1. History
    South Koreans  North Koreans  Return migration 

2. Education

3. Notable people

4. References
    Works cited 

5. Further reading

6. External links

Koreans in Germany numbered 31,248 individuals {{asof|2009|lc=on}}, according to the statistics of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Though they are now only the 14th-largest Korean diaspora community worldwide, they remain the second-largest in Western Europe, behind the rapidly growing community of Koreans in the United Kingdom.^[1] As of 2010, Germany has been hosting the second largest number of Koreans residing in Western Europe if one excludes Korean sojourners (students and general sojourners).

The biggest community of Koreans are situated in the Frankfurt-Rhine Main Area, with 5,300 residents. This area also contains German and European headquarters of large Korean companies such as Kia Motors, Hyundai, Samsung Electronics, LG International, SK Network, Nexen Tire.

History

South Koreans

Some students, nurses, and industrial trainees from South Korea had already been in West Germany in the late 1950s.^[4] However, mass migration did not begin until the 1960s, when West Germany invited nurses and miners from South Korea to come as Gastarbeiter; their recruitment of labourers specifically from South Korea was driven not just by economic necessity, but also by a desire to demonstrate support for a country that, like Germany, had been divided by ideology.^[5] The first group of miners arrived on 16 December 1963, under a programme paid for largely by the South Korean government; German enterprises were not responsible for travel costs, but only for wages and language training. They had high levels of education compared with other Gastarbeiter of the same era; over 60% had completed high school or tertiary education. Nurses began arriving in large numbers in 1966.^[4] Koreans were one of the few non-European groups recruited; West German migration policy generally excluded workers of African and Asian origin during the 1950s through 1970s.^[6] After living in Germany, some Koreans migrated onwards to the United States under the relaxed entrance standards of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.^[7] Though the South Korean workers came on limited-term contracts and most initially planned to return home, in the end, half of workers enlisted ended up remaining in Germany. Throughout the 1970s, they staged protests demanding the right to stay, citing their contributions to the economy and health care system; in the end, the West German government refrained from expelling those whose work contracts had expired, instead letting them move on to other work.^[4][6]

There has been a movement among South Korean miners in Germany in 2011 to let the South Korean government officially recognize their patriotic effort.^[11]

North Koreans

There was also a Korean presence in East Germany, though it was much smaller. During the post-Korean War reconstruction period of North Korea from 1953 to 1962, many North Korean students enrolled in universities and colleges in the Soviet bloc, and others came as industrial trainees.^[12] In 1955, their numbers in East Germany were estimated at 334 students, 302 industrial trainees, and 298 orphans. However, as the Sino-Soviet split worsened, the North Korean government ordered nearly all of their overseas nationals to return home, and by 1962, few North Koreans were left in Germany. Even those who married locals obeyed the recall order and left their spouses behind; in one case, an East German woman was able to confirm that her North Korean husband was still alive after more than four decades without contact, but others have never seen or heard any information about their spouses since.^[13][14] In the 1980s, relations between North Korea and East Germany improved again, and about 1,500 North Korean students came to East Germany.^[15] Even after the German reunification, the Pyongyang government continued to send some students to Germany for technical training; the two countries established formal diplomatic relations in March 2001, and Germans working in North Korea have reported meeting German-speaking engineers and technicians.^[16] In 2009, North Korean scientists and engineers were denied renewal of their stay permits in Germany, even in cases where their scholarships were renewed. This was not reported in the press.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

Return migration

Some Koreans settled in Germany have begun returning to South Korea after retirement, bringing German spouses with them; this return migration has resulted in the creation of a "German Village" in South Gyeongsang's Namhae County.^[17]

Education

Over 70% of second-generation Korean descendants in Germany hold at least an Abitur or higher educational qualification, more than twice the ratio for the rest of the population (see also: Academic achievement among different groups in Germany).^[4] Outside of the regular educational system, Koreans in Germany are also served by 37 weekend Korean-language schools, the earliest of which, the Köln Koreans' School, was established on 10 April 1973. Further schools were founded in Aachen, Hamburg, Rüsselsheim, Düsseldorf, Neunkirchen, Bickenbach, Bochum, Hannover, Kamp-Lintfort, Krefeld, Dortmund, Germering and Hamminkeln in the 1970s, Essen, Berlin, Dudweiler, Kassel, Marl, Leverkusen, Oberhausen, Göttingen, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Bremen, Karlsruhe, Wuppertal, Augsburg, Heidelberg, Herzogenaurach, and Osnabrück in the 1980s, and Münster, Wolfsburg, Kiel, Freiburg, Siegen, and Rimpar in the 1990s. As of 2007, total enrollment in all Korean schools across Germany was 1,748 students.^[18]

Notable people

• Cha Bum-Kun, noted football player in Bundesliga, known as Tscha Bum ("Cha Boom").
• Unsuk Chin, composer.^[19]
• Caroline Fischer, pianist.
• Martin Hyun, professional ice hockey player who played in Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga.
• Mike Leon Grosch, singer who was the finalist of Deutschland sucht den SuperStar.
• Bae Suah, author and translator.
• Ji-In Cho, musician and the lead vocalist and pianist for Krypteria.
• Byung-Chul Han, author, cultural theorist, and professor at the Berlin University of the Arts.
• In-Ah Lee, film director from Hamburg, now based in Los Angeles.
• Mirok Li, novelist who sought exile in Germany.
• Kim Isak, singer and radio personality who was born in Germany but is mainly active in South Korea.
• Simone Hauswald, biathlete and 2010 Winter Olympics bronze medalist.
• Oh Kil-nam, economist who defected to North Korea with wife Shin Suk-ja and two daughters, then returned to Europe, Germany then Denmark, alone to seek political asylum.^[20]
• Song Du-yul, philosophy professor and former prisoner under South Korea's National Security Act.^[21]
• Isang Yun, composer and former political prisoner.^[10]
• Cha Du-Ri, footballer, son of Cha Bum-Kun.

References

Works cited

• {{cite book|last=Yoo|first=Jung-Sook|ref=harv|year=1996|title=Koreanische Immigranten in Deutschland: Interessensvertretung und Selbsorganisation|isbn=978-3-86064-502-4|location=Hamburg|publisher=Verlag Dr. Kovač}}

Further reading

• {{cite journal|title=Koreans in Germany: the Story of Kwang-Chung Kim|year=1997|volume=3|journal=Occasional Papers of the Korean American Historical Society|issn=1088-1964|url=http://www.kahs.org/journal.html|accessdate=2007-05-30|pages=33–48|last=Kim|first=Hae-soon|ref=harv|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610015547/http://www.kahs.org/journal.html|archivedate=2007-06-10|df=}}
• {{cite book|last=Schwekendiek|first=Daniel|year=2012|title=Korean Migration to the Wealthy West|isbn=978-1614703693 |location=New York|publisher=Nova Publishers}}
• {{cite book|last=Hoffmann|first=Frank|year=2015|title=Berlin Koreans and Pictured Koreans|series=Koreans and Central Europeans: Informal Contacts up to 1950, vol. 1, ed. Andreas Schirmer|isbn=978-3-7069-0873-3|url=https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://koreanstudies.com/img/Berlin-Koreans.pdf|location=Vienna|publisher=Praesens}}

External links

• Hangaram Magazine

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