The Turk Story

There are 82-million residents in Germany, and out of that.....2.8-million are Turkish in nature.  Since the 1960s, Turks have come to Germany for employment.  Some came for a couple of years, and returned to Turkey....some stayed permanently.

ARD (public TV, Channel One) lays out an interesting study done on the Turkish situation in Germany.

By the numbers, half of this 2.8-million are German citizens, and half were actually born here. 

This study went to the northwest of Germany (NRW) and surveyed Turk-Germans there.  As the study concludes.....around 89-percent of them feel still very strongly associated with Turkey.  They don't really go into details, but I'm guessing that they go back every year or two and visit the relatives.....marry within the Turk-German channels....and mostly associate or 'party' with like-minded people.

There is some feeling (as the report goes) that Turkey has reached out and suggested that while they are outside of Turkey.....Turkey 'cares' for them.  This has been a strong message in the Erdogan-era.

Part of this study also goes to talk about Turks in Germany not seeing themselves as 'equals' of Germans. 

The study goes and talks about this issue of "double identity"....where these folks are stuck having to deal with two walks of life, two cultures, and it's difficulty. 

So you come to this curious statistic.....just over half the Turk-Germans are of the belief that Turkey is more concerned about their life, than the German government.  Chief reason?  Turkish pride, which Erdogan is delivering upon.  The German pride?  Well.....as the story suggests....a "second-class citizen".

What the story skips over is that a fair number of people who fit into the overall numbers.....are Turk-Kurds.  Back around three years ago, it was estimated that 650k to 800k Turk-Kurds existed in Germany.  In the past three years, with turmoil in Syria and Iraq....I would suggest that it's closer to 900,000 Turk-Kurds in Germany today.  They....interestingly enough....are not really so pro-Erdogan (in fact, they'd usually have some harsh words to say). 

Interaction between Kurd and Turks in Germany?  It's an uneasy situation and they don't socialize.  For this study that ARD talks about....I doubt if any Kurd was consulted. 

In terms of Germany being a 'melting-pot'.....you've got a minimum of fifteen groups of people who have a minimum of 200,000 members in Germany.  You can do the math and see that roughly sixteen million people within Germany fit into what you'd call first or second generation immigrant status.  If you went back to the 1960 period and suggested that one out of every four people on a German street would be a non-German?  People would have laughed, but that's where we are today.