Migration is a natural part of living systems, and human history is no exception. Yet it remains one of the most debated public issues of our time.
Both people and borders move. Who is allowed to move, and who is granted rights, lies at the heart of how nations define belonging. In Germany and the United States alike, these debates have been deeply intertwined with evolving ideas of race and ethnicity.
These timelines trace how citizenship and belonging have been constructed, challenged, and redefined through laws, social movements, global events, and cultural works — and how those histories continue to shape the present.
Since its foundation, the FRG has experienced a series of right-wing terrorist attacks, with 1980 being particularly serious. In August of that year, the so-called German Action Groups murdered Nguyễn Ngọc Châu and Đỗ Anh Lân, who lived in a refugee accommodation, in an arson attack in Hamburg. Also in 1980, a former member of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann carried out the Oktoberfest attack in Munich, in which 13 people died. Only three months later, Rabbi Shlomo Lewin and his partner Frida Poeschke were shot dead in Erlangen, most likely by the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann.
©Initiative 12 August, 2020
