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Foreign Worker, Guest Worker, Colleague? (1966)

In 1966, a number of conferences on the subject of “employing foreign workers” were held in the Federal Republic. Many were organized by the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations or by a consortium of German economic research institutes. The conference depicted above used the question “Foreign Worker, Guest Worker, Colleague?” to explore the relationship between the German majority population and those who had come to the Federal Republic to work. Since the term “foreign worker” was tainted by its usage during the Third Reich – when it designated the millions of foreign citizens who were transported to Germany for use as forced labor – it was replaced by the neutral term “guest worker” in public discourse.

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Foreign Worker, Guest Worker, Colleague? (1966)

Courtesy of the German Information Center