1964
- West Germany signs a bilateral recruitment agreement with Portugal. The West German and Turkish republics renew their guest-worker agreement.
- West Germany agrees to a bilateral accord with Italy, insuring basic standards for housing and other accommodations for Italian workers in Germany.
- West German Radio begins Turkish language broadcasts under the name “Köln Radyosu” throughout the West German territory.
- Armando Rodriguez, a Portuguese man celebrated as the millionth Guest Worker, receives a motorcycle as a present from the West German Government.
1963
- West Germany signs a recruitment agreement with Morocco.
- The International Committee for Information and Social Action founds a monthly newspaper, Anadolu, for Turks living in Germany.
- Ludwig Erhard (CDU) succeeds Konrad Adenauer (also CDU), West Germany’s first chancellor since 1949.
- On December 17th, for the first time since the building of the Berlin Wall, it is possible for those from West-Berlin to visit East-Berlin.
- In December, the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt am Main commences and continues until 1966. It follows previous trials in Ulm (focusing on war crimes on the eastern front) in 1958 and the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.
1962
- On February 28th, in Oberhausen, 26 German filmmakers sign a manifest directed against the conventions of contemporary filmmaking and thus inaugurate a new direction in film; the New German Cinema.
- In March, conflicting information about income-tax rates leads Turkish miners in Essen and Hamburg to stage a strike. Twenty-six workers are fired and deported.
- Germany enters the Grand Prix de la Chanson with the song “Zwei Kleine Italiener” performed by Conny Froboess. The song placed 6th, deals with the longing of two Italian foreign workers to return home to their loved ones. While this entry does not deal with the contemporary topic of migration in a critical manner, it touches upon the struggles of migrant workers, such as the separation from loved ones.
1961
- On August 12-13, the Berlin Wall is built, cutting off the flow of migration from East to West Germany. (Some 3.8 million East Germans had fled East Germany for West Germany between 1949 and 1961.)
- On October 30, West Germany signs a bilateral recruitment agreement with the Turkish Republic. A central recruitment office is established in Istanbul, and by the year’s end, 7,000 Turkish workers have moved to Germany.
- The invention of the birth-control pill (Antibabypille) leads to a sharp decline in the birthrate, with long-term consequences for demographics, education, social welfare, and migration.
1960
- Some 686,000 foreign workers, mostly from Italy, live in West Germany (1.2 percent of the population). West Germany signs bilateral recruitment agreements with Spain and Greece.
- On May 11th, Adolf Eichman, a former lieutenant-colonel in the SS, is arrested by Israeli Mossad agents in Argentina, where he had been in hiding since the 1950s.
