Dengang var der 1.546.000 tyrkere i Tyskland. I dag er der over 3 millioner. Hvor mange er der i 2042? Oppositionen er oprørt over der Altkanzler, Thilo Sarrazin roser ham. “Politikere har en tendens til at benægte og lyve om uløselige problemer. I dag er problemerne med integrationsuvillige muslimer så store, at de er på alles læber undtagen politikernes.” Helmut Schmidt var af samme mening som Kohl, og det kunne have sparet Tyskland for milliarder og efterkommerne for unævnelige problemer, hvis det var blevet gennemført. Lørdag forsvarer Kohl og står ved sine ord fra 1982, men i den aktuelle debat, der er opstået, vil han ellers ikke ytre sig.
Unsealed confidential British documents reveal that in 1982, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl tried to carry out a radical plan. He wanted to reduce the number of Turks living in Germany by 50 percent within four years. “SECRET,” the top of the densely typewritten document reads. Underneath, an official had added a handwritten note: “NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.”
It was a controversial plan that the newly elected German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, confided to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during her visit to Bonn, then the West German capital. “Chancellor Kohl said (…) over the next four years, it would be necessary to reduce the number of Turks in Germany by 50 percent — but he could not say this publicly yet,” state the secret minutes of the meeting dated Oct. 28, 1982.
It adds: “It was impossible for Germany to assimilate the Turks in their present numbers.” Only four people were in the room at the time: Kohl, his longtime adviser Horst Teltschik, Thatcher and her private secretary A.J. Coles, the author of the document.
The file, labeled “PREM 19/1036,” smells musty. For three decades, the records of the 1982 and 1983 meetings between Kohl and Thatcher have been sealed, inaccessible to ordinary people. But now that the period of confidentiality has expired, the British National Archives has made them available to the public. The minutes of the Thatcher meeting outline how Kohl intended to get hundreds of thousands of Turks out of Germany. But they also cast light on how the relationship between the Germans and their Turkish compatriots has improved over the past three decades. Because to a contemporary German sensibility, the apparent social consensus in Kohl’s West Germany seems quite far to the right.
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