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Teaching National Identity to “Guest Worker Children” (1962–1971)

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Teaching Migrant Children in West Germany and Europe, 1949–1992

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood ((PSHC))

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Abstract

Highlighting diversity between groups of migrant workers and their families, Chap. 4 turns to individuals with Greek citizenship in the mid-1960s. In contrast with the Italian government, the Greek government expected its citizens’ eventual return to Greece, which led Greece to downplay integration into West Germany in favor of ethnonational identification. As schools served as a primary site for learning ethnonational identification, Greek children need a Greek education to be Greek. That very emphasis, however, pushed the West German states to stress integration and education as a human right as the Länder considered what it meant to teach foreign citizenship and associated ideologies in West Germany.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It should be noted that the school was not an independently operated building, but rather spread across classrooms in four Stuttgart city public schools.

  2. 2.

    The West German courts later declared that they could not be forced from the country at all. See Christian Joppke, “The Evolution of Alien Rights in the United States, Germany, and the European Union,” in Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices, ed. Thomas Alexander Aleinikoff and Douglas B. Klusmeyer (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2001), 45.

  3. 3.

    Karin Hunn, “Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück–”: Die Geschichte der türkischen “Gastarbeiter” in der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005).

  4. 4.

    Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006).

  5. 5.

    Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1951); Jacqueline Bhabha, “Arendt’s Children: Do Today’s Migrant Children Have a Right to Have Rights?,” Human Rights Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2009): 410–51.

  6. 6.

    Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, “Changing Citizenship in Europe: Remarks on Postnational Membership and the National State,” in Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe, ed. David Cesarani and Mary Fulbrook (New York: Routledge, 2002), 17.

  7. 7.

    Anderson, Imagined Communities, 2.

  8. 8.

    Nira Yuval-Davis, “Gender and Nation,” in Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition, ed. Robert E. Miller and Rick Wilford (New York: Routledge, 1998), 21–31; Douglas B. Klusmeyer and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany: Negotiating Membership and Remaking the Nation (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 18.

  9. 9.

    Matthew J. Gibney, “Statelessness and the Right to Citizenship,” Forced Migration Review, no. 32 (April 2009): 50–21; Bronwen Manby, “The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept by Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann and Margaret Walton-Roberts (Review),” Human Rights Quarterly 38, no. 2 (May 12, 2016): 526–34; Jeffrey L. Blackman, “State Successions and Statelessness: The Emerging Right to an Effective Nationality under International Law,” Michigan Journal of International Law 19 (1998): 1172. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 15(1)) states that everyone is entitled to a nationality, see Maarten P. Vink and Gerard-René De Groot, “Birthright Citizenship: Trends and Regulations in Europe,” SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, November 25, 2010).

  10. 10.

    The Council of Europe and European Communities both addressed the issue of how non-nationals fit within a national community. The linguistic issues of translation and comparison would lead to difficulties in international communities (like the European Community) discussions of what best practices could be, in part because of the legal differences and connection to rights. See Jan Blommaert, “Language Policy and National Identity,” in An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, ed. Thomas Ricento (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 238–54.

  11. 11.

    Daniel Levy, “The Transformation of Germany’s Ethno-Cultural Idiom: The Case of Ethnic German Immigrants,” in Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration, ed. Daniel Levy and Yfaat Weiss (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), 221–38; Kathleen Canning, “Class vs. Citizenship: Keywords in German Gender History,” Central European History 37, no. 2 (2004): 225–44; Egbert Jahn, German Domestic and Foreign Policy: Political Issues Under Debate, trans. Anna Güttel-Bellert, vol. 2 (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2015), 98–100.

  12. 12.

    Martina Wasmer and Achim Koch, “Foreigners as Second-Class Citizens? Attitudes Toward Equal Civil Rights for Non-Germans,” in Germans or Foreigners?: Attitudes Toward Ethnic Minorities in Post-Reunification Germany, ed. Richard D Alba, Peter Schmidt, and Martina Wasmer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 95–118; Elspeth Guild and Sergio Carrera, “Introduction: International Relations, Citizenship and Minority Discrimination: Setting the Scene,” in Foreigners, Refugees or Minorities?: Rethinking People in the Context of Border Controls and Visas, ed. Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild, and Sergio Carrera (New York: Routledge, 2016), 1.

