Immigration and Citizenship in Germany: Contemporary Dilemmas
| Author | Jost Halfmann |
| Date | 01 June 1997 |
| Published date | 01 June 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00080 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Immigration and Citizenship in Germany:
Contemporary Dilemmas
JOST HALFMANN
Technische UniversitaÈt Dresden
The paper starts from a paradox of contemporary German politics: after the uni®ca-
tion of the two Germanies the ethnocultural grounding of German citizenship has lost
its historical meaning; at the same time violent con¯icts and heated debate over the
rights to full membership for immigrants in the German state have developed. After a
theoretical discussion of the notions of nation state, citizenship, and immigration, the
development of the contemporary paradox of citizenship is sketched historically using
two pairs of distinctions: nationhood v. statehood and political v. social (state-
mediated) inclusion. The paradox of `ethnicized' con¯icts over Germans v. foreigners
is interpreted as a discrepancy between membership in the state on the one hand and
membership in the welfare state system on the other ± a discrepancy which currently is
`overdetermined' by the socio-economic consequences of uni®cation.
Over the last ten years, the German public has engaged in a debate on the
questions of immigration and citizenship; only since the uni®cation of the two
German states has this controversy taken a violent turn. During the 1980s, this
con¯ict came as a surprise to many because Germany had immigrants, but
seemingly no problem with national identity because of immigration. Until
uni®cation, the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic dealt
with problems of national identity and nationhood on two completely dierent
terrains. First, during the 1950s and 1960s West German public debate was
preoccupied with the Alleinvertretungsanspruch ± with the question of which
(if either) of the two separate states could legitimately claim to be the
German nation state. Second, throughout the history of the Federal Republic
the problem prevailed of how to deal with the Auslandsdeutsche (Germans
abroad), the Vertriebene (the expellees from the former German territories), the
Aussiedler (the settlers of German origin in the former Soviet Union), and the
UÈbersiedler (those Germans who crossed the border between the two German
states). Both debates related nationhood and citizenship in a peculiar way:
public awareness was directed toward the question of `incomplete' German
statehood; but even though these controversies were prompted by cross-border
movements of large numbers of people, a public debate about the connection
between immigration and citizenship sprang up only after uni®cation.
Since uni®cation and since the extensive migration of Aussiedler into
Germany, the territory controlled by a German state and the territory where
Germans1 live have become more and more identical. In many respects,
1 Or more precisely: those who are considered by German law as Germans.
# Political Studies Association 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
JOST HALFMANN
261
Germany has completed its historic project of building a nation state only very
recently. After uni®cation, the treaty with Poland on the inviolability of the
common borders, the `re-settling' of the Aussiedler from the former Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, and the ceding of the powers of the victors of World
War II (especially over Berlin), Germany has ®nally reached some viable
territorial shape and a legitimate structure as a nation state.
Within this historical context the re-emergence of the question of German
nationhood has political connotations which dier substantially from those
during the period of `incomplete' statehood. While many highly industrialized
countries have experienced rising immigration and increasing `interethnic'
con¯ict over the last decade, in Germany the question of how to deal with
immigration is con¯ated with the question of how to de®ne citizenship under the
new historical conditions. Neither the foreign `guest workers' nor the asylum-
seekers were subject to hostility deriving from national rearmation in the past
history of the Federal Republic. Since the early 1990s however, the question of
membership in the German nation has regained a de®nite ethnic note. This
holds true for those who defend a very restrictive policy towards admitting
foreigners2 (Germany as a self-de®ned non-immigration country) as well as
for those who favour an open immigration policy and the idea of `multi-
culturalism'.3 The question is: why?
In this paper, attention will be focused on the relationship between immigra-
tion and citizenship in Germany. Citizenship divides those who live on a
national territory into citizens and non-citizens; and in turn divides non-citizens
into legal and non-legal foreigners. A problem arises when large numbers of
legal foreign residents live on a nation state's territory without access to full
citizenship.
