Why and how did ‘voluntary’ mass immigration of South Korean nurses and miners to West Germany occur in the 1960s and 1970s?

ABSTRACT The year 1963 marked the beginning of the mass ‘voluntary’ immigration of the South Korean nurses and miners to West Germany under the Federal Republic of Germany’s Gastarbeiter (guest-worker) policy. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the South Korean government needed to bring in foreign currency, and the West German government needed a labour force. Thus, a bilateral agreement was formed for South Korea to transfer a labour force and for West Germany to offer economic aid. This article questions why the two governments needed to justify the exchange via a voluntary recruitment policy. Theoretical insights on the recruitment of men and women during the First and Second World Wars will be used to compare what aspects regarding political recruitment remained and changed after the wars. The central arguments are twofold. First, that this voluntary guest-worker policy was in every respect a political product of its time. Second, that it was guided and manipulated by and according to the global emergence of human rights following the two world wars. Ultimately, this case can be used to examine what impact the global emergence of human rights had on political recruitment approach worldwide, specifically regarding its methods, processes and outcomes.