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Self-attribution and identity of ethnic-German SpätAussiedler repatriates from the former USSR: an example of fast-track assimilation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Bernhard Köppen
Bernhard Köppen*
Affiliation:
Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (Federal Agency for Population Research), Wiesbaden, Germany. Email: bernhard.koeppen@bib.bund.de
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Abstract

Repatriates – so-called SpätAussiedler – from republics of the former Soviet Union are one of the most important groups of immigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany. Granted German citizenship based on ethnicity, German policy supposed fast and smooth assimilation. Despite the fact that SpätAussiedler had advantages for structural and social integration into German society compared to immigrants of non-German descent and indications of rather smooth integration, the initial hopes for fast assimilation prove to be exaggerated. Instead, as revealed by a survey and interviews on the ethnic self-identification, cultural habits, and linguistic behavior of SpätAussiedler, a hybrid “Russian-German” identity has emerged amongst many repatriates.

Keywords

repatriatesSpätAussiedler, assimilationidentityself-attribution
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 105 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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