S01 E02 Crossing Boundaries

In the episode Crossing Boundaries, migration historians Christoph Rass and Lale Yildirim speak with German journalist, investigative reporter, and photographer Gerhard Kromschröder. In the early 1980s, Kromschröder went undercover in Frankfurt's labor market, in a sector heavily reliant on migrant labor, disguising himself as a Turkish street sweeper. He later recounted the experience in his 1983 book When I Was a Turk (Als ich ein Türke war). What did Kromschröder learn while living and working in the role of a migrant worker and experiencing the everyday realities faced by people perceived as migrants? How did those experiences shape his understanding of German society? And what, if anything, has changed since the 1980s?

In the second half of the episode, Christoph Rass and Lale Yildirim reflect on what Kromschröder's story reveals about the "Production of Migration" as an ongoing process of social negotiation. They discuss what Kromschröder's experiences contribute to their own reflexive research and what they reveal about the persistence of racism in Germany today.

About the Guest

Gerhard Kromschröder (born 1941) is one of Germany's most influential investigative journalists. He became widely known for his undercover investigations into Germany's neo-Nazi scene as well as for his reporting from crisis zones and war-torn regions. After beginning his journalism career in the Emsland region, he joined the satirical magazine pardon in the late 1960s and later worked for the German news magazine  stern, among other publications. Alongside journalists such as Günter Wallraff, he helped pioneer new methods of undercover investigative reporting.

In the spring of 1982, Kromschröder spent three weeks undercover as a Turkish street sweeper in Frankfurt am Main. With his hair, eyebrows, and mustache dyed black and dressed in the city's sanitation uniform, he immersed himself in the everyday working life of migrant laborers, experiencing firsthand the racism and discrimination they faced. He published his account in a  stern investigative feature in October 1982 and expanded it into his 1983 book  When I Was a Turk (Als ich ein Türke war)— nearly three years before Günter Wallraff's investigative feature story  Lowest of the Low (Ganz unten), which was published in October 1985.

About the Hosts

 Prof. Dr. Christoph Rass holds the Chair of Modern History and Historical Migration Research (NGHM) at Osnabrück University — a founding professorship at the Research Center  Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) and a key professorship in the  Department of History (HistOS). His research focuses on interdisciplinary and reflexive historical migration studies, as well as the social history of violence and war. Within Collaborative Research Center 1604 “Production of Migration”, he co-leads subproject A3  “You Are Guest Worker Children!” Science, School, and the Production of Migration Figures together with Prof. Dr. Lale Yildirim. This subproject examines the categories used to classify young people perceived as migrants in school contexts and explores, among other things, how academic language shapes the realities of a migration society.

 Prof. Dr. Lale Yildirim holds the Chair of History Education at the Department of History at Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel). Her research focuses on historical thinking and learning in contexts of diversity, empirical research on historical culture, historical migration research, and participatory digital public history. She also works on questions of agency in historical culture and participation within migration societies, as well as processes of historical identity formation. Amongst her most important publications are her dissertation  The Diaspora Complex: Historical Consciousness and Identity among Third-Generation Youth with Turkey-Related Migration Backgrounds (2018), which received significant scholarly attention and earned her the  Stifterpreis „Bildung und Integration“ (2020). The study empirically examines the relationships between historical consciousness, identity formation, and migration experiences among young people.