by Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne
Our author is a social anthropologist. This blog post reflects on personal experiences during her fieldwork, exploring the complexities of post-Soviet identities and their political implications among people from the former USSR in Bavaria.
During the research in Bavaria, I came across the article entitled “Initiatives to improve the integration of repatriates into working life.”1 (Volk auf dem Weg 1990/1:9)
An initiative called “Work and Learn” (“Arbeite und Lerne”) was issued by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1990. I am reproducing an abridged translation of formulated objectives there.
“The German economy will make intensive efforts to provide more part-time jobs for ethnic Germans so that the ‘Work and Learn’ integration model becomes a success. […] This initiative aims to achieve several objectives at the same time:
- Integration into working life can take place much earlier. At present, a long full-time language course is usually completed before taking up employment.
- In this way, the overall integration of repatriates is also promoted. This can now take place simultaneously via the workplace and the language school.
This ‘Work and Learn’ model is made possible by the so-called partial integration allowance, which can be paid by the employment office [Arbeisamt] from 1 January 1990. It is a supplement to the income from part-time work for repatriates attending language courses. The ‘Work and Learn’ model can be organized flexibly, for example work for one half of the week and lessons for the other half. Previously, repatriates could only receive an integration allowance or maintenance allowance if they attended the language program at a full-time school. If they chose a combination of part-time work and language course of his own accord, they had less income, as the maintenance allowance was cancelled completely.” (ibid).
The ‘Work and Learn’ initiative is a good example of narrative, which Elizabeth Challinor (2024) eloquently calls the “public transcript of excellence” (cf. ibid.: 91). In such transcripts, the ideal and good intentions are visible, but the described measures do not correspond to the real needs, which in a way remain “hidden” from the public.2
The decision to analyze this magazine was based on the very positive experiences I had with such sources during my earlier research in Lower Saxony. There, in addition to archival research, I also analyzed local newspapers and was able to gain a rich picture of the discourses on the conditions under which the “late repatriates” arrived in the 1990s.
Based on current and previous research, this blog post discusses the “contradictions” between the planned integration measures for ethnic Germans from the former Soviet space in Germany and the everyday reality of those affected. I pay particular attention to women, childcare and the associated risks and difficulties in the families that are linked to participation in the planned programs.
In what follows, I will address the programs that were promoted/requested by the government and explore the question of what lies behind the shiny façade of the measures.
What do we know about the “hidden” reality of ethnic Germans from the USSR?
At the end of November 2023, I took part in a big “integration conference” in Lower Saxony. It was not a “pure” scientific conference, but one where scientists (in this year me) were invited to talk to local politicians, migrant organization representatives and practitioners in the field of integration. There were 130 people besides us in the room, an impressive number for a research presentation, which shows the relevance of and interest in the topics discussed. I spoke about the factors that influence the well-being of immigrants and what is actually required to lead a “good life” in a new society after migration.
In the question-and-answer session, those present quickly agreed that a key factors for successful integration are sufficient knowledge of language and an appropriate presence on the labour market. This applies to all immigrant groups in general, but I have specifically discussed the situation of people from the former USSR (Spätaussiedler and Jews) from the 1990s to the present day.
One of the local politicians present spoke about how important the gender aspect is in this debate. How essential it is “to free” women from the existing, “culturally determined” patriarchal structures and “get them out” of the household tasks. This would be the only way to enable them to have a working life and career opportunities.
Yet this statement is very paternalistic and biased. Who speaks for whom? The postmigration reality of those affected is much more complex and cannot be presented in such an essentializing way. Firstly, immigrant groups in Germany are very diverse, and the conditions for arrival, reception, and integration of those groups are difficult to compare. Furthermore, family structures and diasporic milieus are heterogeneous within the individual migrant groups, so that creating standardized images and role models are impossible here either.
Above all, the image conveyed by this speaker is simply not applicable for migrant women from the former Soviet Union. In the USSR it was by no means common for a woman to be “just a housewife”. Very soon after the establishment of socialism, Soviet modernization policies ensured that women would receive education and pursue desired professions. Hence, many interviewees felt constricted and driven into gender-specific confinement only after migrating to Germany (Aivazishvili-Gehne 2023).
About the author
Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne holds a PhD in social anthropology and is a researcher at the Leibnitz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS). Currently, she is working on the research project “On the fulfilment and failure of the hope of living as a German among Germans. Germans from the former Soviet Union in Bavaria” at the “Centre for Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria”, based at the IOS and the University of Regensburg and funded by the Free State of Bavaria.
There is a well-founded literature on why and how exactly women often remain “invisible” in the labour market (see for example Morokvasic 2010: 466). Or in what way are they portrayed as victims of their own culture and blamed for failures (Morokvasic 2010:465).
