Portuguese in Germany

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Relative frequency of Portuguese nationals at district level in 2014 (in relation to other foreign population groups)

Portuguese in Germany have been known since the 16th century. Today they are part of the globally scattered Portuguese diaspora and are generally considered inconspicuous and well integrated.

In 2015 there were 133,929 Portuguese living in Germany, by 2017 this number had increased to 146,810.

history

In Hamburg's Portuguese Quarter , during the EM 2008

The first larger Portuguese community in Germany came into being in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg in the 16th century, when Sephardic Jews also fled here before the Inquisition .

During the First World War , around 5,000 Portuguese prisoners of war were temporarily held in Germany, most of them in the specially built Breesen prisoner-of-war camp, but occasionally in other camps such as Soltau-Ahlften .

During the last three years of the Second World War , Portuguese were also deported to German concentration camps, mostly from occupied France. Several dozen of them perished there. Before that, around 150 Portuguese volunteers within the Spanish Blue Division had gone to war on Nazi Germany's side in 1941 . Most of them were former members of the Viriato Legion and fought on the Eastern Front .

As part of the recruitment agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and Portugal , tens of thousands of Portuguese came as guest workers from 1964 . After the Carnation Revolution in 1974 and joining the EU in 1986, Portugal experienced considerable economic growth and a decrease in emigration.

With the economic crisis in Portugal after the financial crisis from 2007 , immigration from Portugal increased again, also to Germany. Whereas in the 1960s it was mainly craftsmen and unskilled workers, the immigrants are now mostly well educated, often academics . In the 2010s in particular, academics, specialists and students from Portugal were increasingly drawn to Berlin, which after 2016 even replaced Hamburg as the city with the traditionally largest Portuguese community.

Numbers and geographical distribution

A total of 146,810 Portuguese lived in Germany in 2017, after 133,929 in 2015 and 111,530 in 2011.

Until around 2015, Hamburg was traditionally the city with the most important Portuguese community, but since 2017 it has been Berlin. The cities with the largest population groups in Portugal in 2017 were:

  • Berlin (14,905 people = 10.1% of the Portuguese community in Germany)
  • Hamburg (9,390 people = 6.4%)
  • Stuttgart (4470 people = 3%)
  • Frankfurt (4170 people = 2.8%)
  • Cologne (3675 people = 2.5%)

Among the federal states , NRW has the largest Portuguese population in Germany with 26.1%, with emphasis in Cologne, Düsseldorf / Neuss, Dortmund, Hagen, the Sauerland, the Münsterland and East Westphalia. However, they are not among the most important foreign population groups in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The least represented are Portuguese in the federal states of Thuringia (0.4% of Portuguese in Germany), Brandenburg (0.2%) and finally Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , where 0.1% of the Portuguese living in Germany were counted (all figures: Federal Statistical Office 2017).

Public institutions, education and culture

The "Portugal House" in Hamburg, u. a. Seat of the Consulate General

In many German cities there are Portuguese cultural associations, Portuguese-speaking parishes and Portuguese-native language lessons, also at regular schools . At Dortmund's Max-Planck-Gymnasium, for example, Portuguese is offered up to the Abitur.

The Portuguese cultural associations are to a large extent organized in the federal association FAPA ( Federação das Associações Portuguesas na Alemanha (Federal Association of Portuguese Associations in Germany)).

The Portuguese cultural institute Instituto Camões maintains a language center in Hamburg and a cultural center in Berlin, in addition to a series of collaborations and lectureships .

The Portuguese-language newspaper Portugal Post , based in Dortmund , has been published throughout Germany since 1993, and Berlin since 2018.

economy

The “Portuguese-German Business Directory 2016” published by Portugal Post in Dortmund lists around 1,300 Portuguese companies in Germany, mostly small and medium-sized companies and predominantly from the areas of gastronomy, trade and craft. They are partly organized in the Association of Portuguese Companies in Germany (VPU), which was founded in 1996 .

Companies from Portugal are also active in Germany. These include the Inapa subsidiary Papier Union and Sonae Sierra , which operates several shopping centers in Germany, including Alexa Berlin , LOOP5 and the Münster-Arkaden .

The Martifer Group from Oliveira de Frades , a company for renewable energy and metal construction, is the majority owner of Senvion , the former German wind turbine manufacturer REpower Systems.

Some Portuguese banks are also represented in Germany, including Caixa Geral de Depósitos with its own branch in Berlin.

In 2011, the international Portuguese hotel group Pestana opened its first hotel in Germany, the four-star Pestana Berlin Tiergarten.

religion

The Portuguese living in Germany are predominantly of the Catholic faith . Church services in Portuguese are held in many places .

Since the 1970s , a Fátima pilgrimage of the Portuguese community has taken place every year in the Westphalian town of Werl on the Sunday closest to May 13th .

Personalities

A number of Portuguese who lived longer or wholly in Germany became known to the German public. Here is a small selection, sorted alphabetically:

Portugal is the only southern European country from which no pop singer was known in Germany. Greece, Spain and Italy succeeded in doing this with one or more people.

  • Fernando Abrantes in his studio (2015)

  • Miguel Alexandre (2010)

  • Prof. Dr. José Luis Encarnaçāo (2014)

  • Vianna da Motta, postcard from 1905

  • Sérgio Pinto (2014)

  • Telmo Pires (2009)

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : The Portuguese community in Germany  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 50 years of the Portuguese in Germany: The silent neighbors , article from September 13, 2014 by Deutschlandfunk , accessed on March 9, 2017
  2. ↑ a b Website on German-Portuguese migration (Table A.2) at the Portuguese scientific Observatório da Emigração ( Portuguese , English, French), accessed on March 9, 2017
  3. ↑ a b c d e Article on page 1 and page 5 of the Portugal Post newspaper , issue No. 289 / July 2018
  4. ↑ Portuguese officers 1917 in Breesen , article from September 11, 2017 in the archives of the German-Portuguese Society , accessed on July 18, 2018
  5. ↑ Information in the entry on the prisoner of war cemetery in Soltau - Ahlften , website of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge , accessed on July 18, 2018
  6. ↑ Portugueses nos campos de concentração - “Portuguese in the Concentration Camps” , dossier researched in 2013 in the Público newspaper , accessed on July 18, 2018
  7. ↑ Os portugueses que combateram no exército de Hitler - "The Portuguese who fought in Hitler's armies" , article from February 12, 2013 in the Portuguese news magazine Visão , accessed on July 18, 2018
  8. ↑ Portuguese blog article with images of Spanish and Portuguese newspaper articles , accessed July 18, 2018
  9. ↑ Table: Foreign population according to selected characteristics at the Federal Agency for Civic Education , accessed on March 9, 2017
  10. ↑ Portuguese not among the 12 largest population groups, cf. also overview in article North Rhine-Westphalia
  11. ↑ FAPA website (port.), Accessed on March 9, 2017
  12. ↑ Overview of the activities in Germany , website of the Instituto Camões, accessed on March 5, 2017