Turks in Germany

About 3 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany. Half of them have Turkish citizenship. Turks are the largest group of all foreigners (17%). Today we will try to understand why and what it led to.

Without going into uninteresting details, just say that Turkish citizens began to actively immigrate to Germany in the 1960s. During the post-war rise of the German economy, an influx of labor was required. Germany entered into an agreement with Turkey, where at that time there was a high level of unemployment. Reception of labor from another country turned out to be the simplest solution, after 10 years the number of immigrants from Turkey exceeded half a million. 80% of all Turks living in Western Europe at that time lived in West Germany.

Initially, the typical migrant was a lonely middle-aged man from the countryside, who lives in a dormitory and speaks German poorly. This option did not suit the German government, so the law was significantly simplified the process of reunification with the family. Many migrant workers returned to their homeland, earning money, in their place came the families of those who remained.
Turkish culture influences German and vice versa.

Among the vivid examples are Turkish German. This is a German, from which the articles, prepositions and cases were removed, making it as simple as possible. Sometimes the Germans themselves use Turkish words, imitating Turkish German. For example, the word “Habibi” – “beloved (th)” is readily picked up by the Germans. If initially Deutschish Deutsch was a sign of poor German knowledge, now it is a whole cultural phenomenon. The young population with Turkish roots specifically speaks this surzhik, despite the fact that they speak German perfectly and without an accent.

Fact!

German is one of the most common in the world! If we talk about Europe, then 18% (!) Of all Europeans consider it their mother tongue, and this is the highest figure among dozens of different languages. For comparison, English and French consider only 13% and 12% of all Europeans to be their relatives.

If you listen to German rap, you can discover that the lion’s share of musicians of this genre are Turks. They create an entourage image of poor slum-dwellers associated with crime. Just like African Americans, whose “black slang” they imitate. This is due to the fact that, like the black population of the United States, they often face racism in their own direction, are more affected by unemployment, due to lack of knowledge of the language or prejudice. Through this, they have to live in poor areas and more often come into contact with crime. That kind of life is the perfect background for a rap artist. The most popular phenomenon in Turkish German turnips can probably be called the singer Bushido.

Street food number one in Germany is Döner, it is even called “national” food of Berlin, because it won such popularity among the local population that kiosks with Bavarian sausages survive only at the expense of tourists. Some layouts with doner are so popular that you have to stand up to two hours in line to eat this culinary miracle.