Düsseldorf Airport is a historically symbolic location. This is where the first Turkish "guest workers," as they were called at the time in Germany, arrived 65 years ago.

At a ceremony there in in mid-September, North Rhine-Westphalia's premier, Henrik Wüst, commemorated the courage of this first generation of migrants and their contribution to Germany's prosperity.

By the time recruitment ended in 1973, some 870,000 Turkish men and women had migrated to Germany for work. They toiled in the coal mines, did piecework on assembly lines or cleaned factory floors. Most settled in Düsseldorf , Cologne or Duisburg. "They have made our country more diverse, more open and stronger," said Wüst.…