Among the school reforms, most of the Länder Education Administrations expanded the length of compulsory schooling from eight years to nine or ten. Furthermore, most built more higher level secondary schools and increased the number of schoolchildren who attended. In many Länder, with the notable exceptions of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the number of total schoolchildren in West Germany enrolling in Gymnasium reached 30 percent. The percent of children in the lowest level of the secondary school, the Volksschule, declined from 80 percent in 1952/63 to 50 percent in 1969/70 (and 30 percent in 1995/96). Partly in consequence, lower secondary school, which had previously been viewed as the standard course of study, developed
56 Hans Döbert, “Germany,” in The Education Systems of Europe, ed. Wolfgang Hörner et al. (Dordrecht: Springer,
a reputation for taking the left-over students. Over the 1970s and 1980s, those schools (lower secondary) would increasingly become known among the public as schools for foreigners.57
Within this atmosphere of emphasis on access for all, the West German Länder
Educational Administrations had to decide how much difference in education was either desired or tolerable while at least acknowledging the foreign governments and ethno-national minority groups’ demands. Hardly a major political or social issue for the West German public in the mid- 1960s, the schooling of non-nationals was primarily a concern for government officials: the local school administrations, the Länder Ministers of Education, the West German Federal Foreign Missions, and Foreign Consulates (as well as the Foreign Missions of the major religious institutions). For these groups, this was a question of practical considerations, international reputations, and bi-lateral relationships, as well as the right to an education.
By 1965, these different entities already held divergent views on the issue of private national schools. The Greek government had been pushing each of the relevant Länder
(particularly Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and North Rhine-Westphalia) for permission to build private schools as well as submitting generalized requests to the West German Foreign Office. With each application, the Greek legates pressed for their goals separately, trying to convince one government to grant what another refused.58
The West German Foreign Office enthusiastically supported the idea of foreign national schools in West Germany. The Federal Republic had a large network of German schools spread
57 Ibid.
58 Stratenwerth to Bundesministerium des Innern, “Schulunterricht für Kinder ausländischer Arbeitnehmer in der
BRD”; and Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne to Kultusminister NRW, “Notiz 3452/64,” 64. The discussions between the Greek Consulate in Berlin and the West Berlin Senator for Education reached this conclusion as well, deciding that in the 1960s, Greek schools did not make sense in West Berlin (Senator für Schulwesen to Leonidas Evangelidis, Griechische Militärmission, and Gerd Effler, “Unterricht für griechische Kinder,” September 8, 1971, B Rep 002 23582, Landesarchiv Berlin).
across the world. These schools were funded and maintained partly in order to spread German culture, but also to provide larger communities of Germans abroad (usually the children of diplomats or workers associated with international projects) with access to the German education system. While these schools often taught predominately local or international non-German pupils, schoolchildren with West German citizenship were by and large expected to eventually return to West Germany and participate in higher levels of secondary and/or post-secondary schooling. Depending on the country hosting the schools, teachers sent from West Germany tried to adhere as closely to West German curricula as possible. The Foreign Office viewed the Greek and Turkish governments' requests for national schools in light of its negotiations over the West German schools in those countries: the more leeway the Länder granted foreign schools in the Federal Republic, the more control the Federal Republic would likely have over German schools in Greece and Turkey.59
The Länder Education Administrations’ were less enthusiastic. Their approaches to national schools were informed by their specific interpretations of equality of opportunity and degree equivalency. Article 7 of the Basic Law did permit private schools, as did the majority of the individual Länder’s school laws. But (as discussed) these laws stipulated that, in order to create a private school, a special pedagogical interest which necessitated such had to exist.60 The
Länder Education Administrations were concerned that differences between the West German system and other national school systems would mean that private schools following the country
59 Auswärtige Amt to Kultusminister NRW, “Unterrichtung griechischer Kinder in Düsseldorf,” May 10, 1968, 388-
14, Landesarchiv NRW; “Brandt: Deutsch-Unterricht Begehrt: Förderung der Auslandslehrer Befürwortet / Regelmäßiger Heimaturlaub? / Rede Vor Kulturministern,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 20, 1969; and “Brandt: Ausländischer als Deutsch-Lehrer,” March 20, 1969, B 90, Bd. 1015, PA AA. See also Stephanie Mersch and Svenja Mareike Kühn, “Deutsche Schulen im Ausland - Analysen und Perspektiven aus Sicht der empirischen Bildungsforschung,” Tertium Comparationis 20, no. 2 (2014): 125–51, 208.
