Koreans in Germany

Koreans in Germany numbered 80,000 individuals as of 2009, according to the statistics of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Though they are now only the 14th-largest Korean diaspora community worldwide, they remain the second-largest in Western Europe, behind the rapidly growing community of British Koreans. As of 2010, Germany has been hosting the second-largest number of Koreans residing in Western Europe, if one excludes Korean sojourners (students and general sojourners).

The largest community of Koreans is situated in the Frankfurt-Rhine Main Area, which contains 5,300 residents. This area also contains German and European headquarters of large Korean companies such as Kia Motors, Hyundai, Samsung Electronics, LG International, SK Group, Nexen Tire.

History

South Koreans

Some students, nurses, and industrial trainees from South Korea had already been in West Germany in the late 1950s. However, mass migration did not begin until the 1960s, when West Germany invited nurses and miners from South Korea to come as Gastarbeiter; their recruitment of labourers specifically from South Korea was driven not just by economic necessity, but also by a desire to demonstrate support for a country that, like Germany, had been divided by ideology. The first group of miners arrived on 16 December 1963, under a program paid for largely by the South Korean government; German enterprises were not responsible for travel costs, but only for wages and language training. They had high levels of education compared with other Gastarbeiter of the same era; over 60% had completed high school or tertiary education. Nurses began arriving in large numbers in 1966.