  13. 13.

    That goal was particularly salient as local organizations acknowledged the permanency of many migration groups. Mark E. Spicka, “Cultural Centres and Guest Worker Integration in Stuttgart, Germany, 1960–1976,” Immigrants & Minorities 33, no. 2 (May 4, 2015): 117–40.

  14. 14.

    Wilfried Von Bredow, “Conscription, Conscientious Objection, and Civic Service: The Military Institutions and Political Culture of Germany, 1945 to Present,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 20, no. 2 (1992): 289–303. Italian citizens in West Germany mostly fell into this group as, despite their status as foreign citizens, they were European Community Member State nationals and consequently after 1964 (and even more after 1968) had legal rights to residence and work.

  15. 15.

    Amand Berteloot et al., Niederländisch an Schulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen (New York: Waxmann Verlag, 2001).

  16. 16.

    Klusmeyer and Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, 18–19, 97–99; Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood, “Diversity and Nationality: Contemporary Developments in Five European Citizenship Regimes,” in Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship: Multicultural and Multi-Nation Societies in International Perspective, ed. Dina Kiwan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 78–79. For the importance of naturalization for migrants, see Elspeth Guild, The Legal Elements of European Identity: EU Citizenship and Migration Law (Frederick, MD: Kluwer Law International, 2004), 84.

  17. 17.

    Dimitris Christopoulos, “Defining the Changing Boundaries of Greek Nationality,” in Greek Diaspora and Migration Since 1700: Society, Politics and Culture, ed. Dēmētrēs Tziovas (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 111–23.

  18. 18.

    Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, “Citizenship and Identity: Living in Diasporas in Post-War Europe?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 1–15; Thomas Faist, “The Fixed and Porous Boundaries of Dual Citizenship,” in Dual Citizenship in Europe, ed. Thomas Faist (New York: Routledge, 2016), 17–60.

  19. 19.

    For a selection of media responses, see “Auch Ausländer müssen Grundrecht achten,” Landespresse- und Informationsamt, January 27, 1972; “NRW: Kein fremder Einfluss auf deutsche Schulen,” Landespresse- und Informationsamt, February 8, 1972; “Antidemokratische importe nicht dulden”; “Kontroverse um griechische Lehrer: ‘Auch Gegner des Regimes sollen unterrichten’: Girgensohn hingegen betont ‘Vertrauen der Heimatbehörden.’”

  20. 20.

    Council of Europe, “Convention on the Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationality and on Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality” (Strasbourg, May 6, 1963); Council of Europe, “Protocol Amending the Convention on the Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationality and Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality,” Explanatory Report 95 (Strasbourg, November 24, 1977).

  21. 21.

    Jeffrey T. Checkel, “The Europeanization of Citizenship?,” in Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change, ed. Maria Green Cowles, James A. Caporaso, and Thomas Risse-Kappen (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 185–86; Patricia Ehrkamp and Helga Leitner, “Beyond National Citizenship: Turkish Immigrants and the (Re)Construction of Citizenship in Germany,” Urban Geography 24, no. 2 (2003): 127–46.

  22. 22.

    Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 52–59; Robert Carle, “Citizenship Debates in the New Germany,” Society 44, no. 6 (October 1, 2007): 149; Egbert Jahn, “Integration or Assimilation of Ethnic Minorities. On the Future of Danish, Sorbian, Italian, Turkish and Other Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany,” in German Domestic and Foreign Policy (Berlin: Springer, 2015), 91–105.

  23. 23.

    For multiple discussions of European identity, see Jeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzenstein, eds., European Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  24. 24.

    “I. Resolutions Adopted by the 2nd and 3rd Conferences of European Ministers of Education on Modern Language Teaching; II. Summary of Action Taken on National and International Level as a Follow-up of the Resolutions (Extract from the Document Min.Ed./London (64) 1),” Fourth Conference of Ministers of Education (Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe, February 28, 1964), Box 2431, Council of Europe.

  25. 25.