60 Ralf Dahrendorf, “The Crisis in German Education,” Journal of Contemporary History 2, no. 3 (July 1967): 139–
of origins’ systems would effectively limit a child’s choices in West Germany to unskilled or semi-skilled labor. Hence, based on most of the Länder’s understandings of equality of opportunity, private national schools would decidedly not promote equality. Furthermore, the Education Administrations mostly held that, as the “foreign children” would at least remain long enough to enter the labor market, they could not have a special pedagogical interest beyond a few hours of extra instruction. After long debates, most of the Länder Education Administrations argued that these schoolchildren did not need private schools.
The Bavarian Ministry of Education was the one significant exception. It viewed the new migrants' status as comparable to the “homeless and stateless foreigners” (i.e. displaced persons and exiles from the Second World War).61 In the 1950s, the Bavarian Ministry of Education had permitted the construction of a small number of private national schools as well as excused ethno-national minority groups from compulsory education in German public schools.62 As all foreign groups were entitled to the same treatment, the Ministry recognized all migrant groups’ special pedagogical need for private schools. To maintain equivalence across citizenship and national lines, the Bavarian government approved national schools in Munich and Nuremberg for children with Greek citizenship. The Ministry further supported these schools by providing up to 20 percent of the teachers' wages.63
61 Mayer and Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Unterricht und Kultus to Regierungen, “Schulpflicht der Kinder
heimatloser Ausländer,” IV 50 551, (July 8, 1955), MK 62206, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv.
62 KMK to Auswärtige Amt, Kulturabteilung, “Errichtung von Schulen für Kinder türkischer Gastarbeiter in der
Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” January 5, 1965, B 304/3244/2, Bundesarchiv Koblenz. The right for the construction of a private school based on Article 7 of the Basic Law is based on Art 8 of the Law on the Education and
Instruction (EUG) from 9 March 1960 (“Bayerische Gesetz über das Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesen,”
Bayerische Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt, March 9, 1960, 19) in Bavaria relevant for everyone. In addition, based on the Basic Law and EUG, foreigners could establish private schools
63 Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Unterricht und Kultus to Königreich Griechenland Griechische Kommission
Abreitsamt Munich, “Besuch der Volksschule für Kinder griechischer Gastarbeiter,” IV 30 381, (May 17, 1963), MK 62244, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; and Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Unterricht und Kultus,
The Berlin Senate for Education also technically approved private schools, but the point was moot in 1965 as the state did not host enough foreigner children to make this approval relevant. Berlin's compulsory schooling law permitted private schools and enabled the state government to provide financial backing.64 In practice, however, the Greek Consulate informed the Senate for Education that extra language and cultural classes were sufficient due to the low number (ten in 1963, eighty-nine in 1967, see Table 3.1) and wide separation of children with Greek citizenship.65 Arguably, even bussing would have produced too small a class. The Senator for Education was prepared to consider a Turkish school along similar lines, but the Turkish government did not pursue the issue.66 It should be noted, however, that the state already hosted private French and American schools with predominately international pupils, often the children of business men and women or the American and French armed forces.67
In contrast, as the governments in Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia wrote and then passed their new compulsory schooling laws (in 1965 and 1966 respectively), their Education Administrations explicitly tried to discourage the development of national private schools. Yet before those laws passed, neither state could require foreign children’s “Schulausschusses am 6./7. April 1967: 22. Schulische Betreuung der Kinder ausländsicher Gastarbeiter; hier: Dauer der Teilnahme an Vorklassen” (Munich, March 31, 1967), MK 62244, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv.
