President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday paid tribute to the contributions of the Turkish community in Germany, recognizing their role in the country's postwar economic reconstruction since the 1960s.
"They helped build our country, they made it strong and they belong at the heart of our society," he said at the start of his three-day trip to Türkiye, referring to the almost 3 million people of Turkish descent living in Germany today.
"They are not people with a migrant background – Germany is a country with a migrant background."
In 1961, the governments in Bonn – the West German capital at the time – and Ankara signed a labor recruitment agreement. According to the Foreign Ministry, around 876,000 people came to Germany from Türkiye based on that "guest worker" agreement.
The president arrived in Istanbul carrying a 60-kilogram (132-pound) kebab skewer, symbolizing the stories of Turkish migration to Germany. The owner of the Berlin shop that provided the kebab, Arif Keleş, and several other guests traveled on the plane with the president.
Keleş's grandfather was among those who had established themselves in Germany.
Steinmeier began his visit at Istanbul's historic Sirkeci train station, from where many Turks departed for Germany. There, he was greeted by the Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu.
Steinmeier also held talks with businesspeople, artists, scientists and representatives of nonprofit organizations.
He is set to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday in Ankara.
In his speech at the train station, Steinmeier recalled that the history of German-Turkish migration had two directions. In the 19th century, poverty and unemployment had driven craftsmen from Germany to Anatolia. And during the Nazi era, Türkiye became a place of refuge for many German artists and intellectuals.
"While Germans helped to design and build the new capital Ankara in the 1930s, it was the 'guest workers' from Türkiye who helped to build up the economy of the young Federal Republic of Germany from the 1960s onward and who have now made a decisive contribution to our prosperity for four generations," the president said.
Steinmeier's tour of the historic train station was disrupted by a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The 50 or so men and women chanted slogans from a distance of just under 100 meters and displayed signs with portraits of Steinmeier, Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The faces of Steinmeier and Netanyahu were adorned with Hitler mustaches.
The German president was scheduled on Tuesday to visit the region affected by the devastating earthquakes in February 2023, in which more than 53,000 people died in Turkish provinces as well as several thousand in neighboring Syria.
At the time, the German government pledged 238 million euros ($254 million) in earthquake aid to Türkiye and Syria.
