Foreign Nationalities : Germany

Germany is friendly towards foreigners. Of the country’s approximately 82.0 million inhabitants (1996), 7.3 million are foreigners. They were all glad to come and stay in Germany. For decades there were no racial problems. The category of “guest workers”, initially consisting of Italians, was extended to include Greeks and Spaniards, and then Portuguese, Yugoslavs and Turks. Occasional tensions in everyday life were far outweighed by the friendships made with neighbors and colleagues at work. Integration within the European Union and the Western world, the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, and the immigration of people from Asian and African countries naturally meant a considerable increase in the number of foreigners of different color in Germany. The Turks, who number 2,049,000, have long been the largest foreign community, followed by people from presenr- day Yugoslavia, Serbia/Montenegro, who number about 754,000. About 340,500 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina live in Germany, and 201,900 from Croatia.

The roughly 599,000 Italians, 362,500 Greeks, 185,000 Austrians, 132,000 Spaniards, 131,000 Portuguese, 117,000 British, 113,000 Nether-landers and 102,000 French are the largest contingents from the countries of the European Union. About 283,000 Poles, 101,000 Romanians and 110,000 citizens of the United States live in Germany. They are joined by 21 5,300 people from the former Soviet Union, 56,000 from Hungary, 83,000 from Morocco, 26,000 from Tunisia, 22,000 from Ghana, 18,000 from Brazil, 63,000 from Afghanistan, 35,000 from China, 36,000 from India, 111,000 from Iran, 56,000 from Lebanon, 38,000 from Pakistan, 58,000 from Sri Lanka and 92,000 from Vietnam.

The overwhelming majority of foreigners live in the western part of the Federal Republic; nearly 50 percent have been living in Germany for ten years or more.