Discussing all of this would go beyond the scope of my blog entry. Instead, I argue that it’s not the supposed “cultures” but rather the very specific conditions of Germany’s reception and integration structures that are responsible for difficulties in training and professional advancement. (Not to mention the difficult path to educational recognition for diverse migrant groups).
For a more in-depth analysis, I present a specific newspaper article from research conducted in Lower Saxony, which, in my opinion, very well illustrates the reality of families that is “hidden”. However, before discussing this one article and give a statement on it, I would first like to present the broader “landscape” of integrative measures for this group of people in Germany. Readers can also understand the first measure I presented at the beginning of this blog as a piece of this “landscape.”
Integration measure landscape for “late repatriates” in Germany
Over the course of time, there have been various measures to integrate immigrants from the post-socialist regions (Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union) in Germany. In retrospect, some of them made sense, others were rather unmanageable, unrealistic or somewhat controversial. Jannis Panagiotidis (2017) has aptly summarized these multi-dimensional institutionalization processes under the term “experimental field” (Experimentierfeld).
Together with the support provided under the BVFG and other laws, a fairly extensive integration programs for ethnic German repatriates emerged over time, the aim of which was to minimize the differences between new arrivals and natives (Panagiotidis 2017).3 Inter alia, the easier recognition of qualifications was intended to prevent disadvantages on the labour market, while special support for young people was intended to mitigate generational disparities. The promotion of housing construction or the creation of home ownership and business start-ups was clearly aimed at establishing permanent living conditions in the country (ibid.).
When I spent a month researching in the archives in Osnabrück in March 2022 (NLA OS), I indeed found information about such special initiatives from the mid-1990s onwards, which were specifically geared towards integration. I was able to find information about these programmes’ structure and activities. Among these, “East-West- Integration” (OWI); “Round Table” (Runder Tisch); “New Citizens’ Association” (Neubürger e.V.) and “INTEG: Society for the Promotion of Vocational Integration of Immigrants e.V.” (Gesellschaft zur Förderung der beruflichen Integration von Zugewanderten e.V.) were very active.
In addition to the guidance measures (Orientierungshilfe) offered by over mentioned organizations, the competitive initiatives to gather information were installed by the local institutions. This involved circulating information about examples of best practice as well as how networks and groups can be activated or formed in the district. Conferences and regional competitions were organized to provide innovative concepts for integration policy at municipal level (Aivazishvili-Gehne 2024: 87–92).
Similar to the measure presented at the beginning, these are excellent examples of programs that should be a prerequisite for success. But what conditions did the families of the “late repatriates” have to contend with on a daily basis? To illustrate this situation, I present an article from the newspaper (NOZ) in Lower Saxony.4
Under the title “Finally Viktor can go to school too. 15-year-old as ‘nanny’. Parents in a German course”, this article reports on a teenage boy from the Soviet Union who, instead of attending school himself, is supposed to look after the younger children while the parents attend language courses (cf.[G.S.] 1990).
“15-year-old Viktor Berg from the Soviet Union certainly imagined his first weeks in West Germany differently: In the transit camp, housed in the cellar […], he supervises six children in the mornings because their parents are taking German lessons in the city during this time. The adults […] left for school at 7.22 in the morning and didn’t return until around 3.00 pm.
Viktor then plays nanny to the ‘Aussiedler’ offspring, because a heavily pregnant Polish mother of five children, three of whom she has to look after, cannot take the Russian-speaking ‘neighbour’s children’ under her wing. ‘They don’t understand each other,’ complained Gunda Morchel [name of social worker] about these conditions.
Every day, the volunteer visits the families for one to two hours, arranges flats and jobs through her circle of relatives and acquaintances. […] She was powerless to solve the problem of childcare, so she informed the social welfare office. ‘Viktor has to go to school and learn German, otherwise he has no chance at all,’ says the Osnabrück woman, standing up for the youngster.” (ibid.)
Gunda Morchel complained to the responsible office about the untenable situation that small children were being supervised by a school-age teenager and often had to wait for their parents into the early afternoon without lunch.
What we can take from this article is a description of (in)functional reception structures aimed at the integration of immigrants. Goals are one thing, results are another. In our example of 15-year-old Viktor, who has to look after small children, these reception structures lead to situations in which those affected are unable to plan properly (meaning the lack of childcare).
It is very likely that Viktor and his social environment were not the only ones in Germany who suffered from such grievances. Many families, including a large number of women, were very disappointed with the poorly organized childcare, especially in West Germany. Badly arranged childcare condition led to severe limitations on opportunities for further education or professional development.
Furthermore, another detail from the newspaper article reveals the “hidden” reality of family life, which is completely different from the public discourse that is still believed today. The women are not at home, as the essentializing discourse would, also displayed at “integration conference” suggest. We do not see a patriarchal family structure, but an extremely risky arrangement by the adults to realize the imposed integration measure at all costs.
