470 MAREN MÖHRING
that did not exist in this form for the residents of other Eastern Bloc
states. As a result, it was easy for West Germany to become the destina-
tion for a mass exodus from the GDR in 1989.
Approximately 360 thousand people left the GDR for West Germany in
1989, and almost 80 percent of them were younger than forty years old.^127
There had not been such a massive wave of migration from East to West
since the 1950s. At the same time, reunifi cation also brought migration
in the other direction, especially as tens of thousands of administrative
civil servants in particular moved from West to East Germany.^128 Some of
the total 1.5 million West Germans who went to the new federal states
between 1989 and 2001 hoped to make quick profi ts for their companies,
while others had been given material incentives to become residents of
the former East.^129 These payments, which were referred to as a Buschzu-
lage (akin to a special allowance for living in less desirable places such as
the African bush), indicate that there was a clear hierarchy between West
and East as well as an aspect of “foreignness” and “otherness” at play.
The topos of the “bush” not only cropped up when GDR citizens were
talking about African labor migrants, but also came to be used within a
process of “othering” that was taking place with respect to East Germany.
Although there was not really much of a language barrier between the
two Germanys, both states had grown so far away from one another in
other respects that their supposed “shared cultural heritage” proved to
be a rather shaky foundation.^130
Aussiedler, Refugees, and the Asylum Debates of the Early 1990sIn addition to the westward migration of East Germans, West Germany
experienced another signifi cant wave of East to West migration in the
late 1980s and 1990s, namely the immigration of Aussiedler (which were
referred to as “late Aussiedler” or “Spätaussiedler” from 1993). This
group of migrants was comprised of German nationals, or rather Volkszu-
gehörige who were considered to be ethnic Germans (and their children
and spouses), who had been residents of the former eastern territories of
Germany or other (south)east European territories prior to 8 May 1945
and had remained there for a while before later emigrating to the Federal
Republic. The (Spät-)Aussiedler fell under the provisions of the Federal
Law on Expellees, and they enjoyed special privileges, such as compre-
hensive integration assistance and the right to immediate naturalization
and coverage within the welfare system. The basis for their recognition
as Germans was the one-sided reliance on the principle of ethnic de-
scent, ius sanguinis, in the citizenship laws of the Federal Republic until
1999.