Japanese people in Germany


There is a community of Japanese people in Germany consisting mainly of expatriates from Japan as well as German citizens of Japanese descent.

Demographics

In 1932 Berlin was the home of about 20% of all of the Japanese people in Europe and Germany had become a centre for Japanese people sent by the Japanese Ministry of Education to study in Europe. In 1936 the Japanese people were declared Honorary Aryans by the Nazis. At the time of the 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor about 300 Japanese people lived in Berlin. Around that time fewer than 200 Japanese women and children previously in Germany returned to Japan by ship. They boarded the Yasukunimaru, a ship operated by NYK Line, in Hamburg.
In 1963 there were 800 Japanese people in Hamburg, including 50 children.
In 1985 there were about 16,500 Japanese persons living in West Germany. The largest group, making up about 6,000, resided in Düsseldorf, and there were other Japanese communities in Berlin and Hamburg. At this time, over 90% of ethnic Japanese households in West Germany had an affluent corporate executive as the head of the household. This executive often stayed in Germany for three to five years, and company employees arriving in Germany often move into residences formerly occupied by those returning to Japan.

Tourism

In 1975, 195,350 Japanese people visited West Germany. In 1984 that figure was about 400,000.

Education

There are five nihonjin gakkō in Germany:
The Toin Gakuen Schule Deutschland, a Japanese boarding high school/gymnasium in Bad Saulgau classified as a shiritsu zaigai kyōiku shisetsu was scheduled to close in 2012.
Hoshū jugyō kō include: