was a need for another cemetery, as well as a mosque, and the Ottoman sultan Abdulaziz was given permission to patronize a mosque in Berlin in 1866.
Once trading treaties were established between the Ottomans and the Prussians in the nineteenth century, Turks and Germans were encouraged to cross over to each other's lands for trade. Consequently, the Turkish community in Germany, and particularly in Berlin, grew significantly in the years before the First World War. These contacts influenced the building of various Turkish-style structures in Germany, such as the Yenidze cigarette factory in Dresden and the Dampfmaschinenhaus für Sanssouci pumping-station in Potsdam.
During this time, there were also marriages between Germans and Turks. For example, Karl Boy-Ed, who was the naval attaché to the German embassy in Washington during World War I, was born into a German-Turkish family.
Turkish migration from the Republic of Turkey
Heuss-Turks
The Heuss Turks were the name given to around 150 young Turkish citizens who came to Germany in 1958. They followed an invitation that the then Federal President Theodor Heuss had extended to Turkish vocational school graduates during a visit to Turkey in Ankara in 1957. The exchange, which was intended as a vocational training measure and began for some of the group as apprentices at the Ford plant in Cologne, became the starting point for their immigration to the Federal Republic for some. A number worked at Ford until they retired in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It was the first large group of Turkish workers to come to Germany together, even before the start of actual Turkish immigration with the recruitment agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and Turkey in 1961. According to DOMiD reports, they were given a warm welcome in Germany and were extremely popular with their work colleagues.Turkish Student Federation in Germany
The Turkish Student Federation in Germany is a nationwide interest group for Turkish students in Germany founded in 1962, which was dissolved in 1977. The first regional German-Turkish student association after the Second World War was founded in Munich in 1954. In the following years, others were founded, including in Berlin and Karlsruhe in 1957. The ATÖF was founded in 1962 as a merger of nine such student associations. Its founding location was again Munich. In 1977, the ATÖF was dissolved due to internal problems.In the 1950s, West Germany experienced an economic boom, exacerbated by the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 that prevented migration from East Germany. In response, the West German government signed a labour recruitment agreement with Turkey on 30 October 1961 and officially invited Turkish workers to emigrate to the country, initially on visas limited to two years, although this was quickly lifted following complaints by German employers.
Most Turkish immigrants intended to live there temporarily and then return to Turkey so that they could build a new life with the money they had earned. Indeed, return-migration increased during the recession of 1966–1967 and the 1973 oil crisis. Under Helmut Kohl, the government also attempted to encourage immigrants to return to their countries of origin with financial incentives, although this was largely unsuccessful. Overall, the proportion of Turkish immigrants who returned to Turkey remained relatively small. This was partly due to the family reunification rights that were introduced in 1974 which allowed Turkish workers to bring their families to Germany. Consequently, between 1974 and 1988 the number of Turks in Germany nearly doubled, acquiring a balanced sex ratio and a much younger age profile than the German population. Once the recruitment of foreigner workers was reintroduced after the recession of 1967, the BfA granted most work visas to women. This was in part because labour shortages continued in low paying, low-status service jobs such as electronics, textiles, and garment work; and in part to further the goal of family reunification.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the reunification of East and West Germany, was followed by intense public debate around national identity and citizenship, including the place of Germany's Turkish minority in the future of a united Germany. These debates about citizenship were accompanied by expressions of xenophobia and ethnic violence that targeted the Turkish population. Anti-immigrant sentiment was especially strong in the four former eastern states of Germany, which underwent profound social and economic transformations during the reunification process. Turkish communities experienced considerable fear for their safety throughout Germany, with some 1,500 reported cases of right wing violence, and 2,200 cases the year after. The political rhetoric calling for foreigner-free zones and the rise of neo-Nazi groups sharpened public awareness of integration issues and generated intensified support among liberal Germans for the competing idea of Germany as a "multicultural" society. Citizenship by birth was restricted to the children of German citizens until the mid-2000s. However, increasing numbers of second-generation Turkish-Germans have opted for German citizenship and are becoming more involved in the political process.