ABSTRACT
The ongoing inflow of family members of immigrants at the beginning of the 1980s seemed to be the end of the large immigration flows that had started in 1955, when Germany agreed to temporary labor immigration from Italy. Immigration did not end in the 1950s. This chapter looks at what happened instead of an end to immigration into Germany. There was a sharp increase in the numbers of immigrants until 1973, when a ban was placed on further labor immigration due to rising unemployment in Germany. The rise in immigration at the beginning of the eighties was due to programs for family unification. A voluntary return program designed for Turkish immigrants and their families caused a decline in immigration numbers beginning in 1983. Following the United States, Germany now has the second greatest numbers of immigrants of any country in the world.