    Nothardt and Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Schulpflicht und Schulbesuch von Ausländerkindern, insbesondere von Kindern ausländischer Gastarbeiter,” Kultus- und Unterricht, April 14, 1965, 176; Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg to alle Staatlichen Schulämter, “Vorbereitungsklassen für Kinder italienischer Gastarbeiter,” September 23, 1968, EA 3/609 Bü 92, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. Randall Hansen pointed out that for adults, the West German government was not particularly invested in teaching migrants the German language (“Citizenship and Integration in Europe,” in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, ed. C. Joppke and E. Morawska (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 91–92).

  26. 26.

    Gesetz zur Vereinheitlichung und Ordnung des Schulwesens in Baden-Württemberg, SchVOG. See Dr. Hahn, “Schulunterricht für Gastarbeiterkinder,” Schriftliche Antwort des Kultusministeriums (Stuttgart: Landtag von Baden-Württemberg, October 26, 1965), EA 3/609 Bü 67, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; Nothardt and Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Schulpflicht und Schulbesuch 1965.”

  27. 27.

    Quinn Slobodian, Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), 36.

  28. 28.

    Stratenwerth to Bundesministerium des Innern, “Schulunterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der BRD”; and Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne to Kultusminister NRW, “Notiz 3452/64,” 64. The discussions between the Greek Consulate in Berlin and the West Berlin Senator for Education reached decided that in the 1960s, Greek schools did not make sense in West Berlin (Senator für Schulwesen to Leonidas Evangelidis, Griechische Militärmission, and Gerd Effler, “Unterricht für griechische Kinder,” September 8, 1971, B Rep 002 23,582, Landesarchiv Berlin).

  29. 29.

    For a brief discussion of the system in the mid-1960s, see International Bureau of Education, “Greece,” in International Yearbook of Education (Geneva: International Bureau of Education, 1966), 149–53. For an overview of the system’s development, see Anna Fragoudaki, “Greek Education in the Twentieth Century: A Long Process Towards a Democratic European Society,” in Greece in the Twentieth Century, ed. Theodore A. Couloumbis et al. (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 198–216.

  30. 30.

    Marcel Helbig and Rita Nikolai, Die Unvergleichbaren: Der Wandel der Schulsysteme in den deutschen Bundesländern seit 1949 (Bad Heilbrunn: Verlag Julius Klinkhardt, 2015).

  31. 31.

    Saul B. Robinsohn and J. Caspar Kuhlmann, “Two Decades of Non-Reform in West German Education,” Comparative Education Review 11, no. 3 (October 1967): 311–30; Christoph Führ, “Zur Koordination der Bildungspolitik durch Bund und Länder,” in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte: 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Christa Berg, Christoph Führ, and Carl-Ludwig Furck, vol. 1, 2 vols., 6 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1998), 68–86.

  32. 32.

    For a discussion of how much the states began to diverge between the FRG’s founding and the 2000s, see Helbig and Nikolai’s 2015 Die Unvergleichbaren.

  33. 33.

    George Mavrogordatos, “Orthodoxy and Nationalism in the Greek Case,” West European Politics 26, no. 1 (January 1, 2003): 117–36.

  34. 34.

    Eugene Rogan, “World War I and the Fall of the Ottomans: Consequences for South East Europe,” in Balkan Legacies of the Great War: The Past Is Never Dead, ed. Othon Anastasakis, David Madden, and Elizabeth Roberts, St Antony’s Series (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 59–65.

  35. 35.

    For more on the tragedy, see Renee Hirschon, ed., Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003).

  36. 36.

    Petros Diatsentos, “Modern Greek: Founding Myths, Reform and Prescription Matters in 19th Century,” in Constructing Languages: Norms, Myths and Emotions, ed. Francesc Feliu and Josep Maria Nadal (Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016), 215–28.

  37. 37.

    James C. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 20–24, 294; H. Enderwitz, “Two German Educational Reform Schemes: The Rahmenplan and the Bremerplan,” Comparative Education Review 7, no. 1 (June 1963): 47; Torsten Gass-Bolm, Das Gymnasium 1945–1980: Bildungsreform und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Westdeutschland (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2005), 89.

  38. 38.

