Federal Statistical Office figures show 103,260 Vietnamese nationals residing in Germany at the end of 2020, which is the fourth largest community from Asia excluding transcontinental, Caucusus and Middle Eastern states.

[7] A further 40,000 irregular migrants of Vietnamese origin were estimated to live in Germany, largely concentrated in the Eastern states, as of 2005[update].

The first of the boat people who fled the country after the liberation of Saigon via the South China Sea to Malaysia, where they were denied entry, consisting of 208 families totalling 640 individuals who had fled on board the Hai Hong, arrived in Hanover on 3 December 1978 by plane, after Lower Saxony became the first state to accept Vietnamese refugees.

They received official aid in the form of social benefits and job placement assistance, as well as broader societal support for their successful adaptation to German life.

In 1980, they signed an agreement with the reunified Socialist Republic of Vietnam for enterprises in East Germany to provide training to Vietnamese; between 1987 and 1989.

[4] Vietnamese guest workers received salaries of roughly M400/month, of which 12% went to the government of Vietnam, and another portion was paid in consumer goods—mainly sewing machines, bicycles, clothes, sugar, and soap—instead of cash, due to inflation.

[citation needed] In terms of their relations to mainstream society, the Vietnamese guest workers of the GDR differed from the boat people in the west: they were citizens of their country of origin, rather than refugees from it, and they were prohibited from developing personal relationships with GDR citizens despite the official rhetoric of socialist brotherhood.

[17] They were sometimes subject to xenophobic violence, and even when their physical safety was maintained, they became the target of resentment due to their preferential access to consumer goods.

[15] Despite their socialist indoctrination, many helped their families to become capitalists and better off, using raw materials and sewing machines sent back to Vietnam to privately produce fashionable clothing, such as imitation stone-washed jeans, and sell it to their neighbours.

Tens of thousands took this offer, but they were soon replaced by a further influx of Vietnamese asylum-seekers who had been employed as contract workers in other Eastern European nations, mainly from Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Throughout the 1990s, German attempts to repatriate the new immigrants back to their country of origin were not particularly successful, due to both Berlin's reluctance to forcibly deport them, and Hanoi's refusal to re-admit them; however, nearly two-fifths were barred from permanent residency in Germany.

Many of these illegal immigrants came through Eastern European nations that are in the Schengen Area with legal work visas and pretend to reside in those countries.

Overall, East Germany has a much larger Vietnamese community, owing to the large number of foreign workers in GDR times.

With the loss of their jobs, many Vietnamese guest workers turned to street vending, especially of smuggled cigarettes, while others subsisted on meagre unemployment benefits.

Cigarette vendors were subject to frequent police abuse; in Berlin, some Vietnamese residents even started a street fight with a police officer who frequently beat up one cigarette vendor, and threatened to hold a protest and block traffic to bring attention to the issue.

[25] After the 1993 announcement that only those who had a legal means of financial support would be able to receive a residence permit, even more former guest workers, with little hope of achieving professional employment due to their poor German language skills, turned to self-employment.

[26] Others imported cheap products from Vietnam, especially garments, and sold them in small family-scale businesses; however, they could not compete with large discount retailers.

Due to the economic pressures on small retailers, the number of unemployed Vietnamese in Germany has shown an upward trend, rising to 1,057 individuals in 2000.

2008 studies by German education experts show that Vietnamese children are among the highest performing pupils in Germany (59% gaining entry into Gymnasium).

News articles have drawn attention to how children of former guest-workers are among the highest performing pupils in German schools.

Vietnamese students in Germany who grow up in poverty typically outperform their peers, such as the Turks and Italians, and even native Germans (43%).

[33] Their criminal enterprises, at first primarily related to the highly lucrative black market in untaxed cigarettes, have also branched out to gambling, prostitution, and video and audio piracy.