AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain why Western Europe became a region of immigration after **1945**
- Distinguish between **guest-worker migration** and **postcolonial migration**
- Identify how backlash developed in **West Germany**, **Britain**, and **France**
- Recall key evidence such as the **Commonwealth Immigrants Acts**, **Enoch Powell’s 1968 speech**, and the **1973 Anwerbestopp**
- Analyse how economic downturn, decolonization, and national identity shaped anti-immigrant politics
- Use this topic in AP-style arguments about **causation**, **comparison**, and **continuity and change over time**

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand postwar migration and the later backlash against migrants, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that after **World War II**, Western Europe shifted from emigration to immigration because reconstruction created labour shortages
- Identify the difference between **guest workers** recruited for industry and **postcolonial migrants** arriving from former empires
- Understand that **West Germany** recruited **Gastarbeiter**, especially from **Turkey**, before ending active recruitment in **1973**
- Explain how **Britain** received migrants from the **Commonwealth**, including the **Windrush generation**, then tightened entry rules in **1962** and **1968**
- Understand how **France** received major migration from **Algeria** and other parts of **North Africa**, then restricted immigration during the **1970s**
- Explain how economic stress, unemployment, and debates over **national identity** fueled anti-immigrant backlash
- Identify links between migration debates and the rise of **far-right nationalism**, including the **National Front** in France and later anti-immigrant politics across Europe

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did Western European governments encourage immigration after **1945**?
2. What was the **Gastarbeiter** system in West Germany?
3. How did migration to Britain differ from migration to West Germany?
4. Why did immigration become more controversial after the **1970s**?
5. Name one example each of backlash in Britain, France, or Germany.

## Introduction

After **1945**, Western Europe needed workers. War damage, economic recovery, and rising living standards created labour shortages that native-born populations alone could not fill. Governments therefore recruited migrants or accepted migration from former colonies. These newcomers helped rebuild factories, transport systems, public services, and cities.

Yet the same migration that supported postwar prosperity later became politically contentious. Once migrants stayed permanently, formed families, and claimed space in European society, many Europeans reacted with anxiety. Economic slowdown, unemployment, racism, and fears about culture or religion all fed a backlash. This makes the topic especially important for AP Euro because it connects **poverty and prosperity**, **individual and society**, and **national and European identity**.

> **Key Term: postwar migration**
> Migration into Western Europe after World War II, driven mainly by labour shortages, reconstruction, and decolonization.

### Why Europe invited migrants after 1945

Western Europe had long been a region many people left. After **1945**, that pattern changed. Reconstruction demanded workers for mines, factories, railways, construction, and public transport. At the same time, economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s raised demand even further.

This was not one single kind of migration. Students often overgeneralise by treating all migrants as “guest workers.” In fact, there were at least two major patterns:

- **Guest-worker recruitment** in countries such as West Germany
- **Postcolonial migration** to former imperial centres such as Britain and France

That distinction matters because the politics were different. In West Germany, migration was framed as temporary labour recruitment. In Britain and France, empire and citizenship were central. Many migrants already had legal or political ties to the metropole.

> **Key Term: labour shortages**
> A situation in which an economy needs more workers than the domestic population can supply.

Western governments often assumed migration would solve an immediate economic problem without permanently changing national society. That assumption was one of the biggest causes of later tension. States wanted workers, but many did not want to think of themselves as immigration countries.

In **West Germany**, the economic boom known as the postwar recovery led to recruitment agreements with **Italy**, **Turkey**, **Spain**, **Greece**, **Yugoslavia**, **Morocco**, **Portugal**, and **Tunisia**. In **Britain**, migrants arrived from the **Caribbean**, **India**, **Pakistan**, and later **Bangladesh** and Africa. In **France**, large numbers came from **Algeria**, **Morocco**, **Tunisia**, and parts of **West Africa**.

> **Key Term: postcolonial migration**
> Migration from former colonies to the imperial metropole, often shaped by earlier legal, political, or cultural ties.
>
> **Test Tip:** For SAQs and LEQs, do not just say “Europe received immigrants after 1945.” Name the country and type: West Germany recruited guest workers; Britain and France also received postcolonial migrants.

