Welcome to the City? Discursive and Administrative Dimensions of Hamburg’s Arrival Infrastructures Around 1900

Abstract

Based on discussions around the local dimension of migration policymaking, this chapter explores the normative-discursive and regulatory-administrative dimensions of the governmental arrival infrastructure in Hamburg, Germany, around the year 1900. It analyzes first, how “newcomers” were perceived in city-wide political discourse, and second, what institutions were established to organize their arrival in the urban society. Building on historical source analysis, the chapter demonstrates that, in the face of a massive increase in the number of Hamburg’s inhabitants, immigrants with German nationality were also assessed with a degree of skepticism. “Welcoming” various groups of newcomers was mainly the responsibility of the police. This chapter adds to urban arrival infrastructure research by arguing for a historical perspective on, and an analytical differentiation between, the infrastructures’ various dimensions.