German families proud to call the UAE home have told of their joy at helping to strengthen cultural connections, as President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed prepares to begin a state visit to Germany on Wednesday.
Katja Guzmann is one of the thousands of Germans who live and work in the Emirates. She moved to Abu Dhabi with her husband and three children in 2018, planning to stay for three to five years.
Eight years on, she and her family remain happily entrenched in UAE life and have bought a house.
“We decided that we will stay for a while longer,” Ms Guzmann said. “When I think of home, this is now home.”
The Guzmanns' journey to the UAE began with a job offer. Ms Guzmann’s husband worked for Linde, a German industrial gases and engineering company, which wanted to send him to the Emirates for three years.
The company paid for the family to visit in 2017 so they could decide whether they could imagine living in the UAE.
“I had heard about Dubai – everybody hears about Dubai,” Ms Guzmann said. “But I didn’t hear much about the UAE before.”
Life-changing decision
The couple had three children, aged 14, 13 and six, and knew the move would mean changing almost every part of their lives. Yet they were ready for an adventure.
“I think we were all excited to leave Germany for a while and live somewhere else,” Ms Guzmann said. They enrolled their children at the German International School Abu Dhabi.
“We thought we would stay for three years, maximum five years,” she said. “We thought it would be easier for them to go back into the German school system.”
What appealed to her most was the sense that people from vastly different backgrounds had found common ground in the Emirates.
“We all took the step to go abroad and live abroad with our families and our children. That creates a feeling of belonging together,” she said.
Safety also became one of the reasons Abu Dhabi felt like home. Her husband once left his wallet at a restaurant in Dubai Marina. At 3am, the restaurant called to say it had been found.
“That would never happen in Germany,” she said.
For her daughter Lara, now 14, that sense of safety has shaped her childhood.
“I got so used to living here that sometimes I can’t imagine going back,” she said. “In Germany, my mum would never let me take an Uber alone. But here, we just take an Uber to the mall or to a friend’s house.”
Lara said her international circle of friends was another part of life she would struggle to leave.
“In my class, there are so many different people from different countries,” she said. “Everyone is part German, but they are also from India, France, Mexico – all over the world.
“In Germany, you just don’t have that. You have to come here and experience it for yourself.”
Her brothers, Niklas, 22, and Julian, 21, now study in Vienna but return to Abu Dhabi during their holidays.
“They are already talking about wanting to come here and work,” their mother said. “They really like it.”
Lara can also imagine building her future in the Emirates. “I would think of working here one day because I really enjoy living here,” she said. “It’s just so nice.”
Fifteen-year story
For Dorina Hacker, head of administration at the German International School in Abu Dhabi, a move intended to last two or three years has become a 15-year chapter.
She arrived in 2011 with her husband and their two-year-old daughter, Josefine, after he accepted a position with Abu Dhabi health company Seha.
“When you have a two-year-old, of course you think about whether this is the right step to take with such a little child,” Ms Hacker said.
Josefine joined the German school’s kindergarten at the age of three, and the school community helped the family settle.
Ms Hacker said she had not experienced the culture shock others might have expected. One of her earliest memories was of the scent of oud in the air.
It was the opportunity to live among different cultures that had the greatest effect on her.
“I always say I couldn’t go back to Germany after 15 years,” she said. “If you go there in the summer, you wonder how Germany changed, or maybe how this life here changed you. I don’t know which has had the bigger impact.”
Josefine is now 17 and preparing to study in Europe. Her departure may change the rhythm of the family home, but Ms Hacker is not yet thinking of leaving.
“We have a house and we have a dog,” she said. “It’s our life. It’s our home. Europe is just for holidays.”
New arrival
Kerstin Schwappach, the school's deputy head, represents a newer generation of Germans making the same move.
She arrived alone about a year ago after visiting the UAE three times on holiday. Rather than moving because of a family member’s job, she chose the country first and then looked for work.
“I loved the country, so I chose the country and tried to find a job here,” she said. “I’m very happy.”
She said the UAE had given her a degree of freedom she particularly valued as a woman living alone.
“You can go out at night and nothing will happen,” she said. “You can go for a run at five in the morning and you will meet other people. That’s amazing.”
Network of support
The German-speaking women’s group in Abu Dhabi has helped new arrivals find the same sense of community that supported these families.
Established about 30 years ago by historian Dr Frauke Heard-Bey and other German residents, the group now has about 250 women on its distribution list.
“It is called German-speaking ladies, not German ladies,” Ms Guzmann said. “We welcome everyone who speaks German. We even have some Emirati women who know German and come regularly to our coffee mornings.”
The questions shared within the group may seem small – where to find a school, a restaurant, a tailor or an activity for a child – but the answers can matter deeply to someone building a life far from everything familiar.
“You come here and most of you don’t know anybody,” Ms Guzmann said. “Then you find someone who speaks your language.”
These families still carry Germany with them. It is in their language, their school and the relatives waiting for them each summer. But somewhere along the way, the place they planned to inhabit briefly became the place they were reluctant to leave.
For the Guzmann family and many Germans in the UAE, Abu Dhabi is no longer an overseas assignment or a temporary adventure. “This is now home,” they said.