### West Germany, Britain, and France compared

A strong AP answer usually compares countries directly rather than listing them separately.

In **West Germany**, the key model was the **Gastarbeiter** system.

> **Key Term: Gastarbeiter**
> “Guest workers” in West Germany; foreign labourers recruited as supposedly temporary workers during the postwar boom.

The word itself shows the problem. “Guest” implied short-term presence, not settlement. Yet many workers stayed, especially Turks. Once they established lives, it became harder to pretend migration was temporary. Family reunification made this even more permanent, because workers brought spouses and children.

In **Britain**, migration was shaped by empire. The **Windrush generation** is the best-known symbol: migrants from the Caribbean who arrived to help fill labour shortages in transport, health care, and other sectors. Britain’s case was different from West Germany because many migrants came as **Commonwealth citizens**, not under a simple labour contract.

> **Key Term: Windrush generation**
> Commonwealth migrants, especially from the Caribbean, who came to Britain in the postwar years and became a major symbol of postwar immigration.

In **France**, migration combined labour demand with decolonization. Algeria was especially important because it had been under French rule since **1830**, and the **Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962)** intensified migration links. France also received migrants from **Morocco**, **Tunisia**, and **West Africa**. So French immigration was closely tied to the collapse of empire as well as to economic growth.

This comparison helps with one common AP distinction:

- **West Germany:** mostly labour recruitment agreements
- **Britain:** Commonwealth and imperial ties
- **France:** both labour demand and decolonization, especially North Africa

All three cases produced multicultural societies. But they also exposed a contradiction: states wanted economic growth without fully redefining citizenship, belonging, or national identity.

### Why backlash developed after the boom years

The major turning point came in the **1970s**. During the economic boom, migrants were useful and often tolerated, though not fully accepted. During downturns, they were more easily blamed.

The **oil crisis of 1973** and rising unemployment changed the tone of public debate. Migrants were accused of taking jobs, straining housing, burdening welfare systems, or altering national culture. This did not mean migrants suddenly appeared. Rather, the economy changed, and permanent settlement became more visible.

> **Key Term: anti-immigrant backlash**
> Social, political, and legal opposition to immigration and immigrant communities, often intensified by economic stress and fears about identity.

West Germany shows this clearly. In **1973**, the government introduced the **Anwerbestopp**, ending active recruitment of foreign labour from non-EEC countries.

> **Key Term: Anwerbestopp**
> West Germany’s **1973** recruitment stop, which ended active recruitment of foreign workers after the oil crisis.

This did not end migration. In fact, it helped create permanent settlement. Workers who might have circulated back and forth often stayed because they feared losing the chance to re-enter. Family reunification continued. So recruitment stopped, but immigration and community formation did not.

Britain also tightened policy. The **Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962** had already begun restricting entry, and the **1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act** tightened controls further.

> **Key Term: restrictionist immigration policy**
> Laws or state measures designed to limit immigration or narrow who may enter and settle.

The timing matters. Britain had relied on Commonwealth migration, but as that migration changed British society, many politicians and voters reacted negatively. The best-known symbol of this backlash was **Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech** in **1968**, which used inflammatory language about immigration and national decline. Even when politicians avoided such extreme rhetoric, the speech showed how strongly race and identity had entered mainstream politics.

France likewise moved toward restriction in the **1970s**, especially as unemployment rose. Yet, as in Germany, labour recruitment cuts did not fully stop immigration because family migration continued. This is a crucial continuity students often miss: states could halt recruitment more easily than they could reverse settlement.

> **Test Tip:** If a prompt asks for causation, build a chain: postwar boom -> labour recruitment or postcolonial migration -> permanent settlement -> economic downturn -> fears over jobs, housing, and identity -> backlash and restrictions.

### From social prejudice to political nationalism

Backlash was not only social. It became political. That distinction is essential.

Social backlash included racism, housing discrimination, and street violence. Political backlash included new laws, harsher border controls, and the rise of parties that turned immigration into a national issue.

