US embassy cable - 03FRANKFURT5937

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 FRANKFURT 005937 
 
SIPDIS 
 
UNCLASSIFIED 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SMIG, SOCI, PGOV, PREF, PHUM, GM 
SUBJECT: "RUSSIAN-GERMANS": IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION 
PROBLEMS IN SOUTHWEST GERMANY 
 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary: The immigration and integration of ethnic 
Germans and their families from the former Soviet Union 
(Aussiedler) is a major social problem in Germany. 
Newcomers' lack of German language skills makes them 
unemployable and drug-related crimes and ghettoization are 
endemic among Aussiedler youth.  Government efforts at 
promoting Aussiedler well-being and integration focus on 
programs intended to help them improve their German language 
skills.  Although the number of Aussiedler has steadily 
diminished since the early 1990s, the Aussiedler already in 
Germany remain a festering social problem for which no 
comprehensive solution has been implemented by the federal 
or state governments. End summary. 
 
Who are the "Aussiedler?" 
------------------------ 
 
2. (U) Aussiedler are descendents of Germans who were 
immigrated to Russia beginning in the 18th century when 
Czarina Catherine the Great, born into the German 
aristocracy, invited Germans to settle in Russia.  There was 
continuous migration of Germans to Russian lands up until 
the beginning of the Soviet Union.  When Nazi Germany 
invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin had the Aussiedler deported 
to Soviet Central Asia.  The 1949 Constitution of the 
Federal Republic of Germany re-codified the longstanding 
ethnic concept of German nationality; ethnic Germans were 
guaranteed the right to German residence and citizenship. 
 
3. (SBU) Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, ethnic 
Germans from the Soviet Union were in a position to take 
advantage of the citizenship law as well.  Beginning in the 
1990s, whole communities left the former Soviet Union to 
settle in Germany.  In addition to those who could prove 
German ethnicity, family members including non-German 
spouses and children were allowed to immigrate as well.  In 
response to the sudden surge in immigrants, the FRG set a 
cap of 220,000 Aussiedler immigrants per year in 1993, and 
in the same year enacted a new regulation requiring ethnic 
German principals to pass a German language competency test. 
Approximately 30 percent of applicants fail the test, which 
supplements genealogical data to establish the applicants' 
ethnic German bona fides.  The annual number of Aussiedler 
moving to Germany has decreased steadily and the cap has 
never actually been met.  In 2002, 91,000 Aussiedler 
immigrated to Germany.  Germany had targeted aid to 
Aussiedler communities abroad to improve local conditions 
and stem the flow, for example to ethnic German families in 
Kazakhstan who were interested in resettlement in Siberia or 
the Volga region of Russia.  Such resettlement in Russia has 
proved much less attractive to most of Centra Asia's ethnic 
Germans than the possibility of starting a new life in 
Germany. 
 
The Aussiedler in Southwest Germany 
----------------------------------- 
 
4. (SBU) Aussiedler were settled in Germany according to a 
fixed formula in order to avoid what government officials 
called in the mid-1990s "bunching."  Hesse accepted 7.2 
percent of all Aussiedler immigrants and Baden-Wuerttemberg 
(B-W) 12.4 percent.  (In B-W, this meant 11,245 persons in 
2002; 12,093 in 2001; and 11,749 in 2000.)  Almost 95 
percent comes from the former Soviet Union (statistics do 
not distinguish between Russia and the central Asian 
republics, but German government officials believe that 
former Russian and Kazakh nationals dominate this group.) 
Many Germans do not perceive Aussiedler as Germans and 
normally refer to them as "Russians" regardless of their 
actual ethnicity.  Only 25 percent of the Aussiedler are 
actually ethnic Germans.  The remaining 75 percent are 
spouses and family members, often with no German background 
or German language skills at all. 
 
5. (SBU) Many Germans associate Aussiedler, particularly the 
youth, with drugs and crime.  Media reporting, sometimes 
exaggerated, perpetuates this view.  Aussiedler are 
frequently mentioned in connection with organized crime. 
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported three cases of 
human trafficking involving ethnic Germans from Russia in 
recent months.  Papers in the Frankfurt area attribute the 
emergence of a new and stronger form of heroin to Aussiedler 
drug gangs.  The Associated Press reported that in July 2002 
four Aussiedler were caught attacking an Iranian woman and 
her son near Frankfurt.  The article spoke of a "new breed 
of right-wing extremism" growing among the Aussiedler 
against other foreigners in Germany. 
 
6. (SBU) The "drugs and crime" stereotype contains some 
truth: Aussiedler youth tend to be more involved in criminal 
activity.  According to a 2002 police survey, every tenth 
German juvenile offender was of ethnic Russian origin. 
However, a spokesperson for the Frankfurt police cautioned 
us not to view Aussiedler as more criminal than Germans. 
 