Empirical research on migration shows that a large share of migrants who
come as temporary workers eventually settle down in the receiving country. This
general ®nding holds also true for Germany, especially in the period after the
1960s. Bade states that `of those foreigners who lived in the Federal Republic
on 31 December 1987, 45.8 per cent had stayed there for 10±20 years and
13.9 per cent for more than 20 years already';4 at the end of 1990, 24 per cent of
the foreign residents had lived in Germany for more than 20 years. By the end of
1990, the share of foreigners among the resident population in Germany
surpassed 8 per cent and in 1991 the number of foreigners almost touched the
2 This restrictive attitude is based on the principle, shared by many citizens and politicians, that
Germany is not and should not be `an immigration country'. The Federal EinbuÈrgerungsrichtlinien
of 1977 (`Administrative guidelines on naturalization') state in }2.3 that `the Federal Republic is
not a country of immigration (and) does not strive to increase the number of its citizens through
naturalization' (translation taken from R. Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and
Germany (Cambridge, MA and London, Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 174). For references to
this ocial policy of the German government see D. Kanstroom ` ``Wer sind wir wieder?'' Laws of
asylum, immigration and citizenship in the struggle for the soul of the new Germany', Yale Journal
of International Law, 18 (1993), 155±211, pp. 162, 201±4.
3 C. Leggewie, a widely published proponent of `multiculturalism', demands that the Turks living
in Germany should be formally acknowledged as an `ethnic minority' and granted the same status
of `cultural autonomy' that the German-Polish treaty of 1991 provides for `ethnic Germans'
in Poland, see C. Leggewie, `Das Ende der Geduld. Zehn Gebote fuÈr das deutsch-tuÈrkische
VerhaÈltnis', Die Tageszeitung, 18 September (1993), p. 10.
4 K. J. Bade, `Paradoxon Bundesrepublik: Einwanderungsituation ohne Einwanderungsland' in
K. J. Bade (ed.), Deutsche im Ausland ± Fremde in Deutschland (MuÈnchen, Beck, 1992), pp. 393±401,
p. 397.
# Political Studies Association, 1997
262
Immigration and Citizenship in Germany
6 million mark, continuing a trend of steady growth of foreign residents since
the 1970s.
The presence of large numbers of legal foreign residents without full
membership in the nation state indicates problems of regulating membership in
a state; if many legal residents are not full members of a nation state, con¯icts
may arise. These con¯icts tend to have `ethnicist' overtones, especially if large
numbers of the resident population enjoy the bene®ts of the welfare state
system, but not of the nation state. In times of shrinking welfare budgets, ethnic
dierences may be introduced to safeguard privileged access of the citizens to
welfare bene®ts, and to exclude foreigners. If states attribute citizenship accord-
ing to ethnic criteria, these con¯icts may threaten seemingly uncontroversial
concepts of nationhood, that is, of shared descriptions of society as a commun-
ity of citizens.
The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany de®nes a `German' as
follows: `unless otherwise provided by law, a German within the meaning of
the Basic Law is a person who possesses German citizenship'.5 Article 116(1) of
the Basic Law, however, considers VolkszugehoÈrige (persons belonging to
the German people) from former German eastern territories to be Germans
even though they are not citizens of Germany. VolkszugehoÈrigkeit stems either
from German descent or from cultural and linguistic loyalty to German
nationhood.6 This ethno-cultural addendum to the de®nition of German
citizenship dates back to the emergence of the German nation state in the late
nineteenth century. The recent con¯icts over immigration remind the Germans
of the changes in statehood and nationhood that have taken place in the course
of the dicult establishment of a German nation state. These con¯icts put the
ethno-cultural de®nition of nationhood on trial.
Nation State, Citizenship, and Immigration
Before discussing the dilemma of modern Germany in reconciling a history of
ethno-cultural de®nitions of citizenship with its post-ethnic nationhood, it is
necessary to examine some theoretical considerations about the relationship
between the notions of nation state, citizenship and immigration.
Nation State
The basic political units of `world society' are nation states. Despite supra-
national organizations and international legal...
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