From Gastfreundschaft to Überfremdung : National Identity and the Origins of Right‐Wing Migration Politics in West Germany, 1973–1983

ABSTRACT This article contributes a historical perspective to scholarship on migration and right‐wing politics in Germany. By examining legal texts, party programmes and parliamentary debates, it traces how West German national identity discourses shaped immigration and foreigner policies between the guest worker recruitment stop in 1973 and the federal elections of 1983. In this crucial but oft‐neglected period, political parties renegotiated national membership criteria amid economic crisis and an emerging multicultural society. Ethnocentric conceptions of German identity by influential right‐wing politicians entrenched an understanding of immigration as a national security threat. After the so‐called refugee crisis of 2015, the far‐right Alternative für Deutschland ( AfD ) mobilised these ideals of ethnic homogeneity in narratives about eroding German sovereignty and citizenship since the guest worker era. The article highlights the importance of analysing such historical constructions and political continuities of the ‘foreigner problem’ to make sense of resurging far‐right politics across Europe today.