Turks in Germany

Turks in Germany, also referred to as German Turks and Turkish Germans (german: Türken in Deutschland/Deutschtürken; tr, Almanya'da yaşayan Türkler/Almanya Türkleri), are ethnic Turkish people living in Germany. These terms are also used to refer to German-born individuals who are of full or partial Turkish ancestry. Whilst the majority of Turks arrived or originate from Turkey, there are also significant ethnic Turkish communities living in Germany who come from (or descend from) Southeastern Europe (i.e. Balkan Turks from Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Romania), the island of Cyprus (i.e. Turkish Cypriots from both the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus), as well as Turkish communities from other parts of the Levant (including Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria). At present, ethnic Turkish people form the largest ethnic minority in Germany. They also form the largest Turkish population in the Turkish diaspora.

Turks who immigrated to Germany brought cultural elements with them, including the Turkish language.

History

Turkish migration from the Seljuk Empire and the Rum Seljuk Sultanate

During a series of invading Crusades by European-Christian armies into lands ruled by Turkic rulers in the Middle East, namely under the Seljuk Turks in the Seljuk Empire and the Rum Seljuk Sultanate (but also the Bahri Mamluk Sultanate), many crusaders brought back Turkish male and female prisoners of war to Europe; women were generally baptised and then married whilst "every returning baron and count had aleprisoners of war in his entourage." Some of the ('booty Turks') taken to Germany during the Crusades also included children and young adults.

The earliest ''documented'' Turk in Germany is believed to be (Mehmet Sadık Selim Sultan) (ca.1270-1328) from the Anatolian Seljuk lands. According to , Soltan was a Turkish officer who was captured by Count von Lechtomir (Reinhart von Württemberg) during his return to Germany from the Holy Land in 1291. By 1304 Soltan married Rebekka Dohlerin; he was baptised the following year as "Johann Soldan", but "out of special love to him", the Count "gave him a Turkish nobility coat of arms". Soldan and his wife had at least three sons, including Eberhardus, Christanianus and Melchior. Another source specifies that Soltan came with Count Reinhart von Württemberg to the residential town of Brackenheim in 1304 and was then baptised in 1305 at S. Johannis Church as "Johannes Soldan". There is also evidence that Soltan had a total of 12 sons born in 20 years with Anna Delcherin and Rebecca Bergmännin; eight of his sons passed to the clergy and do not appear in genealogy records due to compulsory celibacy associated with the clergy.

Soltan/Soldan's descendants, who were more widespread in south-west Germany, include notable German artists, scholars, doctors, lawyers and politicians. For example, through his maternal grandmother, the renowned German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe belonged to the descendants of the Soldan family and thus had Turkish ancestry. Bernt Engelmann has said that "the German poet prince .e. Goethewith oriental ancestors is by no means a rare exception." Indeed, other descendants of the first recorded Turk in Germany include the lawyer ; the city architects and wine masters Heinrich Soldan and his son Johann Soldan who both served as Mayor of Frankenberg; the sculptor and artist ; and the pharmacist Carl Soldan who founded the confectionery company "". Carl Soldan's grandson, Pery Soldan, has said that the family continue to use the crescent and star on their coat of arms. According to Latif Çelik, as of 2008, the Soldan family numbered 2,500 and are also found in Austria, Finland, France and Switzerland.

Turkish migration from the Ottoman Empire

The Turkish people had greater contact with the German states by the sixteenth century when the Ottoman Empire attempted to expand their territories beyond the north Balkan territories. The Ottoman Turks held two sieges in Vienna: the first Siege of Vienna in 1529 and the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. The aftermath of the second siege provided the circumstances for a Turkish community to permanently settle in Germany.

Many Ottoman soldiers and camp followers who were left behind after the second siege of Vienna became stragglers or prisoners. It is estimated that at least 500 Turkish prisoners were forcibly settled in Germany. Historical records show that some Turks became traders or took up other professions, particularly in southern Germany. Some Turks fared very well in Germany; for example, one Ottoman Turk is recorded to have been raised to the Hanoverian nobility. Historical records also show that many Ottoman Turks converted to Christianity and became priests or pastors.

