From «Gastarbeiter» to European Expatriates

From Gastarbeiter to
European Expatriates

Greek Migrant Communities in Germany
and their Socio-political Integration

Eleni Tseligka

Peter Lang
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

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Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Tseligka, Eleni, 1973- author.
Title: From Gastarbeiter to European expatriates : Greek migrant communities in Germany and their socio-political integration / Eleni Tseligka.
Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019020808 | ISBN 9781788745604
Subjects: LCSH: Greeks--Germany--Social conditions. | Foreign workers, Greek--Germany. | Greeks--Cultural assimilation--Germany. | Group identity--Germany. | Greece--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects. | Germany--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.
Classification: LCC DD258.55.G74 T74 2019 | DDC 305.88/9073--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020808

Cover image: Community centre of the Greek-Orthodox Church of Holy Andreas, Düsseldorf. Courtesy of the author.

ISBN 978-1-78874-560-4 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78874-561-1 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-78874-562-8 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78874-563-5 (mobi)

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdomo
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About the author

Eleni Tseligka holds a PhD in Intraeuropean Migration from Staffordshire University, where she also worked as a lecturer in politics. Her research interests focus on diasporas, migration and EU migration policies, religion and identity-related issues, nationalism and the European public sphere. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK, an International Associate of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, a member of the editorial board for the Cogent Arts & Humanities and a peer reviewer for the International Migration Journal. She is currently teaching politics and international relations at Aston University.

About the book

The Gastarbeiter (guest worker) agreement between Greece and Germany in March 1960 sparked the biggest wave of emigration to central Europe in the history of the modern Greek state. Greece achieved its full European Economic Community (ECC) membership in May 1979 and, in the years that followed, the guest workers became European expatriates, particularly so after the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that created the European Union (EU).

This book examines two different intra-European regimes in relation to the Greek migrant communities of Germany: that of guest worker recruitment, and that of European expatriation, a bloc actor policy that transformed the previous bilateral migratory framework. By extension, this book engages in a comparison of two different ages of European unification, while at the same time examining the role that the social and cultural background of Greek migrants has played as a variable of integration.

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Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Aspects of European unification

Chapter 2

The background of Greek Gastarbeiter migration

Chapter 3

The first twenty years from arrival to settlement: 1960–1980

Chapter 4

The village, the Church and the Greek communities

Chapter 5

Integration and Europeanisation

Chapter 6

Disintegration and re-marginalisation←v | vi→

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index←vi | vii→

Figures

Figure 1. The Greek-Orthodox church of Apostle Paul in Bielefeld.

Figure 2. Fundraising bazaar at the community centre of the Greek-Orthodox parish of Apostle Paul in Bielefeld.

Figure 3. Children’s play room at the community centre of the Greek-Orthodox parish of St Constantine and St Helen in Siegen.

Figure 4. Group of female dancers performing the Greek Pontic Pyrrhichios (Πυρρίχιος) [Pyrrhic dance] in Darmstadt.

Figure 5. The Greek-Orthodox church of St Andreas in Düsseldorf.

Figure 6. Detail of hagiography of Madonna with child Jesus from the interior of the Greek-Orthodox church of St Andreas in Düsseldorf. Landmarks of the city of Düsseldorf are included in the details of the fresco.

All photos by the author.←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for the purpose of this book, as well as to all those Greeks in Germany who invited me in their communities, their parishes, their schools, their homes and allowed me to observe and participate in their daily activities; without them this project would not have been possible! I would also like to thank the following people, in random order, for helping me in different ways during the various stages of this project: Dr Georgios Trantas, Aston University Birmingham; Dr Isabella Schwaderer, University of Erfurt; Dr Mike Ball, Dr Fiona Robertson-Snape, Assoc. Prof. Peter Lamb, Assoc. Prof. Keith Puttick, Staffordshire University; Dr Simon McMahon, Coventry University; Dr Lucian Leustean, Aston University; Prof. Frances Kostarelos, Governors State University; Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne Ambrosios Koutsouridis, Chancellor of the Greek-Orthodox Metropolis of Germany and Exarchate of Central Europe.