AT 24, gang leader turned rapper Hakan Durmus has spent four of the past 10 years in jail. Born in Berlin to Turkish parents, he believes that growing up as an immigrant in Germany is enough to drive anyone to crime.
"You feel homeless, you don't know where you belong," he said. "In Turkey I'm a German Turk but here I'm a Turk," he said.
Although born in Germany, Mr Durkus has no automatic right to citizenship and Germany, almost alone in Europe, bases its citizenship law on the ius sanguinis, or blood right. Although more than seven million foreigners live in Germany, the state does not officially accept immigrants at all.
This may be about to change, as Chancellor Kohl's centre right coalition considers proposals to make it easier for foreigners to became German citizens. At present, applicants for citizenship must have lived in Germany for 15 years, three times longer than that of France or Britain.
Applicants with a criminal record and those receiving social welfare are automatically rejected those who succeed must give up their previous citizenship.
All Germany's political parties agree that the waiting period should be abolished, but only the Greens advocate granting citizenship to all children born in Germany. The Christian Democrats are even opposed to giving third generation foreigners born in Germany a passport.
The hurdles for foreigners hoping to become Germans are so great that fewer than 10 per cent of the two million Turks living in Germany have applied.
Almost two thirds of Germany's immigrants have lived in the country for mare than 10 years and mare than a quarter have been here for over 20 years. Yet Germany is far from being a multi cultural society and few foreigners feel fully integrated.
There is only one Turkish member of the Bundestag and German television has no news readers or high profile presenters from the ethnic minorities. Although the level of extreme right wing violence against foreigners has fallen by 75 per cent during the past five years, racial discrimination remains widespread.
One reason German politicians are considering a change in the citizenship law is the fear that alienation is driving many young Turks into the arms of extreme nationalist and Islamic fundamentalist groups, such as the "Grey Wolves". Districts with large Turkish populations, such as Kreuzberg in Berlin, have seen a dramatic rise in violent attacks by street gangs made up of young Turks armed with knives.
A huge influx of "ethnic Germans" has heightened tension further, as long established Russians of German extraction being given citizenship rights without delay.
Mr Horst Eylmann, the Christian Democrat chairman of the allparty Bundestag Committee on Justice, argues for a change in the citizenship law to give ethnic minorities a stake in society.
