German Party Backs Off Its Demand That Immigrants Speak German at Home

Germany's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and a partner in her coalition government, caused a nationwide stir in December 2014 when a draft policy paper proposed that immigrants should speak German not just in public but at home.

The paper, due for approval by party leaders on Monday, stated: "People who want to remain here on a permanent basis should be obliged to speak German in public and within the family." The CSU argued that social interaction only works when everyone speaks the same language, and said newcomers would be offered language courses.

The backlash was swift and bipartisan. Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CSU's own sister party the CDU, tweeted: "It is not the business of politicians whether I speak Latin, Klingon or Hessian at home." Yasmin Fahimi of the center-left SPD called the proposal "totally absurd," telling Bild that the state has no role in deciding what language people speak within their own homes. The hashtag #YallaCSU — roughly "Come on, CSU!" — trended as Germans ridiculed the idea, noting the party's own Bavarian dialect roots.

On Monday, CSU general secretary Andreas Scheuer emerged from a party leaders' meeting to announce the offending sentence was being rewritten: would-be residents would now be "motivated" rather than "obliged" to speak German in daily life. "From the beginning, there was no talk of obligation, bossing people around or inspections," Scheuer insisted, saying the party had been misunderstood.

The episode came as Germany was seeing its largest influx of immigrants in two decades, making the question of integration a political live wire — and showing how fast even a powerful governing party can be forced to walk back a demand it misjudged.

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Based on contemporary Reuters reporting on the CSU draft policy paper, December 2014.