"We called for workers but humans came."

Submitted by Romanis, Nov 3, 2016 at 05:49

"Wir riefen Arbeitskräfte, und es kamen Menschen" in English "We called for workers and humans came." is the most famous proverb in German political discussion on Turkish immigration to Germany. It is supposed to describe the naive attitude driving German immigration policy during the 1970s and 80s.

For decades, Germans pretended that the guest workers would sooner or later leave when the demand for their work would decrease. That did not happen. As a German I recommend reading or watching books or reports about Thilo Sarrazin. In 2010 he published the most succesful non-fiction book in German post-war history named "Deutschland schafft sich ab." (Germany does itself away) in which he describes the negative economic consequences of immigration from predominantly muslim countries. It created a huge and very heated debate that lasted for months and which ultimatley cost him his position as a member of the executive board of the German central bank (Bundesbank).

A main feature of Sarrazin's work is that he accurately and rigidly backs up his arguments with huge amounts of statistics on economic, social or educational success, dependency on social welfare, criminality statistics etc. During this time in 2010/2011, polls showed that a majority of Germans agreed with many of his positions. His own party however, the social-democratic SPD wanted to throw him out of the party.

A rather rare report in English on Thilo Sarrazin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fA4tWheo5Y

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