arts in exile

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• 28 March 2007

  The federal cabinet issues reforms to the "Immigration Act"
  This involves, among other provisions, the implementation of EU residency and asylum directives into Germany's national legislation. The amendment also makes changes to the law regarding spousal immigration, whereby a minimum age and basic language competency are introduced as requirements.
• 12 July 2007

  The second integration summit issues the National Integration Plan, which aims at providing a "common basis for the integration initiatives of the Federal Governments, the states, local authorities and civil society for the first time".
• 1 September 2008

  Introduction of the Citizenship Test
  Following the introduction of citizenship tests in the states of Baden Wuerttemberg and Hesse, a nationwide test is introduced for foreign nationals seeking German citizenship. The test is made up of 33 questions, dealing with the topics of democracy, basic legal rights, the consitutional state, the German welfare state and the equal rights for men and women.
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  Writer Herta Müller, 2000

  © akg-images / photograph: Doris Poklekowski

  8 Oktober 2009

  Writer Herta Müller, an immigrant to Germany, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
  The jury explains its choice as follows:  "The 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to the German author Herta Müller who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".
• 27 April 2010

  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes Germany's intake of 2,500 Iraqi refugees as a "remarkable success".
• 3 Oktober 2010

  Speech by President Christian Wulff on the 20th anniversary of German reunification
  As part of his speech, Christian Wulff addresses the religious diversity in Germany, which he sees as the result of immigration: "Christianity belongs, without doubt, in Germany. Judaism belongs, without doubt, in Germany.
• 23 February 2012

  Commemoration for the victims of acts of violence committed by the far-right terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU)
  As part of the remembrance ceremony, German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a speech in which she speaks of a "disgrace for our country", saying that, on a daily basis, a "battle against against prejudice, contempt and exclusion" must be waged.  "Germany", she continued, "that is all of us - all of us who live in this country - regardless of where we come from [.
• April 2012

  UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) publishes a report on the situation for asylum seekers and refugees in Hungary which draws attention to acute shortcoming and defects in the EU member state's asylum policies.
• 31 January 2013

  The exhibition Diversity Destroyed. Berlin 1933 - 1938 opens in the German Historical Museum. It forms part of the city of Berlin's theme year of the same name, which deals with the history of the city under the Nazis and the effect on Berlin's social diversity and cultural avant-garde.
• 6 May 2013

  Start of the NSU trial
  In the trial, suspected right-wing terrorists of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) must answer charges of murder relating to the killings, carried out between 2000 and 2006, of small-business owners with foreign backgrounds.