ABSTRACT
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks Germany in second position in the list of immigrant-receiving countries. This chapter traces the presence of non-German languages in Germany and focuses on the presence of Spanish in the country, the challenges faced for intergenerational transmission, and areas for future research. Most heritage language work in Germany focuses on Turkish, the heritage language with the most speakers in Germany, but similarities will be drawn that are applicable to Spanish as a heritage language. With respect to Spanish, it will be a challenge to overcome the contradiction between Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) and Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), that means the decreasing funding and institutional support of SHL classes versus the significantly increasing offer of classes in ELE. In the case of SHL, parents have to strive in many federal states to provide their children with SHL teaching in order to benefit from their potential.
