Hinduism in Germany

German interest in Hinduism first grew out of the Romantic movement's deep fascination with ancient India. Indian literature captured the imagination of writers and thinkers. In 1791, Georg Forster published the first German translation of Kālidāsa’s famous play Śākuntalā (based on William Jones's English version). This work captivated major literary figures, including Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who famously wrote an epigram praising the drama.^[4][5][6] In 1808 Friedrich Schlegel’s Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians) argued that Sanskrit was the root of a shared Indo-European language family. This theory shaped European intellectual thought and helped drive the creation of formal academic departments for Indological research.^[7][8]

Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900), born in Dessau, was one of the leading scholars who introduced ancient Hindu texts to European audiences.^[9] After studying Sanskrit under Franz Bopp in Berlin and Eugène Burnouf in Paris, he moved to England in 1846. With patronage from the East India Company, he produced the first critical edition of the Rigveda (including Sāyaṇa's 14th-century commentary), published in six volumes between 1849 and 1874. He later edited the Sacred Books of the East (1879–1910), a 50-volume series of English translations of major religious texts from Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and other Asian traditions.^[10][11]

Hindu migration from India to Germany started picking up in the 1950s, continued at a fairly slow pace through the 1970s.^[12] Most of the early arrivals were men, typically students and professionals, such as physicians and engineers.^[13] They generally came from upper middle-class backgrounds and many have went on to build successful careers and businesses.^[14] Even though plenty of them were financially comfortable, they didn’t leave much of a visible religious footprint. Most worship happened quietly in private homes, and the only Indian Hindu temple in Frankfurt at the time turned out to be short-lived.^[15] By the 2000s, the Indian Hindu population in Germany had grown to an estimated 60,000–80,000.^[1]

From the late 1970s, Sri Lankan Tamils formed another stream of Hindu migration to Germany. Unlike Indian migrants, much of the Sri Lankan Tamil migration came primarily from asylum seekers amid the island’s escalating ethnic conflict and civil war. Around 74% of these asylum seekers were Hindu.^[16] In 1978, approximately 1,300 Sri Lankans (mainly students) were living in Germany, however after the outbreak of war in 1983, arrivals increased sharply, with 17,400 Sri Lankan refugees applying for asylum in 1985 alone.^[16] Current estimates approximate around 42,000–45,000 Hindus in Germany were Sri Lankan Tamils.^[1]

In the 1980s when migrant Tamil Hindus first arrived in Germany there were very few places of worship and religious institutions for Hindus were virtually non-existent. They quickly established places of worship many initially situated in cellars, flats, and former warehouses.^[17] By 2011, they had founded approximately 34 Hindu temples.^[18] These temples are predominantly located in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the Tamil Hindu diaspora concentrated.^[18]

Afghan Hindus form a smaller refugee-origin community in Germany, the population of Afghan Hindus is approximately 7000-10000.^[1] Many arrived from the 1980s onward, following the Soviet–Afghan War and later persecution under the Taliban.^[15][19] Afghan Hindus established temples in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne and Essen.^[20] The community has faced asylum challenges. In 2005 the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the U.S. to press Germany against deporting Afghan Hindu refugees due to risks of violence and persecution in Afghanistan. The USCIFR considered the Afghan Hindu population as one of the most severely persecuted groups under the Taliban^[21]

Besides Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus, there are approximately 7,500 white Hindus.^[1]

The first Hare Krishna temple in Germany was built 1970 in Hamburg. The ISKCON guru Sacinandana Swami translated the Bhagavad Gita into German.^[23]

There are about 700 Balinese Hindu families living in Germany,^[24] with the one temple located in Hamburg in front of the Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg and the second, Pura Tri Hita Karana located in Erholungspark Marzahn, Berlin, which is a functioning Hindu temple located in the Balinese Garden of the park and it is one of the few Hindu temples of Balinese architecture built outside Indonesia.^[25][26]