From 'Foreign Workers' to 'Sleepers': The Churches, the State and Germany's 'Discovery' of its Muslim Population

Thanks to the Marshall Plan and the emerging contours of the Cold War, German industry boomed with an unprecedented wirtschaftswunder ('The Miracle Years') even before it was free of its Nazi past (Priemel, 2004). By 1952, this situation was prompting the mining and farming sectors to hire contingents of cheap foreign workers on their own initiative. Before long, the German government followed their example and was making official 'foreign worker' agreements with Italy (1955), Greece and Spain (1960), Turkey (1961) and Morocco and Tunisia (1965) (Hisasho, 1998: 42-50; Dietz, 2004: 136).