Meet Mustafa, one of Germany’s first Turkish ‘guest workers’

Half a century ago, Mustafa Akci arrived here as one of the very first Turkish Gastarbeiter, or “guest workers,” following the signing of an agreement that was to change the face of Germany.

Today, some three million Turks or Germans of Turkish origin are settled in this 80-million-strong country, representing its largest ethnic minority.

When he boarded a train at Istanbul’s central station on June 17, 1961, Akci thought he would stay “no more than two years.” Just time enough to join in Germany’s post-war “economic miracle” and save a little money.

Fifty years on, Akci, who spent 25 years working on the shop floor of the luxury Mercedes car manufacturer, still lives in a three-room flat in this southwestern German city.

Over the years, kebab takeaways have sprung up at the foot of his building, Turkish vegetable sellers have displaced Germans, Italians and Greeks at the local market stalls, and Turkish is the main language in many a town district.

Today, Turks are everywhere. At least in German cities.

The head of the Green Party is a German-born Turk; one of the best-known film directors is called Fatih Akin; one of the most talented football players is called Mesut Ozil.

Akci, aged 73, worked as a turner, then as a machine engineer.

In all, some 900,000 Turks arrived in Germany between 1961, when the Turkish-German labour exchange agreement was first signed, and 1973 when the oil crisis and rising unemployment put paid to it, according to the German centre on migration (DOMiD).

At first the immigrants − 20 percent of them women − signed up for two-year contracts. But in 1964, the rules were relaxed to allow employers to decide how long contracts would run for.

Akci started out living in immigrant hostels, working 48 hours a week, including Saturdays, and learnt to speak German “thanks to a friend at the factory.”

In Germany he was homesick; while back on holiday in Turkey friends were jealous because they considered him rich.

Germany “is a country without colour where people just live to work,” he says.

But it’s also where his son and daughter were born and where the family has now settled.

“I’ve built my world here,” he said in German, a language he speaks fluently but ungrammatically.

On Wednesday, Germany will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the first migration agreement with Turkey in the presence of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

When Turkish migrant workers first arrived to work in Germany’s cars plants, coal mines or steel foundries, most Germans thought they would soon be gone.

“The Germans just looked at us thinking we were passing through,” said Akci.

But half of all the Turkish “Gastarbeiters” stayed on for good. And many then brought over their families.

Eighteen years ago Akci became German.

“Assimilation is a bit like vegetable soup − you can’t tell the tomatoes from the leeks anymore. I’m more of a Greek salad -- the tomatoes and peppers are all mixed up but you can still pick up bits from either one,” says Akci.

Turkey remains the old home.

He goes there twice a year to take the waters and never misses the lunchtime Turkish national radio news bulletin. Turkish newspapers, printed in Germany, are piled up on a nearby table.

On Thursday afternoons he goes to the local library to read Turkish fairy tales to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the first immigrants.

German politicians regularly complain that many Turks have proved unwilling, or unable, to fully integrate into German society. This has sometimes fuelled cultural tensions -- with one Berlin politician recently accusing the Turks of being good for nothing apart from selling vegetables.

More troubling has been the failure by many second- or even third-generation ethnic Turks to fully benefit from the educational system, resulting in a lack of upward mobility.

Akci remains proud of his own achievements.

In 1961, he left home with a pocket German-Turkish dictionary and a book of songs in his suitcase. Today these artifacts are displayed in a museum set up to tell the story of the first Turkish foreign workers.