    Regierungspräsident Köln to Kultusministerium des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Sprachkurse für Kinder griechischer Nationalität innerhalb des Regierungsbezirks Köln,” November 23, 1962, NW 141-114, Landesarchiv NRW. Citing that agreement, the Regierungsbezirk set the recommended weekly hours at five and told the Greek Consulate that it would pay the teachers the Greek Ministry of Education’s selected (with approval).

  39. 39.

    Constantine P. Charis, “The Problem of Bilingualism in Modern Greek Education,” Comparative Education Review 20, no. 2 (June 1, 1976): 216–19.

  40. 40.

    Peter Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 288–320.

  41. 41.

    Elpida Vogli, “A Greece for Greeks by Descent? 19th-Century Policy on Integrating the Greek Diaspora,” in Greek Diaspora and Migration Since 1700: Society, Politics and Culture, ed. Dēmētrēs Tziovas (Burlington, V.T.: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 99–110; Christopoulos, “Defining the Changing Boundaries of Greek Nationality,” 114–16.

  42. 42.

    Elena Barabantseva and Claire Sutherland, “Diaspora and Citizenship: Introduction,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 17, no. 1 (March 11, 2011): 1–13; “Protokoll der 4. Tagung des Ständigen gemischten deutsch-griechischen Ausschusses nach dem Kulturabkommen vom 17. Mai 1956 zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Griechenland vom 7.-9. 11. 1966 in Munich” (Munich, November 9, 1966), B 304/3735, Az.3247/4, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

  43. 43.

    “2. Sitzung des Ständigen gemischten deutsch-griechischen Ausschusses in Bonn vom 23. bis 25. Januar 1961” (Bonn, January 25, 1961), B 96 876, PA AA. For information about early Greek emigration, particularly to the US , Konstantinos D. Magliveras, Migration Law in Greece (Frederick, MD: Aspen Publishers, 2011), 14. For an exploration of the role of the state in diaspora formation, see Elpida Vogli, “The Making of Greece Abroad: Continuity and Change in the Modern Diaspora Politics of a ‘Historical’ Irredentist Homeland,” in Diaspora and Citizenship, ed. Claire Sutherland and Elena Barabantseva (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011), 14–33.

  44. 44.

    Regierungspräsident Köln to Kultusministerium des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Sprachkurse für Kinder griechischer Nationalität innerhalb des Regierungsbezirks Köln”; Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Unterricht und Kultus and Stöhr, “Unterricht für Kinder griechischer Gastarbeiter; hier: Unterricht in griechischer Sprache,” zu IV 111926, December 17, 1962, MK 62244, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv.

  45. 45.

    Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne and Alexis Kyrou to Kultusminister NRW, “Schulung der Kinder der griechischen Gastarbeiter,” July 30, 1964, NW 388-14, Landesarchiv NRW.

  46. 46.

    Discussed in Chap. 2. Andreas M. Kazamias, “Modernity, State-Formation, Nation Building, and Education in Greece,” in International Handbook of Comparative Education, ed. Robert Cowen and Andreas M. Kazamias, vol. 22 (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2009), 239–56.

  47. 47.

    Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg and Leitmeyer to Oberschulämter Nordwürttemberg, Südwürttemberg-Hollenzollern, Nordbaden, Südbaden, “Schulpflicht und Schulbesuch von Ausländerkinder, insbesondere von Kindern ausländischer Gastarbeiter; hier: Unterricht in der Muttersprache (s. Erlaß U II 2111/29 v. 14. 04. 1965 Abschn. IV),” Erlaß U II 2111/123, December 23, 1966, EA 3/609 Bü 69, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

  48. 48.

    Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Schulische Betreuung der Gastarbeiterkinder” (Stuttgart, January 14, 1966), EA 3/609 Bü 67, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. Baden-Württemberg recognized the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in 1978, enabling Greek Orthodox instruction to move into West German public schools (Kultusministerium BW, “Bekanntmachung des Kultusministeriums über die Verleihung der Körperschaftsrechte an die Griechisch-Orthodoxe Metropolie von Deutschland,” Gesetzblatt Baden-Württemberg, no. 9 (1978): 202).

  49. 49.