The aftermath of the second siege of Vienna led to a series of wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League, known as the " Great Turkish War", or the "War of the Holy League", which led to a series of Ottoman defeats. Consequently, more Turks were taken by the Europeans as prisoners. The Turkish captives taken to Germany were not solely made up of men. For example, General Schöning took "two of the most beautiful women in the world" in Buda who later converted to Christianity. Another Turkish captive named Fatima became the mistress of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony of the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. Fatima and Augustus had two children: their son, Frederick Augustus Rutowsky, became the commander of the Saxon army in 1754-63 whilst their daughter, Maria Anna Katharina Rutowska, married into Polish nobility. Records show that at this point it was not uncommon for Turks in Germany to convert to Christianity. For example, records show that 28 Turks converted to Christianity and were settled in Württemberg.

With the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Turkish people continued to enter the German lands as soldiers employed by the Prussian kings. Historical records show that this was particularly evident with the expansion of Prussia in the mid-18th century. For example, in 1731, the Duke of Kurland presented twenty Turkish guardsmen to King Frederick William I, and at one time, about 1,000 Muslim soldiers are said to have served in the Prussian cavalry. The Prussian king's fascination with the Enlightenment was reflected in their consideration for the religious concerns of their Muslim troops. By 1740 Frederick the Great stated that:

By 1763, an Ottoman legation existed at the Prussian court in Berlin. Its third envoy, Ali Aziz Efendi, died in 1798 which led to the establishment of the first Muslim cemetery in Germany. However, several decades later, there was a need for another cemetery, as well as a mosque, and the Ottoman sultan Abdulaziz was given permission to patronize a mosque in Berlin in 1866.

Once trading treaties were established between the Ottomans and the Prussians in the nineteenth century, Turks and Germans were encouraged to cross over to each other's lands for trade. Consequently, the Turkish community in Germany, and particularly in Berlin, grew significantly (as did a German community in Istanbul) in the years before the First World War. These contacts influenced the building of various Turkish-style structures in Germany, such as the Yenidze cigarette factory in Dresden and the Dampfmaschinenhaus für Sanssouci pumping-station in Potsdam.

During this time, there were also marriages between Germans and Turks. For example, Karl Boy-Ed, who was the naval attaché to the German embassy in Washington during World War I, was born into a German-Turkish family.

Turkish migration from the Republic of Turkey

In the mid-twentieth century, West Germany experienced the ''Wirtschaftswunder'' ('economic miracle'); however, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 exacerbated West Germany's labour crisis by restricting the flow of immigrants from East Germany. Consequently, in the same year, the West German government signed a labour recruitment agreement with the Republic of Turkey on 30 October 1961, and officially invited the Turkish people to emigrate to the country. By 1961–1962, German employers played a crucial role in pressuring the State to end the two-year limitation clause of the '' Gastarbeiter'' ('guest worker') agreement so that Turkish workers could stay in West Germany for longer.
As Guestworker also Turkish people of Romani Background came to Germany, they are not looked as Roma by the Host population, only as Turks

Most Turkish people who immigrated to West Germany intended to live there temporarily and then return to Turkey so that they could build a new life with the money they had earned. Indeed, return-migration had increased during the recession of 1966–1967, the 1973 oil crisis, followed by the policy of giving remigration bonuses in the early 1980s. However, the number of Turkish migrants who returned to Turkey ultimately remained relatively small compared to the number of Turkish immigrants arriving in Germany. This was partly due to the family reunification rights that were introduced in 1974 which allowed Turkish workers to bring their families to Germany. Consequently, between 1974 and 1988 the number of Turks in Germany nearly doubled, acquiring a normalised sex ratio and a much younger age profile than the German population. Once the recruitment of foreigner workers was reintroduced after the recession of 1967, the BfA () granted most work visas to women. This was in part because labour shortages continued in low paying, low-status service jobs such as electronics, textiles, and garment work; and in part to further the goal of family reunification.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the reunification of East and West Germany, was followed by intense public debate around the articulations of national identity and citizenship, including the place of Germany's Turkish minority in the future of a united Germany. These debates about citizenship were accompanied by expressions of xenophobia and ethnic violence that targeted the Turkish population. Anti-immigrant sentiment was especially strong in the former eastern states of Germany, which underwent profound social and economic transformations during the reunification process. Turkish communities experienced considerable fear for their safety throughout Germany, with some 1,500 reported cases of right wing violence, and 2,200 cases the year after. The political rhetoric calling for foreigner-free zones () and the rise of neo-Nazi groups sharpened public awareness of integration issues and generated intensified support among liberal Germans for the competing idea of Germany as a " multicultural" society. Citizenship laws that established eligibility according to place of birth rather than according to descent have been slow in coming and restrictions on dual citizenship are still onerous. However, increasing numbers of second-generation Turkish-Germans have opted for German citizenship and are becoming more involved in the political process.

