Auf Wiedersehen in the Fatherland

The train journey from Berlin’s historical centre to Marzahn, on the eastern fringe of the city, takes less than 30 minutes.

But the two districts couldn’t be further apart.

Outside the train’s grimy windows, Schinkel’s classical architecture and freshly renovated town houses give way to drab prefab apartment blocks and solitary pylons. Travelling eastwards, the train slowly empties. By the last stop, Marzahn-Ahrensfelde, the only passenger left is a youth with cropped hair and pock-marked cheeks, speaking loudly into his cell phone in rapid Russian.

Russian is a language heard often on the streets of Marzahn. Some 20,000 Russian Germans live in the district, 8 per cent of its population. Only a few speak German, according to district social worker Alexander Reiser, who says language is "the biggest problem in the integration of Germany’s repatriates".

Foreigners in their home countries

The majority of Germany’s repatriates are descendants of Germans who emigrated to the Russian Volga region some 200 years ago and were deported to areas in the former Soviet Union after Hitler declared war on the country in 1941. Their children, and children’s children were born and brought up in Russia. In their country of birth, however, they’re recognised as German.

Today, the Russian-Germans make up around 60 per cent of the 2.3 million Aussiedler in Germany - repatriated Germans from Central and eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia, Poland, Rumania and Hungary. This number makes them a significant group in the German population, significant too in the elections.

Close ties to conservatives

For years, the conservatives have regarded themselves as the guardians of Germany’s repatriates. It was former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who facilitated immigration for repatriates by adding a clause in the German constitution which recognised their right to return. In addition, he introduced a number of measures to help repatriates, including financial support not just for the trip to Germany, as it is today, but also for the transfer within the country.

Under Kohl’s rule, the number of repatriates in Germany increased considerably. By the mid 1990s the number had reached some 200,000 a year.

Dashed hopes

From his office in Marzahn, social worker Alexander Reiser can clearly see the tall, grey, graffiti-smeared prefab apartment blocks, towering against a sky laden with heavy rain clouds. Reiser, born in Siberia but of German nationality, left his home for Germany four years ago. The trip ended in Marzahn – a far cry from the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s "blooming lands" in Germany’s east. Designated to the area due to a special law which allows repatriates the choice of address only after three years following their arrival, the majority of Reiser’s neighbours shared his fate - they were German immigrants from Russia.

Reiser recalls how after the first, obligatory six-month language courses, he had neither job, nor job prospects, and fought with depression as time dragged on. It took two years, and a good number of odd jobs until he found something permanent. "The majority are less fortunate, and live off social security and support from the state", he says. Their hopes dashed, many suffer from depression and retreat to the bosom of their families.

Crime, poverty and the Russian mafia"

"Unemployment, crime, social problems – this is the image of the German Aussiedler which is most common in the minds of the German population", Reiser says, as a group of bored youths fight playfully on the district square outside Reiser’s office, once a former paper shop. "In addition they are stigmatised by what many Germans think of Russia - as a country of crime, poverty and the Russian mafia."

Well aware of this image, Germany's politicians are torn between the desire to welcome this large group of voters, and to show the rest of the German population that they are effectively tackling these issues - by reducing the influx.

New immigration law

This year, the number of repatriate immigrants dropped sharply by some 10,000 people, from 48,000 in 2001 to 38,000 in 2002.

"The current continuous reduction of repatriates applying for immigration shows the success of the government’s immigration policy", says Jochen Welt, the SPD commissioner for repatriates (photo). "We have put a strong focus on improving the situation in the countries of their birth. More and more members of German minorities, especially in Russia and Kazakstan, decide to stay in their home countries".

In addition, he says the development is closely linked to the Social Democrat’s immigration law, which comes into effect on January 1, 2003 - in particular due to the introduction of a new language test for the relatives of repatriates.

Under the current law, only the first member of a repatriate family needs to pass a language test before entering the country. Relatives, including non-Germans, are allowed to follow without having to prove knowledge of the German language. Under the new law all family members will have to undergo a language test before leaving their home country. "We want people to come to Germany who can speak German", Welt told the Berliner Zeitung earlier this year.

"We stand on your side"

"The new law was passed against the CDU/CSU’s bitter resistance", CDU leader Angela Merkel explains in the small colour leaflet "We stand on your side", printed in both Russian and German for repatriate Germans. "It entails massive disadvantages for repatriates and their non-German spouses and relatives from the current law situation".

According to the CDU’s commissioner for repatriates, Eva Maria Kors, the new language test, and its implications for repatriates’ families even go as far as to contradict the German constitution. "The planned change (….) contradicts Germany’s historical, political and humanitarian commitment to the repatriates, and especially their family members", she says.

Projects and promises

On Reiser’s desk lies a similar brochure, from the cover of this one however, Gerhard Schröder smiles reassuringly.

Reiser pushes the brochure derisively aside – he is a member of the local CDU and does not believe in Schröder’s repatriate policies.

"Repatriate Germans tend to be very gullible when it comes to politicians' promises", he says with a laugh. But this does not mean they can’t be equally strong in the expression of their opinions, he explains, recalling how, in the last election, many Aussiedler voted for the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialists in protest of "the constant defamation of communism in eastern Germany".

"They felt they had to defend communism and show that not everything was bad, and that not everyone was a Stasi spy".

German voters

So who will the huge Russian-German community vote for this time? SPD commissioner Welt is optimistic that an increasing number will vote for his party. "Repatriates always used to vote for CDU, but in past years, more and more have turned to the SPD", he says. Welt regards the conservatives’ fiery reactions to the new changes in the immigration law as proof of the Union’s slipping grip on Germany’s Aussiedler. "I would call their reactions pure election rhetoric", he adds.

Alexander Reiser, however, is not so sure. For him, the chancellor candidates, their parties and their promises are a far cry from local life in Marzahn.

This year the German government invested some 650.6 million euro in the integration of repatriates, but for social worker Reiser, "money is not the main point". Locking the door of his office after a day of organising, co-ordinating and visiting various repatriate projects, the German from Siberia says: "There are numerous integration projects for repatriates. What is important, however, is that we realise these projects not just for them, but with them".