    Sekretariat, “2. Sitzung der Arbeitsgruppe ‘Unterricht für Kinder von ausländischen Arbeitnehmern’ am 27./28. April 1971 in Winkel im Rheingau,” Ergebnisniederschrift (Winkel im Rheingau: Kultusministerkonferenz, April 28, 1971), B 304/2057, Bundesarchiv Koblenz. That concern would not diminish. (Winfried Bauer to Sütterlin, “Überforderung griechischer Kinder,” April 8, 1980, EA 3/609 Bü 101, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart).

  50. 50.

    “Protokoll der 5. Tagung des Ständigen gemischten deutsch-griechischen Ausschusses nach dem Kulturabkommen vom 17. Mai 1956 zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Griechenland” (Athen, November 5, 1969), B 96876, Auswärtiges Amt; Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg to Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Errichtung einer privaten griechischen Hauptschule (Ergänzungsschule),” U II A 2111/444-1, November 6, 1971, EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

  51. 51.

    Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne and Kyrou to Kultusminister NRW, “Schulung der Kinder der griechischen Gastarbeiter.”

  52. 52.

    Gerhard Stratenwerth to Bundesministerium des Innern, “Schulunterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der BRD,” May 29, 1964, B 304/2058/2, Bundesarchiv Koblenz; Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne to Kultusminister NRW, “Notiz 3452/64,” November 10, 1964, 64, NW 388-14, Landesarchiv NRW; Kultusminister NRW to Sekretariat, “Deutsch-griechisches Kulturabkommen,” October 21, 1964, NW 141-115, Landesarchiv NRW.

  53. 53.

    Hanna-Renate Laurien and Chrysostomos Karapiperis, “Deutsch-griechische Gespräch über die schulische Betreuung der Kinder griechischer Wanderarbeitnehmer in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, am 23. März 1976 in Bonn,” Protokoll (Bonn, June 20, 1976), B 93, Bd. 1154, PA AA; Auswärtige Amt, “Deutsch-griechische Expertengespräch über Fragen der schulischen Betreuung von Kindern griechischer Arbeitnehmer in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Vermerk (Bonn: Auswärtiges Amt, January 27, 1977), B 93, Bd. 858, PA AA. In a talk with the Greek Embassy in 1976, the Greek legates finally agreed that German school certificates should be accepted in Greece (Kultusminister des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Information für griechische Eltern über Ziel, Organisation, Gestaltung und Bedeutung des Unterrichts ihrer Kinder in Vorbereitungsklssen an den Grundschulen/Hauptschulen des Landes Northrhein-Westfalen,” Informationspapier (Düsseldorf: Kultusministerium des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, January 7, 1977), NW 388-52, Landesarchiv NRW).

  54. 54.

    Auswärtiges Amt to Deutsche Botschaft Rom, “Anerkennung der von italienischen Schülern deutscher Schulen in Italien erworbenen Reifezeugnisse durch die Italienischen Behörden,” November 14, 1967, PA AA.

  55. 55.

    Martin Ruhs and Philip Martin, “Numbers vs. Rights: Trade-Offs and Guest Worker Programs1,” International Migration Review 42, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 249–65.

  56. 56.

    Andreas M. Kazamias, “The ‘Renaissance’ of Greek Secondary Education,” Comparative Education Review 3, no. 3 (February 1, 1960): 22–27. Georgios Papandreou (1888–1968), Greek politician, served three times as prime minister of Greece (1944–1945, 1963, and 1964–65). In 1961, he founded the Center Union party (EK), with various liberal and dissatisfied conservative politicians. The party split in 1965, although existed nominally until 1977. During his long political career, he served in multiple ministries, including Finance, the Interior, and Education. In the 1920s, he reformed the Greek education system and, in the 1950s and 1960s, tried to continue those reforms (Harris M. Lentz, Heads of States and Governments Since 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 1452–1453).

  57. 57.

    Depending on local Länder school laws, supplementary schools usually came under some form of government oversight and faced certain restrictions. Article 7 Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law. Staatl. Schulamt Stuttgart, “Griechische Gastarbeiterkinder,” December 10, 1965, EA 3/609 Bü 68, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg, “Anerkennung der griechischen Ergänzungsschule in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt,” Erlaß U II 0973/45-112 (Stuttgart, July 14, 1966), EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

  58. 58.

    Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg to Generalkonsulat der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Saloniki, “Eröffnung einer griechischen Privatschule in Stuttgart,” UA II 2111 – 3/26, March 13, 1969, EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. See also Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg and Mayer to Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Einrichtung von Vorbereitungsklassen für griechische Kinder im Kreis Ludwigsburg,” February 16, 1968, EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. The private school law was changed in 1968, (“Privatschulgesetzes in der Fassung vom 14. Mai 1968 (PSchG),” Gesetzblatt für Baden-Württemberg, May 14, 1968, 223). To attend, the children had to be released individually from their compulsory schooling requirements at a German school (Article 41 Paragraph 5 SchVOG) (Jochen Abr. Frowein, Zur verfassungsrechtlichen Lage der Privatschulen: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kirchlichen Schulen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 11).

  59. 59.

    Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 160–66; “Kulturpolitischer Jahresbericht 1967,” Cultural Report (Athens: Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, February 22, 1968), 1–5, PA AA; “Kulturpolitischer Jahresbericht 1968,” Cultural Report (Athens: Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, February 28, 1969), 1–5, PA AA.

  60. 60.

    “Kulturpolitischer Jahresbericht 1967,” 2.

  61. 61.

    “5. Sitzung des Ständigen Gemischten Deutsch-Griechen Kulturausschusses”; “6. Tagung des Ständigen Gemischten deutsch-griechischen Ausschusses nach dem Kulturabkommen vom 17. Mai 1956 zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Griechenland,” Protokoll (Bonn, November 29, 1972), B 96876, Auswärtiges Amt.

  62. 62.

    Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, “Vorbereitende Notizen für das deutsch-griechische Expertengespräch am 23. 3. 1976,” Vorbereitende Notizen (Bonn: Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepulik Deutschland, March 1976), 2, B 93, Bd. 1154, PA AA. See also EURYDICE, The Greek Education System (Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1988); Fragoudaki, “Greek Education in the Twentieth Century: A Long Process Towards a Democratic European Society.”

  63. 63.

    For a discussion of the two countries relations in the 1950s and 1960s, see Dimitrios K. Apostolopoulos, “Greece and Germany in Postwar Europe: The Way towards Reconciliation,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21, no. 2 (2003): 223–43.

  64. 64.

    Alexander Clarkson, Fragmented Fatherland: Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1980 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 123–27.

  65. 65.

    Nonetheless, the West German Foreign Office, which still included many former Nazis in its ranks, tried to suppress migrants’ left-leaning political groups (Clarkson, Fragmented Fatherland, 126). For a discussion of the history of the (West) German Foreign Office during the Second World War through reform under Willy Brandt, see Eckart Conze et al., Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (Munich: Karl Blessing Verlag, 2010).

  66. 66.

    Wende, “Mdl. Fragen Wende betr. Verwendung von Lehrbüchern mit tendenziösem Inhalt bei der Unterrichtung griechischer Gastarbeiterkinder in deutschen Schulen sowie Schutz der Lehrfreiheit gegen den Mißbrauch durch undemokratische Kräfte,” Drs. VI/480 (Bonn: Bundestag, March 11, 1970); Hansen, “Mdl. Fragen Hausen betr. Unterrichtung von Kindern griechischer Arbeitnehmer in der BRD durch griechische Lehrer an Schulen außerhalb öffentlichen Schulwesens,” Drs. VI/1253 (Bonn: Bundestag, October 14, 1970).

  67. 67.

    Wende, “Mdl. Fragen Wende”; Hansen, “Mdl. Fragen Hausen.”

  68. 68.

    “Withdrawal of Greece from the Council of Europe Speech by the Foreign Minister of Greece H.e. Mr. Panayotis Pipinelis at the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe,” International Legal Materials 9, no. 2 (1970): 396–410.

  69. 69.

    Joachim Möller, “The German Labor Market Response in the World Recession: De-Mystifying a Miracle,” Zeitschrift für Arbeitsmarktforschung 42, no. 4 (February 1, 2010): 328.

  70. 70.

    Klaus J. Bade, ed., Population, Labour, and Migration in 19th- and 20th-Century Germany (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 1–14; Klusmeyer and Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, 93–96.

  71. 71.