Turkish migration from the Balkans

Bulgaria

Initially, Turkish Bulgarians arrived in Germany during the introduction of the family reunification laws of 1974; they were able to take advantage of this law despite the very small number of Bulgarian citizens in Germany because some Turkish workers in Germany who arrived from Turkey were actually part of the Turkish minority who had left Bulgaria during the communist regime in the 1980s and still held Bulgarian citizenship, alongside their Turkish citizenship.

The migration of Turkish Bulgarians to Germany increased further once communism in Bulgaria ended in 1989. In particular, Turkish Bulgarians who did not join the massive migration wave to Turkey during the so-called " Revival Process" were faced with severe economic disadvantages and continued to face discrimination through state policies of Bulgarisation. Hence, from the early 1990s onwards many Bulgarian Turks sought asylum in Germany.

The number of Turkish speaking Roma people in Bulgaria in Germany has significantly increased since Bulgaria was admitted into the European Union, which has allowed many Bulgarian Turkish Roma to use the freedom of movement to enter Germany. The Bulgarian Turkish Roma have generally been attracted to Germany because they rely on the well-established Turkish-German community for gaining employment.

Thus, the social network of the first waves of political emigration, as well as the preservation of kinship, has opened an opportunity for many Turkish Bulgarian to continue to migrate to Western Europe, with the majority continuing to arrive in Germany. As a result, Turkish Roma from Bulgarian in Germany outnumber the large Turkish Roma Bulgarian diasporas in countries such as the Netherlands where they make up about 80% of Bulgarian citizens.

Greece

From the 1950s onwards, the Turkish minority of Greece, particularly the Turks of Western Thrace, began to immigrate to Germany alongside other Greek citizens. Whilst many Western Thrace Turks had intended to return to Greece after working for a number of years, a new Greek law was introduced which effectively forced the minority to remain in Germany. Article 19 of the 1955 Greek Constitution essentially stripped the Western Thrace Turks living abroad (particularly those in Germany and Turkey) of their Greek citizenship. According to Article 19 of the Greek Constitution

This law continued to affect Western Thrace Turks studying in Germany in the late 1980s, who intended to return to Greece. A report published by the Human Rights Watch in 1990 confirmed that:

Despite many being stripped of their Greek citizenship since 1955, migration of Western Thrace Turks to Germany has continued to increase significantly. Firstly, in the 1960s and 1970s many came to Germany because the Thracian tobacco industry was affected by a severe crisis and many tobacco growers lost their income. Between 1970 and 2010, approximately 40,000 Western Thrace Turks arrived in Western Europe, most of which settled in Germany. In addition, between 2010 and 2018, a further 30,000 Western Thrace Turks left for Western Europe due to the Greek government-debt crisis. Of these 70,000 immigrants (which excludes the numbers which arrived before 1970), around 80% live in Germany.

In 2013 Cemile Giousouf became the first Western Thrace Turk to become a member of the German parliament. She was the first Muslim to be elected for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

North Macedonia

There has been migration from the Turkish Macedonian minority group which have come to Germany alongside other citizens of North Macedonia, including ethnic Macedonians and Albanian Macedonians.

In 2021, Furkan Çako, who is a former Macedonian minister and member of the Security Council, urged Turkish Macedonians living in Germany to participate in North Macedonia's 2021 census.

Romania

Between 2002 and 2011 there was a significant decrease in the population of the Turkish Romanian minority group due to the admission of Romania into the European Union and the subsequent relaxation of the travelling and migration regulations. Hence, Turkish Romanians, especially from the Dobruja region, have joined other Romanian citizens (e.g. ethnic Romanians, Tatars

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