As a fellow German, it's encouraging to hear that immigrants sometimes still feel they can identify with Germany as their new country, despite all the obvious hurdles.
My ex girlfriend's parents moved back to Turkey recently after spending pretty much their entire working lives in Germany, which got me thinking a lot. They said their primary reasons were that they could do more with their retirement money in Turkey and that the weather is nicer - but at the end of the day it means a liberal, secular couple felt like they would be better off moving into a country with a failing democracy, increasing religious fundamentalism, with a wannabe Putin in charge, as opposed to staying where they spent most of their lives.
Also, I wouldn't discount monetary, climatic and religious reasons so easily. I'm a theological noncognitivist and have thankfully no serious financial issues but sometimes I think about moving to somewhere with a nicer weather - especially in those depressing-weather days =) The best candidate would be then Spain but well, I really like it here.
So, I can totally understand why the parents would want to move to Turkey for their retirement. And to be fair, there are many English and German retired couples who move to Turkey just as they do to Spain or France.
I think the experience of this particular group-based conflict varies wildly depending on life circumstances. In particular, living in a nice neighbourhood and purposefully modelling their lives on middle class Germans, my ex' parents didn't see a lot of conflict or direct hostility. But I can still see how they may have felt isolated or unwelcome in a thousand little ways that simply added up over time.
To make it extra clear, in case that didn't come across in my original comment: I totally understand why they're doing this. They probably felt alienated and badly integrated. Heck, I'm a native-born German and I feel culturally alienated too, even though my cultural perspective is entirely different than theirs. If I think Germany is a cold place in general, that impression must be even more amplified from an immigrant's perspective.
I like to think it's all because of missing proper education (not mis-education), which has to start with the parents.
But I fully agree with your observation. But I think there is hope. For instance, the mayor of the second-largest Dutch city (Rotterdam) is a Moroccan immigrant. Such people are role models for people with an immigrant background (you can make it in The Netherlands) and a Dutch background (in terms of acceptance).
I don't know anything about Germany nor Morocco. I am a Turk. I lived in Spain, Finland one year each and I'm now in Sweden. I felt that treatment against Turks in Finland. No matter what you do, if you say something about your origin, make sure yourself that something is going to be bad. Spain was awesome and I was totally accepted and respected by the society but NO IT jobs. So, I had to move to Sweden. From what I have observed so far, Sweden has a big immigration problem. I'm sure they will solve this somehow. But, the best I love about Sweden is that they are more open to foreign culture or people with foreign background comparing to Finland. They can also notice the difference between a kebab guy and a computer scientist. I'm not saying kebab business is low level job. It is more about mind-set.
Despite being here for decades they have made no effort to assimilate, in contrast to some other groups. 40% (!) of Moroccan youths has a criminal record. They speak poor Dutch. They don't consider themselves Dutch. Let us not pretend the effect was the cause.
Also, same arguments have been brought up against Turkish, Romanian and many other large group of immigrant in other countries. It also has a name: Racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
