What explains the Turkey - Germany immigration (country, people, time)

[Tex?Il?]

I understand the reasons for many of the immigrants in other European countries.

The immigrants in many western European countries are those obvious ties to the colonial past. Examples:

Britain = India/Pakistan
France = Algeria/West Africa
Netherlands = Indonesia
Italy = Albania
Spain = Morocco?

But is there some historic connection between Germany and Turkey?

I could understand possibly they were allies in WWI, but that was so long ago, and there really was no lasting historic connection there. What explains the Germany-Turkey connection.

[Rob702]

During the time of Germany's big economic boom there was a shortage of workers. The German government made contracts with several poorer mediterranean countries to "import" workers. The first countries were Greece and Italy (there are quite a lot of second or third generation Italian and Greek Germans), a bit later Turkey. They came to earn good money for work that was not well paid in their home countries and they were intended to go back later. However, many decided to stay and to bring their families to Germany.
Today it is people from everywhere coming to Germany, I don't think there is any country sticking out still.

[vamos]

What Rob said! Here's a Wiki link that explains it:

Gastarbeiter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[somebodymiami]

yeah it was the workers program brought in many turkish and dont forget russians.