Draft Saving the Country: Korean Miners and Nurses Go to Germany

Title	Miners and Nurses Dispatched to Germany to Help National Economy
Author	이지선

1차 원고

Miners and nurses dispatched to Germany to help revive the Korean economy

In the early 1960’s, Korea was still a poverty-stricken country afflicted by the Korean War. In 1962, Its GNP per capita was $87 similar to that of Ghana, Africa. Unemployment rate was up to 30%.

Seizing power through the May 16 military coup in 1961, the Park Chung-hee administration established the economic development plan aimed at overcoming poverty through industrialization, but execution of the plan was hindered by the lack of foreign capital.

Korea was hardly seen attractive to foreign investors citing the political instability by stand-off between South and North Korea, the April 19 Revolution and the May 16 Coup. The Kennedy administration of the U.S. had little confidence in Korea’s military government and Korea had yet to normalize the diplomatic relations with its neighbor, Japan.

With a slim chance of obtaining foreign loan from the U.S. and Japan, Park’s administration turned its eyes to West Germany, which was in politically similar conditions of being a divided country. A Korean delegation for loan negotiation was dispatched to West Germany and reached an agreement on commercial loan worth 150 million Deutchmark. To earn commercial loan from West Germany, however, required guarantee by a bank of a third country. Unfortunately, Korea was incapable of securing bank guarantee from anywhere in the world.

Under these circumstances, West Germany came up with a scheme suggesting if Korea sent 5,000 miners and 2,000 nurses to West Germany, it would lend money on security of their wages for the three-year term of contract. Achieving the Miracle on the Rhine, West Germany imported human resources from overseas due to the lack of labor force. Particularly the mining sector struggled with a severe shortage of resources because West German workers were reluctant to take physically-demanding mining jobs.

Against such backdrops, devised was the plan for temporary hiring of Korean miners by West Germany and an agreement was concluded between the two countries in December 1963. This agreement marked the first to have Germany take in labor force from a nation outside Europe. Also, it was the first batch of workers that Korea exported after the establishment of its government.

Korean young workers who had difficulty finding jobs rushed to apply for going to West Germany as miners. Competition rate soared to 8:1 and more than 20% of the applicants were college graduates way over the minimum requirement of being middle school graduates. For the nurse category whose quota was 2,000 persons, as many as 20,000 submitted applications. 8,000 Korean miners stepped on German soil between 1963 and 1977.

They were paid $164 monthly, which was a high salary considering then Korea’s wage levels. The Korean miners led frugal lives to send surplus cash to their families at home. Korean workers in West Germany remitted a total of $101.6 million to Korea for the period of about ten years. It was quite a sum given that Korea’s total annual export of 1965 was $175 million. Among the Korean miners dispatched to West Germany, some began studying after the expiration of contract term and acquired degrees to become university professors back in Korea, and some achieved business success in America. Most of them have now retired and live on pension.

Since the late 1950’s, Korean nurses had been sent to Germany in small group through arrangements between German Catholic churches in Korea and a number of orders in Germany. After the governments of the two countries forged a formal agreement for Korean nurses, similar to that for Korean miners, a large scale of dispatch took place. For 10 years from 1966, a total of 11,000 Korean nurses and nurse aids were sent to West Germany.

Those Korean miners, nurses and nurse aids were recognized by West German companies and hospitals for their diligence and sincerity. Money they sent home by working hard and tightening their belts contributed much to the Korean economy that was suffering the lack of foreign currency.

Most Korean nurses had their duration of contract extended and worked there for a long period of time. Some of them settled down permanently in West Germany after marriage to Korean miners. There were also many Korean nurses who married German men. More than half of those Korean nurses remain in Germany. Currently, a majority of Korean working immigrants reside in Ruhr and Rheinland region forming the largest Korean community in Germany and the second largest in West Europe.

Commercial loan that Korea acquired from West Germany by offering its human resources as security was spent on the first 5-year economic plan. The fund was invested mainly in factories of such sectors as machinery, mining heavy equipment, cement and fertilizer. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Miracle on the Han River was ignited by commercial loan from West German.

Meeting with Korean miners and nurses during his state visit to West Germany in December 1964, President Park Chung-hee praised them for their hard work and contribution to the development of Korean economy.

감수본

Miners and Nurses Dispatched to Germany to Help National Economy

In the early 1960s, Korea was still an impoverished country devastated by the three-year Korean War; it suffered a stagnant GNP and a high unemployment rate. The government established an economic development plan through industrialization, but its execution was hindered by the difficulty of obtaining foreign capital.

President Park Chung-hee’s administration turned its eyes to West Germany, which was in a politically similar condition of being a divided country. In 1963 a Korean delegation for loan negotiations visited West Germany and reached an agreement on commercial loans worth 150 million German marks, which, however, needed to be guaranteed.

West Germany came up with a suggestion that if Korea sent 5,000 miners and 2,000 nurses to West Germany, it would lend money on security of their wages for the three-year terms of their contracts. While achieving the “Miracle on the Rhine,” Germany was importing workers from overseas due to its shortage of labor. This agreement was the first to have Germany take in labor force from a non-European country, and it was also the first batch of workers that Korea sent abroad.

Many young Korean workers applied for these positions, which paid high salaries compared to contemporary Korean wage-levels. They led frugal lives to send surplus cash to their families at home, and learned fluent German. A total of 8,000 miners and 11,000 nurses and nursing-aids served in West Germany between 1963 and 1977. More than a few of them got married there and established a large overseas-Korean community; others took the opportunity to study there and became professionals of various kinds.

The Korean miners and nurses were recognized by German companies and hospitals for their diligence and sincerity. By working hard while tightening their belts, they remitted home a total of $101,600,000 over about a decade, a significant sum that greatly assisted development of the Korean economy.

The commercial loans that Korea acquired from West Germany by this scheme were spent on the first 5-year economic plan, invested mainly in industrial sectors; the “Miracle on the Han River” was ignited by this process.

President Park complimented the first groups of Korean workers for their hard work and contribution to the development of their homeland’s economy during his state visit to West Germany in December 1964.