Greek migration to West Germany in the 1960s

Migration is an umbrella term for population movements both within and outside a country which encompasses dissimilar situations and processes. It is a complex phenomenon which is characterised by distinct features and is defined by the time period when it takes place and the motives that drive it. For example, the migrations of the 19^thand 20^th century were directly linked with industrialization and the development of industrial societies. They were also associated with the economic and technological inequities observed between the developed industrial countries and the developing ones, which were mostly agrarian. Economic migrants are seen as leaving their country voluntarily in order to secure seasonal, temporary, or permanent employment and improve their material life conditions.

Greek postwar history is inextricably linked with the migration of Greek workers to Europe and America. After the Second World War, the most vulnerable population groups, namely poor farmers and workers, were being heavily impacted by the harsh economic and social conditions which were prominent in Greece, including rising unemployment and widespread poverty, social insecurity, and political persecution. Looking for better prospects, large sections of these populations chose to migrate to developed industrial countries, such as Canada, the USA, Australia and Belgium. However, most Greeks who decided to migrate during the 1950s and, mainly, in the 1960s headed for West Germany, a choice which was by no means accidental.

On March 30, 1960, the states of West Germany and Greece signed a bilateral agreement called ‘Treaty for the Selection and Placement of Greek workers in German businesses’. West Germany had already signed similar treaties with Italy, on December 20, 1955, and Spain, on March 29, 1960, followed by another treaty to the same purpose with Turkey, on October 20, 1961. The 1960 agreement between West Germany and Greece was preceded by another bilateral agreement which granted a loan of 200 million marks to Greece to be utilised towards the restructuring of the country’s production. The agreement was the result of an official visit to Germany by Prime Minister K. Karamanlis and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ev. Averov culminating in a series of meetings with German Chancellor K. Adenauer.

The signing of the Greco-German agreement of 1960 looked like a ‘great opportunity’ for thousands of Greeks, mainly from Northern Greece but also from other agrarian areas, who migrated to West Germany in pursuit of a livelihood they could not possibly secure in their own homeland. It is estimated that 800,000 people, young men and women, left Greece for Germany within a period of fifteen years. It is the biggest migration of Greeks to a single European country in search of employment.

A significant portion of the country’s workforce left Greece during that period. In 1960, the first ‘German Migration Committees in Greece’ were established in Athens, followed by their equivalents in Thessaloniki in 1962. The committees chose which candidates were appropriate for migration and employment in Germany by implementing a set of strict selection criteria relating to physical health, technical expertise, political beliefs, etc.

When they arrived in Germany, the Greek migrants were faced with a series of obstacles. They had to live communally in, more often than not, shabby dormitories, and worked under harsh conditions to save money, part of which they sent to their families back home. The word ‘Gastarbeiter’, ‘guest worker’, forcibly entered their vocabulary and, over the years, acquired intensely negative connotations. Initially, the German state granted these workers no political or social rights on the pretext that they were in the country temporarily. To settle these unresolved issues concerning the employment and social security status of Greek workers in Germany, another agreement was signed between Greece and West Germany in November 1962 ‘on the social security and welfare during unemployment’.

The repatriation of Greek migrants would begin in the mid-1970s, driven by the hiring freeze implemented by the German government, the oil crisis of 1973, the general fear of widespread economic stagnation, as well as the climate of collective hope created by regime change in Greece (Metapolitefsi). By 1979, approximately 280,000 migrants had permanently resettled in Greece. Since the Greek state was not prepared to accommodate the returnees, many repatriated Greeks were met with professional and social exclusion and their new lives were characterised by precariousness and uncertainty.