    Lederer, “Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der BRD” (Bonn: Auswärtiges Amt, February 17, 1972), B 93745, PA AA; Auswärtiges Amt and Lederer to Bundespressestelle des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, “Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer,” March 7, 1972, B 93745, PA AA.

  72. 72.

    See, for example John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2005); Pierre Bourdieu, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture, trans. Jean-Claude Passeron, 2nd ed. (London: Sage Publications, 1990); Cristina Allemann-Ghionda, Schule, Bildung und Pluralität: sechs Fallstudien im europäischen Vergleich (Bern: P. Lang, 1999). For a discussion of how these ideas reach back to the Enlightenment, see James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  73. 73.

    Jürgen Oelkers, “Pädagogische Reform und Wandel der Erziehungswissenschaft,” in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte: 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Christa Berg, Christoph Führ, and Carl-Ludwig Furck (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1998), 217–44.

  74. 74.

    For more on the cultural contracts, see collection 97 in the PA AA.

  75. 75.

    For more on 1968 student movements, see Mark Roseman, ed., Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany, 1770–1968 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Die 68er Bewegung: Deutschland, Westeuropa, USA (Munich: Beck, 2001); Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, and Detlef Junker, eds., 1968, the World Transformed (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  76. 76.

    Deutscher Bundestag, “38. Sitzung: Schriftliche Antwort des Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärs Dr. Dahrendorf vom 13. März auf die mündlichen Fragen des Abg. Kern (Drs. 6/480 Fragen A 116 Und 117)” (Deutscher Bundestag, March 13, 1970), 1929 B-D; Deutscher Bundestag, “74. Sitzung: Schriftliche Antwort des Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärs Dr. von Dohnanyi Vom 14. Oktober auf die mündlichen Fragen des Abg. Hansen (Drs. 6/1253 Fragen A 98 Und 99)” (Deutscher Bundestag, October 16, 1970), 4118 C-D. Karl-Hans Kern was a Bundestag member from 1967 to 1976 and Karl Heinz Hansen served in the West from 1969 to 1981.

  77. 77.

    Kultusausschusses NRW, “Beschluß des Kultusausschusses vom 27. 01. 1972 zum ‘Eingriffs- bzw. Gestaltungsrecht’ von Vertretern ausländischer Staaten in den Unterricht an deutschen Schulen, zur Schulaufsicht und zur Einstellung und Entlassung ausländischer Lehrer,” Kabinettvorlage (Landessache) (Düsseldorf: Kultusministerium NRW, June 15, 1972).

  78. 78.

    For a selection of media responses, see “Auch Ausländer müssen Grundrecht achten,” Landespresse- und Informationsamt, January 27, 1972; “NRW: Kein fremder Einfluss auf deutsche Schulen,” Landespresse- und Informationsamt, February 8, 1972; “Antidemokratische importe nicht dulden”; “Kontroverse um griechische Lehrer: ‘Auch Gegner des Regimes sollen unterrichten’: Girgensohn hingegen betont ‘Vertrauen der Heimatbehörden.’”

  79. 79.

    Nonetheless their service under the West German school system did entail adherence to the West German Basic Law (Raffert, “Schrftl. Fragen Engholm (SPD) betr. Inhalte der im muttersprachlichen Unterricht verwendeten Lehrbücher und Einstellung ausländischer Lehrer für Ausländerkinder in der BRD: Drs. VI/3468,” Schrftl. Antw.: 190 Sitzung (Bonn: Bundestag, June 9, 1972)).

  80. 80.

    “Erfahrungsbericht über den Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer,” II A 3. 36-6/1 Nr. 2679/73 (Düsseldorf, July 20, 1973), NW 388-33, Landesarchiv NRW. I did not see any of these claims in the archives I visited, but it is possible they exist. See also Lederer, “Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der BRD”; Auswärtiges Amt and Lederer to Bundespressestelle des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, “Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer.”

  81. 81.

    “Erfahrungsbericht über den Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer.” Domhof sent a letter to the regional presidents telling them to alert him to any “anti-democratic, fascist propaganda material taught by Greek teachers,” but the problems raised were never more than minor (Kultusministerium NRW to Regierungspräsidenten, “Schulunterricht für Kinder griechischer Arbeitnehmer,” October 9, 1970, NW 388-14, Landesarchiv NRW).