64 Berlin’s Private School Law (Privatschulgesetzes (PrSchG)) Article 1 from 13 May 1954 (GVBl. S. 286) dictated
that it was permissible for both natural and legal entities to open and operate private schools. Based on Article 8 Paragraph 1, money could be made available from the state of Berlin based on application from approved Private Schools.
65 In 1966 the Greek Consul and the Senator for Education agreed that a private school did not make sense and
instead arranged for afterschool instruction (Senator für Schulwesen to Leonidas Evangelidis, Griechische Militärmission, and Gerd Effler, “Unterricht Für Griechische Kinder,” September 8, 1971, B Rep 002 23582, Landesarchiv Berlin).
66 Senator für Schulwesen Berlin to Sekretariat der KMK, “Errichtung von Schulen für Kinder türkischer
Gastarbeiter,” November 3, 1964, B 304/3244/2, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.
67 Senator für Schulwesen Berlin to Evangelidis, Griechische Militärmission, and Effler, “Unterricht für griechische
attendance in West German schools and could not legally prevent them from attending other schools. With the Länder governments unable to prevent their creation or discourage enrollment, a few unofficial “Greek schools” sprang up with Greek state support in both Länder. A portion – it is unclear how many – of the rising numbers of children with Greek citizenship simply
attended these classes, sidestepping German schools entirely.
Although Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia’s Education Administrations technically disapproved of private national schools, they provided the unofficial Greek schools with varying degrees of support. By 1964 there were nine Greek school classes in North Rhine- Westphalia. Without clear instructions from their Ministry of Education, the local school offices handled them differently. Three of the local school offices financed three private Greek schools in full for 20 hours of weekly instruction. Another school office supported twelve hours of private Greek instruction and the rest (five) were given support from the Ministry of Education for six to nine instructional hours. The Greek Embassy planned to establish a further four classes in the following months, for which the Embassy hoped for financial support.68 Increasingly, however, the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Education used established guidelines for the five hours of after school consular instruction as an excuse for not supporting national private classes.69
68 Vorsitzender des Schulausschusses to Kultusministerium BW, “Schulische Betreuung der ausländischen
GastarbeiterKinder (Sch. 66),” January 29, 1965, B 304/3244/1, Bundesarchiv Koblenz; and Schulausschuß der KMK, “Auszug aus der Niederschrift über die Sitzung (Nr. 96) des SchA der KMK am 18/19. 12. 1965 in Koblenz; hier: Schulische Betreuung von Kindern ausländischer Gastarbeiter,” Vermerk (Koblenz: KMK, February 18, 1965), B 304/3244/1, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.
69 Welsch, “Errichtung einer Schule für griechische Kinder in Düsseldorf,” Vermerk II C 33-61/0 Nr. 772/63
(Düsseldorf: Kultusministerium NRW, March 20, 1963), NW 141-114, Landesarchiv NRW. In the note, Welsch lays out how the Greek Ministry of Education – through its consulates – requested permission in 1963 to run its own school in Düsseldorf. An internal memo in the NRW Ministry of Education responded saying that they are
committed to encouraging the children of Greek parents to learn the German language as quickly as possible and further have 5 hours weekly instruction in their mother language. After school instruction would increasingly become the excuse on why the Länder did not need to permit actual private schools.