In **France**, anti-immigrant politics became especially visible through **Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front**, later associated with **Marine Le Pen** as well. The party linked immigration to crime, unemployment, and threats to French identity. Its language was nationalist and often directed against North African and Muslim communities.

> **Key Term: far-right nationalism**
> A political outlook combining extreme nationalism with hostility to immigrants, minorities, and often supranational institutions.

In **Britain**, anti-immigrant sentiment fed later nationalist politics and arguments about sovereignty, especially in debates over borders and belonging. In the longer run, this climate helped prepare the ground for movements hostile to immigration and, eventually, to European integration.

In **Germany**, reunification in **1990** brought new tensions. Xenophobic and neo-Nazi attacks targeted immigrants and asylum seekers. The riots in **Rostock-Lichtenhagen** in **1992** and the arson attack in **Mölln** the same year showed that anti-immigrant hostility could become deadly. These events were not the same thing as formal policy, but they reveal the depth of social backlash.

> **Key Term: xenophobia**
> Fear or hostility toward foreigners or people seen as outsiders.

A good historical judgement is that backlash was strongest when migration challenged not only labour markets but also ideas of who belonged to the nation. In Britain and France, empire had already made national identity more complicated. In Germany, the fiction that guest workers were temporary delayed that reckoning. In all three, economic stress made unresolved identity questions more explosive.

This is where the topic links directly to broader AP Euro themes. The issue was never just migration. It was also about **citizenship**, **race**, **religion**, **memory of empire**, and the meaning of being British, French, or German in postwar Europe.

### How to use this subtopic in AP arguments

This topic works especially well in **SAQs** and **LEQs** built around causation, comparison, or continuity and change over time.

For **causation**, stress multiple causes:

- economic reconstruction created migration
- decolonization intensified movement to Britain and France
- economic downturn after **1973** fueled backlash
- identity politics turned social anxiety into political nationalism

For **comparison**, use a clear structure:

- West Germany = guest workers, especially Turks
- Britain = Commonwealth migration and legal restriction
- France = North African and Algerian migration, later anti-immigrant party politics

For **continuity and change**, show the shift:

- continuity: migrants remained essential to European economies
- change: states moved from recruitment or acceptance to restriction and backlash

A high-scoring argument avoids simple moral language and instead explains mechanisms. Do not only say Europeans were racist, even though racism mattered. Explain **how** labour needs, decolonization, and recession interacted with fears about identity.

One effective thesis model would be: postwar migration transformed Western Europe because governments first welcomed migrants to solve labour shortages, but later restricted them as settlement became permanent and economic crisis strengthened nationalist backlash.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- After **1945**, Western Europe shifted from emigration to immigration because reconstruction created labour shortages
- Postwar migration took different forms, especially **guest-worker recruitment** and **postcolonial migration**
- **West Germany** recruited **Gastarbeiter**, including many workers from **Turkey**
- **Britain** received major migration from the **Commonwealth**, including the **Windrush generation**
- **France** received large numbers of migrants from **Algeria** and other parts of **North and West Africa**
- Governments often assumed migrants would be temporary, but many settled permanently
- The **1973 oil crisis** and rising unemployment helped intensify anti-immigrant backlash
- West Germany’s **Anwerbestopp (1973)** ended active recruitment but did not end settlement or family reunification
- Britain tightened controls through the **Commonwealth Immigrants Acts**, especially in **1962** and **1968**
- **Enoch Powell’s 1968 speech** became a major symbol of anti-immigrant rhetoric in Britain
- In France, anti-immigrant politics later gained strength through the **National Front**
- Backlash was tied not only to economics but also to debates over **national identity**, **race**, and **religion**

## Key Terms and Concepts

- postwar migration
- labour shortages
- postcolonial migration
- Gastarbeiter
- Windrush generation
- anti-immigrant backlash
- Anwerbestopp
- restrictionist immigration policy
- far-right nationalism
- xenophobia


Migration and Immigration - Postwar migrants later faced backlash