Kurds in Germany

[5] The first Kurds migrated to Imperial Germany in 1919 and the years following, most came for diplomatic reasons related to the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey.

[6] The oppression of Kurds in the 1980s under the then-newly formed Islamic republic of Iran and the then following Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) kickstarted the second wave of Kurdish migration to Germany and other countries.

[7] Most Kurdish immigrants in Germany follow the Sunni branch of Islam, who are often from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

[11] There have been several politicians in German political parties with a Kurdish origin and who also openly demand an embetterment of the situation for the Kurds.

[19] In November 2023, around 4.100 people (mostly Germans of Kurdish origin) protested against the ban of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and against the politics of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The Swiss newspapers Blick and Neue Zürcher Zeitung claimed that the Kurdish gang/motorcycle club "Sondame", allegedly "fighting" for a free Kurdistan, was formed in Stuttgart, and in 2015, it had about 1,000 members in Germany and Switzerland.

[27] In March 2009, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey, Gülsüm S., was killed for a relationship not in keeping with her family's plan for an arranged marriage.