Baden-Württemberg’s Education Administration attempted to end its unofficial Greek schools after passing its new 1965 compulsory schooling law.70 Arguing that most children would have a long residency in West Germany, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Education declared that all children with their residence in Baden-Württemberg needed to attend German schools unless they received individual exceptions through written application to the Ministry.71 After the new law came into power, the Ministry declared that any Greek classes that overran the approved five hours for extra mother tongue instruction were required to transform into one-year preparatory classes and prepare the children to attend West German schools. 72 Yet, once they were in regular instruction, the Ministry officials worried about too much instruction. To prevent the children from being overwhelmed by any extra class time, the Baden-Württemberg
Education Administration recommended that schools cut normal instruction as much as possible in those subjects in which the children also received instruction in their mother tongue. 73
Yet, legally, the Baden-Württemberg Education Administration’s distaste for private schools did not necessarily negate the possibility of purely Greek classes through so-called “supplementary schools.” In English (and for the Greek government), these schools would count
70 Kultusministerium BW, “Schulische und kulturelle Betreuung der Kinder der ausländischen Arbeitnehmer”
(Stuttgart, March 12, 1963), EA 3/609 Bü 67, Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Haupstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; and Welsch, “Errichtung einer Schule für griechische Kinder in Düsseldorf.”
71 Ambassade Royale de Grèce en Allemagne and Kyrou to Kultusminister NRW, “Schulung der Kinder der
griechischen Gastarbeiter.”
72 Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg to Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg, “Schulbesuch für griechische Kinder
im Kreis Ludwigsburg,” January 22, 1966, EA 3/609 Bü 67, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; Kultusministerium BW and Nothardt, “Schulpflicht und Schulbesuch von Ausländerkindern, insbesondere von Kindern ausländischer Gastarbeiter,” Kultus- und Unterricht, April 14, 1965, 176; and “Juristische Stellungnahme zu UA 2111 - 3/25,” May 7, 1969, EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.
73 Kultusministerium BW and Nothardt, “Schulpflicht und Schulbesuch 1965.” BW did briefly consider permitting
Greek schools and sent a letter to the other Länder Education Administrations to inquire into their practices. See Kultusministerium BW and Gantert to KMK and Sekretariat, “Schulische Betreuung der ausländischen
as private or charter, as they followed their own curriculum. In the German system, however, there were some important distinctions. In the German system, “private schools” charged pupils tuition and/or received support from the state while following a different curriculum.
Supplementary schools, in contrast, were organized and funded entirely by the responsible party running the school.74 In addition, the West German Basic Law stipulated that supplementary schools did not require special state approval, although school-age children did need
authorization from the relevant West German authorities to attend.75 Nonetheless, depending on local Länder school laws, supplementary schools usually came under from some form of
government oversight and faced certain restrictions.
In 1966, Baden-Württemberg’s Ministry of Education (and that of Hesse, which hosted a Lithuanian Gymnasium in Frankfurt am Main) indicated that it might be willing to permit
supplementary schools for the children of migrant workers with certain restrictions. That tentative permission came in response to several Greek parent groups and the local Greek Consulates’ concerns about the removal of the Greek schools. The parents argued that they would be returning and wanted their children to be prepared to reintegrate into their home school system.76 The Ministry of Education qualified their permission, however, establishing a set of
74 The question of the construction of foreign schools for the “guest worker children” had already been raised by the
Greek government (Aßmann to Reimers, Kül, and Höhne, “Deutsch-griechisches Kulturabkommen,” V 4- 27-02, (July 17, 1964), PA AA) and also by the Turkish side (Schulausschuß, “95. Sitzung des Schulausschusses, 7.-8. Jan. 1965; hier: 29. Errichtung von Schulen für Kinder türkischer Gastarbeiter in der BR (a.d. TO)” (KMK, January 7, 1965), B 304/3244/1, Bundesarchiv Koblenz; and Ständige Konferenz der KM - Sekretariat, “Errichtung von Schulen für Kinder türkischer Gastarbeiter in der BR,” Vermerk, (February 3, 1965), B 304/3244/2, Bundesarchiv Koblenz).
75 Article 7 Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law. Staatl. Schulamt Stuttgart, “Griechische Gastarbeiterkinderkinder,”
December 10, 1965, EA 3/609 Bü 68, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart; and Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg,
“Anerkennung der griechischen Ergänzungsschule in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt,” Erlaß U II 0 973/45-112 (Stuttgart, July 14, 1966), EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.
