Germany, a Country of Immigration – Why Integration is a High-Priority (13.11.2008) People & Politics

"We asked for workers, but it was people that came” – that’s how the writer Max Frisch once put it. When the first guest workers began coming to Germany more than 50 years ago, politicians didn’t think about the long-term consequences of labor migration. Millions of people have come since then, first from southern Europe, then Turkey, and later from northern Africa. Now their second- and third-generation descendants live in Germany and have played a large role in the success of the country. But many of them are poorly integrated, living in parallel societies and sometimes in hostility to democratic values. Some of them drift into religious fanaticism or crime. Rupert Wiederwald takes a look at the whole issue of integration, one of the greatest challenges in German politics today.