09.28.2021. 20:40
Germany is a country with immigrant origins, and its wealth and prosperity would not have been possible without immigrants, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday during a visit to one of the traditional industrial regions of the Ruhr region.
“I always say that it’s not people of immigrant background, but Germany itself is a country with an immigrant background.”
– The Federal President highlighted it in his address to the employees of the Friedrich Wilhelm Iron Company in Mülheim that the Ruhr der, which consists of 45 per cent of people of immigrant background.
He noted that Germany had just concluded an agreement with Turkey to host guest workers for sixty years. Guest workers came to help build a rapidly growing economy. Without their work, “much of the prosperity in our country cannot be explained.”
However, they have done so much more, “They have made our country more diverse and open,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who visited the German-Turkish Football Association Türkiyenspor in Bochum and photographer Eruhun Cagatay in Essen. Living in the Ruhr area.
According to the latest data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) in 2019, 36% of Germany’s population, 21.2 million people, have an immigrant background. This represents an increase of 2.1 percent from 20.8 million in the previous year.
According to the agency, a resident of Germany in whom at least one of the parents did not become a German citizen by birth is a resident of Germany.
52 percent of the population with immigrant backgrounds, 11.1 million people, are German citizens born in Germany.
Nearly two-thirds of the population with immigrant backgrounds, 65 percent, are people from within Europe and their descendants.
By country of origin, the largest group is made up of Turks, at 13 percent.
In second place are Poland with 11 per cent.
In third place is the group of people with immigrant origins from Russia, at 7 percent.
