IMMIGRATION AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS UNDER HELMUT SCHMIDT AND

IMMIGRATION AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS UNDER HELMUT SCHMIDT AND HELMUT KOHL 1974: Finance Minister Helmut Schmidt takes over from Willy Brandt after a spy scandal. 1973 & 1979: Two “oil shocks” contribute to the economic problem of “stagflation”. 1982: FDP switches partners to bring Helmut Kohl of the CDU to power. 1989/90: The Fall of the Berlin Wall leads to national reunification. 1993: The Basic Law is amended to limit the right to asylum.

Brandt was forced to resign abruptly in May 1974, when it became known that his close aide Günter Guillaume was an East German spy

Willy Brandt & Helmut Schmidt in 1973

Helmut Schmidt & Erich Honecker at the signing of the Helsinki Accord in August 1975

“Secure, Social, and Free: Helmut Kohl, Chancellor for Germany” (1976) “The Better Man Must Remain Chancellor” (1976)

Helmut Kohl and Franz Josef Strauss in 1976: With the Bavarian Strauss as their chancellor candidate in 1980, the CDU/CSU vote dipped from 48. 8% to 44. 3%.

Helmut Schmidt’s biggest problem was the unemployment caused by the “oil shocks” of 1973 and 1979

THE GROWTH IN PUBLIC DEBT FOR THE FRG YEAR TOTAL PUBLIC DEBT (billions of DM) DEBT AS % OF GDP 1965 83. 0 13. 5 1970 125. 9 18. 6 1972 156. 1 18. 9 1974 192. 4 19. 5 1976 296. 7 26. 4 1978 370. 8 28. 7 1980 468. 6 31. 6 1982 614. 6 38. 4 The average annual rate of economic growth declined from 7. 8% in the 1950 s, to 4. 8% in the 1960 s, and 1. 6% in the years 1979 -85.

BY 1982 THE LEADERS OF THE FDP ASSERTED THEMSELVES “The headlines follow: The area of agreement between Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher is becoming ever smaller. ” Economics Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff is likened to Martin Luther for his attacks on Schmidt’s Keynesianism

HELMUT KOHL (born 1930 in Ludwigshafen) 1946: Joins CDU at age 16 1958: Earns Ph. D. in political science and modern history 1960 s: Lobbyist for chemical industry 1969 -76: Becomes Germany’s youngest state premier in Rhineland-Palatinate 1976: Loses his first national election campaign 1980: Defers to Franz Josef Strauss as chancellor candidate 1982 -1998: Chancellor in coalition with the FDP

The Kohl-Genscher Cabinet, 1983

“With us, for Europe” (CDU, 1984)

President Francois Mitterand Helmut Kohl jointly honor the dead of Verdun, September 22, 1984

NEW FUNCTIONS FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION 1952: European Coal & Steel Community 1958: Common Market (EEC) 1962: Common Agricultural Policy 1979: European parliament elected 1992: All non-tariff barriers removed 1999: Monetary union

WEST GERMAN EXPORTS (millions of marks) YEAR EXPORTS EXPORT SURPLUS 1978 284, 907 41, 200 1980 350, 328 8, 947 1982 427, 741 51, 277 1984 488, 223 53. 966 1986 526, 363 112, 619 1988 567, 654 128, 045

Italian Guest Workers arrive in Wolfsburg, 1962: The FRG signed labor recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece 1960, Turkey 1961, Portugal 1964, & Yugoslavia in 1968

“Foreign Worker – Guest Worker – Colleague? ” Conference organized by the government & employers, 1966

FOREIGNERS LIVING IN WEST GERMANY (thousands) Year Total Turk. Yug. Italy Greece Spain Aust. Holl. Pol. 1951 486 1 23 22 3 1 47 75 103 1961 686 7 16 197 42 44 57 65 ? ? 1971 3439 653 594 590 395 270 163 109 50 1981 4630 1546 637 625 299 177 176 109 83 1991 5882 1780 775 560 337 135 187 ? ? 271 2001 7319 1948 628 616 363 129 189 112 310

Turkish shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg, 1983

Hostel for Turkish Guest Workers and a special public school for Turkish children, Frankfurt, 1969

Fundamentalist Moslem School in Gelsenkirchen, 1982: Many Turks came to Germany to flee secularism

Friedlund Refugee Camp (1976), the largest camp for the 1. 4 million ethnic Germans who arrived from the East, 1950 -87; they automatically gained West German citizenship.