Some concluding thoughts
Based on my current and previous research in Bavaria and Lower Saxony, this blog entry discussed “the experimental field” of measures initiated by the German state for the “Aussiedler.” (cf. Panagiotidis 2017)
In addition to the newspaper and magazine articles, I cited an example of an event at which I addressed the public perception of the lives of migrants, which is still valid today. My argument was that it was not, as claimed at the “integration conference”, supposed “cultures” with patriarchal structures that prevented women from having a successful career, but the German admission and integration regulations themselves, which implemented measures without sufficient family-related gender or age sensitivity. Many of my interlocutors experienced not only that their qualifications were not recognized, but also that working and training hours for women with small children were far less well organized than in their home countries.
Almost three decades later, Germany is once again faced with the challenge of accommodating large numbers of migrants and refugees, offering them language courses and jobs. Even today, there are discussions about accelerated measures to integrate the new arrivals into the labour market as quickly as possible.
In this case, the aspect of good language skills and thus jobs in sought-after, well-paid higher positions falls by the wayside. The discussed vignette from the “integration conference” also serves inappropriate stereotypes that should have been abolished long ago.
The ignorance of insights that could have been gained in the early 1990s (if not earlier) is therefore very striking. Essentializing considerations on the basis of supposedly ‘brought cultures’ are firstly highly discriminatory and secondly blind to the existing structural deficiencies of the reception structures with regard to the needs of a considerable number of migrants.
References
- Aivazishvili-Gehne, N. 2023.Hoping for Others: Entangled Emotional States of “Russian Germans” and the Multifaceted Aspects of “Successful” Migration. Zeitschrift für Migration /Journal of Migration Studies (ZFM) 3 (2): 83-104. https://doi.org/10.48439/zmf.186
- Aivazishvili-Gehne, Nino 2024. Auf der Suche nach dem guten Leben. Postsowjetische Gemeinschaften in Osnabrück. Bielefeld: trascript.
- Volk auf dem Weg 1990. Initiativen zur Verbesserung der Eingliederung von Aussiedlern in das Arbeitsleben 1/1990: 9.
- Challinor, Elizabeth 2024. “Frustrated horizons. Ethnographic insights into issues of trust in refugee reception services in Portugalˮ. Journal of Legal Anthropology 8 (2): 69-96.
- [G.S.] 1990:“Endlich kann auch Viktor zur Schule.15jähriger als “Kindermädchenˮ Eltern im Deutsch-Kursusˮ, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung vom 18.01.1990: 9.
- Morokvasic, Mirjana 2010: “ ‘In and Out’ of the labour market: Immigrant and minority women in Europeˮ. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 19 (3): 459-483. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.1993.9976377
- Panagiotidis, Jannis 2017. Experimentierfeld der Migrationspolitik: Die Herausforderung der Aussiedlerintegration im Wandel der Zeit, in: Deutschland Archiv, (16.1.2017), Link: www.bpb.de/240110
- Scott, James 1990: Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven; CT: Yale University Press.
- Initiativen zur Verbesserung der Eingliederung von Aussiedlern in das Arbeitsleben. Bulletin, Bonn, 31.10.1989. This blog entry is part of my current research project: “On the fulfilment and failure of the hope of living as a German among Germans. Germans from the former Soviet Union in Bavaria” and is based on field research conducted in Bavaria since March 2024. The research is being carried out at the FHAB (Centre for Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria) and financed by the Free State of Bavaria with a special grant [Project TG 78 “Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria”]. The research material discussed was obtained from the Lower Saxony State Archive, Osnabrück Department (NLA OS) and the magazine articles from “Volk auf dem Weg” (People on the way).Volk auf dem Weg is the association magazine of the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland e. V. [↩]
- Following Elizabeth Challinor (2024), I would also like to analyze the tensions created by differently presented social “narratives”, such as “hidden” versus “public transcripts of excellence.” (ibid.:71) Hereby the author draws on the theoretical framework of James Scott (1990) on “hidden” and “public transcripts.” [↩]
- The Federal Expellees Act (BVFG), also known as the Act on the Affairs of Expellees and Refugees, regulates the distribution, rights and benefits of German expellees, displaced persons and refugees from “Soviet zone” in the Federal Republic of Germany. [↩]
- The analysis of this newspaper article is partly based on the content of Chapter 3 of my book “Auf der Suche nach dem guten Leben.
Postsowjetische Gemeinschaften in Osnabrück”. 3 Das Ankommen und das Einleben in Osnabrück. DOI: 10.14361/9783839470749-004. [↩]
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Redaktion ostBLOG (16. Juni 2025). The Ideals and the Realities: Integration Initiatives for “Late Repatriates” in Germany. ostBLOG. Abgerufen am 21. Januar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/144th
