Vietnamese people in Germany
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 150,000 (2011) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Berlin | |
| Languages | |
| Vietnamese, German | |
| Religion | |
| Mahayana Buddhism and Roman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Vietnamese people in Bulgaria, Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese people in Russia, and other overseas Vietnamese |
Vietnamese people in Germany form the country's largest group of resident foreigners from Asia, with Federal Statistical Office figures showing 83,446 Vietnamese nationals residing in Germany at the end of 2005. Not included in those figures are individuals of Vietnamese origin or descent who have been naturalised as German citizens. Between 1981 and 2007, 41,499 people renounced Vietnamese citizenship to take up German nationality. A further 40,000 irregular migrants of Vietnamese origin were estimated to live in Germany, largely concentrated in the Eastern states, as of 2005[update].
The Vietnamese community in West Germany consists of refugees from the Vietnam War. The first of the boat people who fled the country after the fall of Saigon, consisting of 208 families totalling 640 individuals who had fled on board the Hai Hong, arrived in Hanover on 3 December 1978 by plane. None spoke German. Several factors aided their social and economic integration into German society. They received official aid in the form of social benefits and job placement assistance, as well as broader societal support for their successful adaptation to German life. Further, unlike other migrant groups, they knew that they had no option to return to their country of origin if they failed in their adopted land. They spread out through a variety of economic sectors, but were somewhat concentrated in the metal industry. By the eve of German reunification, West Germany had roughly 33,000 Vietnamese immigrants, largely consisting of boat people and their relatives who were admitted under family reunification schemes.
East Germany began to invite North Vietnamese students to attend study and training programmes there as early as the 1950s; cooperation expanded in 1973, when they pledged to train a further 10,000 Vietnamese citizens in the following ten years. In 1980, they signed an agreement with the reunified Socialist Republic of Vietnam for enterprises in East Germany to provide training to Vietnamese; between 1987 and 1989. The East German government viewed industrial trainee programmes not just as a means to increase the labour supply to local industry, but also as development aid to the poorer members of the socialist bloc. By the mid-1980s, Vietnamese, along with Mozambicans, comprised the main groups of foreign labourers in the GDR. From a population of just 2,482 in 1980, the number of Vietnamese residents of East Germany grew to 59,053 by 1989, with the largest influx in 1987 and 1988. They were concentrated mainly in Karl-Marx-Stadt, Dresden, Erfurt, East Berlin, and Leipzig. Their contracts were supposed to last for five years, after which they would return home.
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