Almost 40,000 Germans are living in London. More than Winston Churchill would ever have envisaged.
In contrast to other nationalities, Germans living in London keep a low profile; they do not dominate the high street with schnitzel restaurants or sausage shops. Instead of finances permitting, many young professionals opt to live in Wimbledon, Chelsea, Kensington, Highgate, and Richmond.
What is the reason for the influx from Germany? If you want to make it big in the financial markets, you will most likely end up in London, the financial capital of Europe. An estimated 600,000 people work in the City’s banking sector. Frankfurt’s financial centre has only 500,000 inhabitants. For people working in finance, myriad career prospects are better in London than elsewhere in Europe.
Western Europeans make up half of all foreign workers in the UK, and as a result, many want to feel surrounded by their compatriots in London. Although nationalities tend to stick together abroad, Germans in London do not form a tight-knit community.
However, you can see Germans socialising across London. There is, for example, the pub Zeitgeist in Lambeth, which serves not only the widest variety of Germany’s most famous drinks but also excellent German food and you can watch Bundesliga football.
To satisfy an essential appetite of the expatriate community, there is even a mobile German baker in London who stops over at the German Embassy, the German British Chamber of Commerce and other German ‘hubs’ in London.
If you want to break bread or share a drink with Germans and your language skills need refreshing beforehand, then book yourself onto one of the many German courses in London.
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