Iranians in Germany

Persian New Year in Oberhausen, 2014

Iranians in Germany are people from Iran who publicly identify with it and its culture and who live in Germany .

history

Iranian students on the Baltic coast in Heringsdorf (former GDR), 1956

The history of the Persians in Germany goes back to the beginning of the 20th century . About 1,000 Persians lived in the Weimar Republic . In 1939 there were 642 Persians in the German Reich and in the late war years the Persian community in Berlin had 190 members, most of whom were temporary students in the German Reich. After the Second World War , the number of Iranians in the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR , which had fallen sharply during the war, rose again. Up until the 1960s, in addition to students, it was mainly entrepreneurs and doctors. The Iranian doctors united in 1961 to form the Association of Iranian Doctors and Dentists in the Federal Republic of Germany (VIA). The Association of Iranian University Lecturers and Academics in Germany (VIHA), founded in November 1989, aims to promote scientific and cultural relations between Germany and Iran. In 1992 the "Association of Iranian Natural Scientists and Engineers (VINI) in the Federal Republic of Germany e. V. “founded. In November 2010 the association “Iranian Community in Germany” was founded, which aims to promote the interests of all Iranians living in Germany, regardless of their ethnic, religious and political affiliation.

The revolution in Iran in 1979 and the First Gulf War (1980–1988) between Iraq and Iran caused waves of immigration by political refugees, which in turn had a strong impact on the demographic structure of Iranians living in Germany.

Migration situation

The number of people with an Iranian migration background living in Germany was 153,000 in 2015, of which 72,531 are Iranian citizens (December 31, 2015). Thus, the Iranian diaspora in the Federal Republic of Germany is at the top in a European comparison, ahead of Great Britain , Sweden and France .

20,429 people with an Iranian migration background live in Hamburg (December 31, 2015), the largest number in a major German city; they form the second largest community in Europe after London . Further concentrations of Iranians living in Germany are mainly found in the large cities of the old federal states of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia . Hamburg has developed into a center for Iranians since the 1960s; there are many cultural and mosque associations such as the Islamic Center Hamburg , which is the center of Shiite Islam in Germany, Persian restaurants and shops.

The Iranian migrants form a heterogeneous group of up to ten different ethnicities and language groups from Iran. The ethnic Persians have the largest share , followed by Azerbaijanis , Kurds , Lurs , Arabs , Arameans , Armenians and other smaller ethnic groups. Almost all people of Iranian origin with their own migration experience speak Persian and often also speak their original mother tongue.

The population of Iranian descent in Germany has a higher level of education, which, according to studies, can be attributed to the social structure and a certain learning culture. According to the Berlin Institute for Population and Development , over 50 percent of immigrants of Iranian origin have a bachelor's degree or a higher academic degree, compared to a value of 20 percent in the total population of Germany. More than one in four Iranians is employed in a trusted profession, such as a doctor, bank employee, educator, engineer or in the judiciary.

Worldviews

The Iranian Imam Ali Mosque of the Islamic Center Hamburg

Different worldviews are represented among the Iranians. In addition to Muslims, there are non-denominational as well as Christians , Baha'i , members of the Ahl-e Haqq , Zoroastrians and Jews . According to a representative study from 2008, less than half of migrants of Iranian origin are Muslim (49 percent), 38 percent are non-denominational and 13 percent belong to other religions. In Iran, where 98% of the population is Muslim according to official figures, atheists are threatened with the death penalty. In addition, the distance to mosque communities is justified by the fact that these are often connected to the Islamic Center Hamburg; an institution that is assessed and observed by the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an "instrument of the Iranian government".

Multiple nationality

Since Iran almost never releases its citizens from citizenship (see Article 989 of Iran. Civil Code) and Iranian citizenship according to Article 976 of Iran. ZGB is inherited through the father (principle of descent ), there are many German-Iranian multi-nationals. The German-Iranian settlement agreement of 1929, which is still in force, regulates in No. II of the final protocol that state approval is required before a member of the other state can be naturalized. This has led to unsustainable processing times and a "naturalization backlog" before 2000. In practice, Iranians are now mostly naturalized in Germany with the acceptance of multiple citizenship . Of the 3,662 Iranians who were naturalized in 2006, 99.8 percent were able to retain their old citizenship.

literature

• Karin Hesse-Lehmann: Iranians in Hamburg. Behavioral patterns in cultural contact . Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-4960-2513-1

See also

• Reception of Persian literature in German-speaking countries

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Iranian community in Germany
2. ↑ Population with a migration background - results of the 2015 microcensus , page 66
3. ↑ Foreign population - results of the Central Register of Foreigners (as of December 31, 2015) , p. 153.
4. ↑ Iran: Persecution by the State of God ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Population with a migration background in the Hamburg districts at the end of 2015 , page 3
6. ↑ Study by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development [1] Retrieved on February 1, 2015
7. ↑ Franziska Woellert and Reiner Klingholz: New Potentials for the Situation of Integration in Germany [2] Retrieved on February 1, 2015
8. ↑ ^{a b} Haug, Müssig, Stichs: 6.4 Muslims from Iran In: Muslim Life in Germany ( Memento of the original from May 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , representative study by the Nuremberg Federal Office for Migration and Refugees for the German Islam Conference , June 2009 
9. ↑ Iran: As an atheist in the God of God . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on August 4, 2018]).
10. ↑ Mark Spörrle: Is the Islamic Center hostile to Israel? Zeit.de of January 13, 2017.
11. ↑ Iranian Civil Code (Iran. ZGB). On the UNHCR website: "The Civil Code of Iran" (English translation, legal status from 1985) ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. published in Basic Document in Iranian Law, introduced and edited by Professor SH Amin. "Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran" (unofficial English translation)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. published by Alavi and Associates, Legal Counsels, Islamic Republic of Iran.   
12. ↑ Settlement Agreement between the German Reich and the Empire of Persia from 1929, final protocol , Reichsgesetzblatt year 1930, Part II, No. 30, page 1012, issued in Berlin on August 13, 1930
13. ↑ Small question on the German-Iranian settlement agreement (German Bundestag: Printed matter 13/491 of February 13, 1995)
14. ↑ Berlin House of Representatives: Small question of April 29, 2003 on the naturalization of Iranians ( Memento of the original of February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 134 kB)  
15. ↑ Naturalization of Iranian citizens with the acceptance of multiple citizenship (PDF; 23 kB) Decree of the Senator for Interior and Sport Bremen, January 11, 2008
16. ↑ Migration Report 2006 (PDF; 7.6 MB) BAMF page 197