  82. 82.

    The KMK established a small committee, including representatives from Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, and North Rhine-Westphalia.

  83. 83.

    Beckmann, who had taught at a German School in Athens between 1957 and 1967, translated the 1969 Education of the Citizen by Antonius Anreas Tsitimbas. Oberstudiendirektor Beckmann put together the report at the behest of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Ministry of Education (Harald Kästner to Direktor des Internationalen Schulbuch-Instituts and Georg Eckert, “Griechische Schulbücher für den Unterricht von Kindern griechischer Arbietnehmer in der Bundesrepublik,” May 4, 1971, 143 N Zg. 2009/069, Nr. 179, NLA).

  84. 84.

    Beckmann, “‘Erziehung des Bürgers’ (für Schüler der 6. Volksschulklasse) von Antonius Anreas Tsitimbas, Athen 1969,” 1970, 143 N Zg. 2009/069, Nr. 179, NLA. The text included multiple descriptions of how “God gave freedom to people as a gift.” The children would also read “We Greeks must in our personal, familial, and social lives keep to the noble teachings of our church, with Christ as our guide and ruler of our beings.”

  85. 85.

    Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Ankara, “Kulturpolitischer Jahresbericht für 1971 aus der Türkei” (Ankara: Auswärtige Amt, March 8, 1972), B 97, Bd. 242, PA AA; Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Ankara, “Kulturpolitischer Jahresbericht für 1972 aus der Türkei” (Ankara: Auswärtige Amt, March 19, 1973), B 97, Bd. 364, PA AA. For a discussion of Turkish politics in the early 1970s, see Debbie Lovatt, Turkey Since 1970: Politics, Economics and Society (New York: Palgrave, 2000); Özgür Ulus, The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey: Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011).

  86. 86.

    Georg Eckert (1912–1974), SPD member and historian from Braunschweig founded an institute for international schoolbook research in 1951 with the political nature of textbooks in mind. Later chair of the German UNESCO-Commission, Eckert promoted international cooperation in the understanding of history and hosted multiple bilateral and international schoolbook conferences. Seeking to promote peace, Eckert’s institute encouraged communication between different countries on textbook content and development. For information on the current state of the institution, see “Georg-Eckert-Institut – Leibniz-Institut für internationale Schulbuchforschung,” October 21, 2013, http://www.gei.de/. The “Arbeitssitzung von der Sachverständigengruppe “Griechische Schulbücher” met for the first time 27 May 1971 (Sekretariat der Kultusministerkonferenz, “Arbeitssitzung von der Sacherständiggengruppe ‘Griechische Schulbücher’” (Kultusministerkonferenz, May 27, 1972), B 304/2057/2, Bundesarchiv Koblenz).

  87. 87.

    Paul Betts, “The New Fascination with Fascism: The Case of Nazi Modernism,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 4 (October 2002): 541–58; Mohammad A. Chaichian, Empires and Walls: Globalization, Migration, and Colonial Domination (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 108–9. For more on Brandt’s Ostpolitik, see for example Carole Fink and Bernd Schäfer, Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses (Washington D.C.: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  88. 88.

    For more on the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano) see Stephen Hellman, Italian Communism in Transition: The Rise and Fall of the Historic Compromise in Turin, 1975–1980 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). For more on the “Years of Lead,” see Andrea Hajek, Negotiating Memories of Protest in Western Europe: The Case of Italy (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 17–34.

  89. 89.

    Sekretariat der Kultusministerkonferenz, “Arbeitssitzung von der Sachverständigengruppe ‘Griechische Schulbücher.’”

  90. 90.

    Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz.

  91. 91.

    Raffert, “Schrftl. Fragen Engholm, Drs. VI/3468.”

  92. 92.

    “Erfahrungsbericht über den Unterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer.”

  93. 93.

    Ray C. Rist, Guestworkers in Germany: The Prospects for Pluralism (New York: Praeger, 1978), 190–92.

  94. 94.

    An idea already being implemented in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Lehman, B. (2019). Teaching National Identity to “Guest Worker Children” (1962–1971). In: Teaching Migrant Children in West Germany and Europe, 1949–1992. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97728-7_4

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