Asylum Seekers in West Berlin wait for their checks (1982): Article 16 of the Basic Law states, “Persons persecuted on political grounds enjoy the right of asylum. ” In 1980 a record 107, 818 persons applied for asylum.

THE FAR RIGHT IN WEST GERMANY The National Democratic Party (NPD): founded by 4 ex. Nazis in 1964 to demand the borders of 1937, a ban on immigration, and removal of all leftists from government. It won representation in 7 state legislatures in 1966 -68, but only 4. 3% of the national vote in 1969. The Deutsche Volks-Union, founded in 1971 by the millionaire Gerhard Frey (merged with the NPD in 2011). The Republikaner, founded by Franz Schönhuber in 1983. It won 7 -11% of the vote in 1989/90 in state elections in Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse, and West Berlin, and cleared the 5% hurdle for the European parliament. Neo-Nazi youth groups, with an average membership of perhaps 1, 400 in the 1980 s. They beat up thousands of people with dark skin and committed at least 25 murders.

“Security through Law and Order” (September 1969): 10% of this party’s 30, 000 members and 15% of its staff had formerly belonged to the NSDAP. It called for a “People’s Democracy” resembling the Weimar constitution.

Franz Schönhuber (1923 -2005): Son of a butcher, Waffen. SS volunteer, Munich TV journalist, leader of the Republikaner, 1983 -1994

“A solemn moment at the ground-breaking for the House of German Art. The Papal Nuncio Vasallo di Torregrossa has just said to the Führer: ‘For a long time I did not understand you. I have tried to for a long time. Today I do understand you. ’ Today every German Catholic understands Adolf Hitler as well and will therefore vote ‘YES!’ on November 12” (referendum campaign poster, fall 1933)

The Republikaner won 7. 3% of the European Parliament vote in June 1989: “Yes to Europe. No to this European Community. German Interests Come First!”

“The Boat is Full! End the Asylum Swindle!” REPUBLIKANER placard, 1991. The Republikaner denounced

Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan at the Bitburg Military Cemetery, May 5, 1985: The 2, 000 soldiers’ graves included about 50 from the Waffen-SS

Pandering to the Far Right? “Germans should get off their knees and learn to walk tall again. That means saying yes to the idea that we have been born German, and not letting the vision of a great German past be blocked by the screens of those accursed twelve years between 1933 and 1945. . German history cannot be presented as an endless chain of mistakes and crimes. ” {Franz Josef Strauss, leader of Bavaria’s CSU, speaking in 1987 after his party suffered losses to the Republikaner. } “Those young men [German soldiers buried at Bitburg] are victims of Nazism also. . They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps. Germans have a guilt feeling that’s been imposed on them, and I just think it’s unnecessary. I feel strongly that instead of re-awakening the memories, we should observe this day as the day when, forty years ago, peace began. ” {President Ronald Reagan, responding to critics of his decision visit Bitburg in 1985}

Revulsion against the far right spread in May 1993 after extremist youths hurled firebombs into this house in Solingen, and five Turkish women and children died in the fire

“German Asylum Seekers” (1993; including Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Rudolf Hilferding, etc. ) “Together, against hatred of foreigners” (1991)

IN 1993 THE CDU AND SPD AGREED ON THE FOLLOWING CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT: Article 16 a: “The right of asylum cannot be claimed by anyone who enters [Germany] from a country of the European Community or from another country where the application of the Convention on the Legal Status of Refugees and the Convention to Protect Human Rights and Civil Liberties is ensured. ” This rule was supported by the EU “Dublin Convention, ” negotiated in 1990, which took effect in 1997; every country that signed took responsibility for judging whether new arrivals deserved asylum. The vote for the Republikaner sank almost immediately after 1993, and bitter feuds broke out among its leaders…