Rita Chin’s study on the guest-worker question in postwar Germany analyses the complex and conflicted way in which the Federal Republic of Germany came to terms with the fact that it gradually, although unwillingly, was becoming an immigration country. Chin provides a mostly well-informed overview of the development of the West German Ausländerpolitik (policy towards foreigners) from the mid-1950s to the early 1990s, and shows how this policy has been influenced by public debates surrounding the migration issue and by the role of (mostly German-Turkish) writers. Surprisingly, neither the title nor the cover of the book refer to this particular focus of research. Both title and cover-picture (which shows the famous photo of the reception of the one-millionth guest-worker in 1964) rather suggest that the book provides a social history of the guest-worker period in West Germany, dealing with the realities and experiences of these workers.

Instead, a large part of the book is dedicated to the literary production and self-conception of Aras Ören, Yüksel Pazarkaya, Saliha Scheinhardt, Zehra Çirak, Akif Pirinçci and Zafer Senocak – some of the best-known German-Turkish writers of the past decades. Chin analyses their individual ways of dealing with the specific institutional frameworks which have been established in Germany for the literary productions of foreigners (Ausländerliteratur): How have they used these frameworks for their own purposes; how have they challenged and partly overcome their narrowness? How has their literary work been received by journalists, literary critics, and their German audience, and how have they influenced the representation of (Turkish) guest-workers and immigrants in German society? While focusing on these questions Chin recognizes these writers as self-conscious actors, not only as objects caught in the framework or role which well-meaning German academics and intellectuals have assigned to them.

It is undisputably correct and well overdue to analyse and assess the impact of immigrants on German society, and to recognize them finally as actors and not only as victims – which has been the case for too long. In this respect Chin’s study is important and innovative, especially for an audience who lacks knowledge of the German language and who therefore cannot easily access the findings of a younger generation of scholars in Germany dealing with the topic (see p. 12, note 17, where Chin mentions some of these findings). Considering this merit of Chin’s study, it might seem fussy to point out that she ignores other parts of immigrant society, especially those who were recruited as guest-workers and who probably had a larger impact on German society than the writers mentioned. Here one could think of guest-workers engaged in trade unions, citizens’ groups, social services dedicated to migrants, migrant organizations, and those who founded their own companies and became self-employed etc.

Given the misleading (and therefore rather annoying) title of Chin’s book, which raises expectations that remain unmet, the argument about ignoring the guest-workers themselves becomes inevitable. All the more since Chin affirms, rather than proves, the influence which the featured minority artists had on the public debate about foreigners and their position within German society and the German nation-state. She talks, for example, about the “revolutionary potential of Ausländerliteratur”, and about the “status” of minority writers “as ideal dialogue partners” whose “participation” was “absolutely crucial to the success of integration policy”, about their role as “experts on panels and television shows and at public meetings and conferences” (p. 137), without analysing or even giving significant examples of these allegedly crucial forms of participation.

To be clear, I do not want to deny the influence of these writers. They belong to the migrant intelligentsia which in general played an important role in representing the migrants and their concerns – which, by the way, were very different. For example, not every guest-worker or migrant wanted to become a German citizen, especially not in 1980 when only few of them perceived themselves as immigrants who would be staying in Germany for good. This, too, explains the small number of naturalizations by then, which Chin one-dimensionally attributes to the rigorous German citizenship law (p. 84) which was only changed in 1990 and – more fundamentally – in 2000.

Despite the title and cover-picture of Chin’s study her analyses of the public debate on guest-workers focuses almost exclusively on Turkish migrants. This is justified insofar as from the early 1970s Turks represented the largest migrant group in West Germany and gradually became identified as the central problem of West German Ausländerpolitik. By the end of the decade the so-called Türkenproblem resounded throughout the land. This catchword stemmed not only from the large quantity of Turkish migrants, but also from the fact that they were perceived as the culturally most foreign group. It is, however, not correct that the West German authorities “perceived the presence of this group as especially problematic” from the very beginning, and that the rotation clause which was included in the first recruitment contract with Turkey “effectively discriminated against Turks” (p. 49).

This common misunderstanding partly relates to the fact that the German authorities in the early 1960s did indeed become aware that the large-scale recruitment of foreign workers might lead to long-term immigration – a “danger” that could be prevented by the impractical, and therefore temporary, rotation clause which, incidentally, was welcomed by the Turkish government who initially insisted on the short-term character of labour migration.Footnote 1 Furthermore, this misunderstanding is the result of projecting the Türkenproblem of the 1970s and 1980s back into the early years of migration. Back then, cultural differences between Turks and Germans were – if at all – rather perceived as exotic; in general the public did not differentiate between Turkish guest-workers and those from other countries of recruitment. Also, in the first years of recruitment a lot of Turks came from urban areas, mostly from Istanbul. Only later more and more migrated from rural areas, and when they started to bring their families with them and to create their own social, economic, and cultural infrastructure cultural differences became more and more visible.

Since the vast majority of guest-workers were male, family reunion led to a considerable increase not only of Turkish children, but also of Turkish women. Vis-à-vis this demographic shift it was no coincidence that the gender aspect was becoming central to West German debate and research on the integration of foreigners – a fact which Chin analyses thoroughly, with the merit of showing how, on the left side of the political spectrum also, doubts began to be raised about the Integrationsfähigkeit (ability to integrate) of the Turks. In this context, Chin correctly identifies “an epistemological shift taking place in the very discourse of integration, especially among academics, social workers, and feminists” (p. 160). They, too, started to identify “the particular situation faced by foreign women in West Germany as a central problem for the work of integration”. According to their experiences and findings “migrant women experienced overwhelming isolation and oppression, suffering from such feelings much more acutely than their husbands and children” (p. 161).

In spite of the sympathy and empathy that existed among these groups for the guest-workers and the allegedly oppressed Turkish women, their different cultures and traditions became to be seen as a threat to a modern, democratic, and liberal German society and to the “basic gender equality for which German feminists had fought so hard” (p. 166). This, again, led to the paradoxical situation that by the mid-1980s “the terms of integration set out in more progressive circles converged with the conservative logic of cultural incommensurability”, although liberals and leftists in general still “tended to insist on the mutabilty of migrant culture and devoted enormous energy to the grassroots work of cultural reform” (p. 171).

It is especially this part of the analyses of the public debate on integration and German multiculturalism which makes Chin’s study well worth reading for experts on German migration history. Those looking at integration and multiculturalism in Germany from the perspective of German Studies can draw even more profit from it. Moreover, it can be recommended to all those who are generally interested in German postwar history.