76 Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg to Kultusministerium BW, “Unterrichtung griechischer Kinder in griechischen
required parameters for those foreign states, like Greece, interested in applying. First and foremost, any national supplementary schools had to run a minimum of eight (later nine) years, even if the foreign state’s school system only ran five or six (like the Greek). The school curriculum also had to offer at least five hours of German language instruction a week, and include the educational goals needed for eventual attendance in a West German vocational school. Otherwise, the responsible party (i.e. the Greek Government) could use its own curriculum under its own oversight.77
Even as Baden-Württemberg’s Education Administration outright rejected Greek private schools and then made exceptions between 1964 and 1965, the North Rhine-Westphalian
Ministry of Education hesitated over making any decision, just as it did regarding preparation classes.78 Part of the Ministry’s indecision stemmed from its intention to eventually extend compulsory schooling to all children regardless of citizenship. For the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Education, this meant placing children with foreign citizenship under the same laws and guaranteeing them the same rights and options as those children with West German
citizenship. On the other hand, just as in Baden-Württemberg, regular public schools and the Greek Legations reported that the children’s parents and guardians wanted Greek foreign schools.79 With more than 1,300 schoolchildren with Greek citizenship in North Rhine-
77 Kultusministerium BW to Generalkonsulat der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Saloniki, “Eröffnung einer
griechischen Privatschule in Stuttgart,” UA II 2111 - 3/26, (March 13, 1969), EA 3/609 Bü 97, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. See also Oberschulamt Nordwürttemberg to Kultusministerium BW, “Einrichtung von
Vorbereitungsklassen für griechische Kinder im Kreis Ludwigsburg,” February 16, 1968, EA 3/609 Bü 97,
Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. The private school law was changed in 1968, (“Privatschulgesetzes in der Fassung vom 14. Mai 1968 (PSchG),” Gesetzblatt für Baden-Württemberg, May 14, 1968, 223). To attend, the children had to be individually released from their compulsory schooling requirements at a German school (Article 41 Paragraph 5 SchVOG) (Jochen Abr. Frowein, Zur verfassungsrechtlichen Lage der Privatschulen: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kirchlichen Schulen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 11).
78 Discussed in Chapter 2.
Westphalian schools, the number of requests was substantial (see Table 3.1). Unsure of its course, the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Education again announced that its decisions would follow the KMK’s recommendations.80
Table 3.2: Total Schoolchildren with Foreign Citizenship in Public Primary and Lower Secondary Education, 1965-197281
BW! Berlin! NRW! Bavaria! Hesse! Total!
1965! 8,793! 604 10,574! 4,662 3,767! 32,232! 1966! 13,178! 926! 12,595! 6,317! 5,581! 46,121! 1967! 16,528! 761! 14,494! 6,730! 6,868! 53,993! 1968! 20,646! 1,702! 22,535! 9,958! 8,849! 76,700! 1969! 27,815! 2,657! 30,360! 14,163! 11,213! 102,866! 1970! 36,559! 5,652! 39,806! 18,825! 15,550! 137,706! 1971! 46,419! 8,098! 58,276! 24,909! 20,065! 185,923! 1972! 53,101! 10,646! 70,802! 29,093! 24,091! 222,235!
In 1965, the Kultusministerkonferenz and its Education Committee approached the issue of private national schools for the children of migrant workers in terms of equality of opportunity and fulfillment of the right to education. From the get-go, the General Secretary of the
Kultusministerkonferenz, Social Democrat Hans Reimers from the Ministry of Education in Hamburg, set the tone of the discussions with the argument that children with non-German citizenship were best served by West German schools, with extra instruction in their own language and other relevant subjects.82 He argued it was imperative for all children to receive a
80 Kultusminister NRW II C 3 (Bermann) to II A (im Haus), “Unterricht für Kinder von Ausländern,” March 25,
1965. This was further complicated by the fact that there would be no possibility for NRW’s school administrations