The Drug Problem 
---------------- 
 
7. (SBU) Particularly worrying to local officials is an 
increase in drug abuse and drug-related crimes among young 
Aussiedler.  Rheinland-Pfalz (R-P) statistics document that 
in urban areas with a high percentage of Aussiedler -- such 
as the industrial city of Ludwigshafen home to the 
multinational giant BASF -- every fourth person involved in 
drugs is an Aussiedler.  The police in R-P and other states 
have also noticed an increase in violent crimes and a 
growing number of HIV and tuberculosis among incarcerated 
Aussiedler.  One expert, Irene Troester, from Hohenheim 
University near Stuttgart, states that there is a 
misconception that young Aussiedler "imported" the drug 
problem to Germany.  She is the author of a comprehensive 
study on Aussiedler and says that almost all these young 
immigrants become involved with drugs after they arrive in 
Germany.  Troester, who immigrated from Kazakhstan at the 
age of seven, says that young Aussiedler are under great 
social and economic pressure.  Already steeped in social 
customs of heavy drinking, they turn to alcohol at age 14 or 
15 and are then easily lured to drugs. 
 
Social Isolation 
---------------- 
 
8. (SBU) Many Aussiedler perceive an unwelcoming attitude 
among native Germans, which probably contributes to the 
social isolation of the community.  Most Aussiedler are 
settled in groups of over 100 in dedicated, often 
geographically isolated apartment complexes.  Cities 
received subsidies for taking in Aussiedler in the 1990s and 
built large housing complexes as the most economic means of 
accommodation, and some were placed in renovated former 
military facilities.  According to Troester, politicians 
often preferred to concentrate Aussiedler in one area in 
order to avoid social problems they feared would be 
associated with contact between native Germans and the 
immigrants.  "Then only one neighborhood goes bad," said 
Troester. 
 
9. (SBU) Some Germans look upon the government's support of 
Aussiedler with frustration and anger.  Aussiedler receive 
more housing assistance than many Germans or other 
immigrants.  Immigrants with large families, are entitled to 
bigger homes.  This creates the perception that an 
Aussiedler family with poor German and few marketable skills 
receives preferential treatment while other Germans and non- 
German immigrants receive less.  There is also a widespread 
perception that many Aussiedler have fraudulently claimed 
German ethnicity.  The problems of crime and drug abuse have 
further increased calls for an end to the "coddling" of 
Aussiedler and their families. 
 
Language As Key for Integration 
------------------------------- 
 
10. (SBU) Government experts agree that acquiring language 
skills is considered key for successful integration into 
German society.  According to Herbert Rech (CDU), the B-W 
commissioner for Aussiedler, young immigrants do not feel 
sufficiently compelled to learn German.  The B-W Social 
Democratic (SPD) Caucus Chief Wolfgang Drexler welcomed 
Rech's comments saying, "The CDU is finally facing reality 
concerning the Aussiedler community."  To improve the 
integration of Aussiedler, B-W is running a model project 
known as the "integration guide."  Newly arrived Aussiedler 
sign a contract that lists their rights and obligations.  A 
social worker then acts as an advisor for the immigrant and 
assists in the integration effort.  B-W spends 4.4 million 
Euro annually for integrating Aussiedler and is thus a 
leader in southwest Germany. 
 
11. (SBU) Hesse has no comprehensive Aussiedler policy, but 
spends 655,000 Euro to support so called "expellee 
organizations" (Vertriebenenverbaende). (NOTE: The name 
dates back to the ethnic Germans who were expelled from 
Eastern Europe in the immediate postwar period and 
subsequently formed support groups.)  Many Aussiedler do not 
consider the associations helpful, however.  "They only care 
for people, who fled after the war, not those coming today," 
Troester said. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
12. (SBU) The Aussiedler problem points up weaknesses in 
German immigration policy.  The Constitutional requirement 
and political pressures that led to Germany's acceptance of 
large numbers of Aussiedler in the early 1990s marked the 
first time in Germany's history that the government had to 
develop a management plan for large-scale immigration and 
integration.  As efforts to reform Germany's immigration law 
continue, there is a tendency for experts as well as 
politicians to call on approaches used to deal with 
Aussiedler in handling other immigrants.  However, the 
Aussiedler actually represent a very special type of 
immigrant, quite different from the skilled workers that 
German immigration experts increasingly point to as the 
future of German immigration and, indeed, of the German 
population.  Unlike economic migrants under a Canadian 
immigration model, Aussiedler lack concrete reasons to learn 
German and adapt to German society; they are both coddled 
and isolated by the German government.  Although the number 
of Aussiedler settling in Germany continues to decline, the 
large number already living in Southwest German remain a 
festering social problem.  There are indications that this 
problem might be exacerbated by the Southwest's increasing 
role as a preferred residence for Aussiedler originally 
settled in Eastern states, whose native populations have 
reputations for being especially unwelcoming.  End Comment. 
 
13. (U) This message was coordinated with Embassy Berlin. 
 
DUSHANBE MINIMIZE CONSIDERED 
BODDE