Germany was already attracting many foreign labourers prior to World War I, as Germany had shifted from being a large source of emigrants to one with little emigration. Germany's emigration had peaked in the 1880s and in 1913, 25,843 people emigrated from the German Reich. The foreign population meanwhile grew from 206,000 in 1871 to 1.26 million in 1910. Of these, half were subjects of the Habsburgs, 150,000 were Italians and around 10% were from the Netherlands.
Eastern Europeans, particularly ethnic Poles from Austria and to lesser extent Congress Poland were arriving in East Prussia as seasonal agricultural labourers, these numbered around 600,000 at the onset of World War I, and around half were female. Meanwhile, ethnic Poles from within the Empire were migrating in ever larger numbers to the industrial Rhineland, particularly to the Ruhr Valley. Additionally, there were Italians, mostly from the Northern Italy whom were overwhelmingly male and came to work in the mines and factories and more often than not made no attempt to settle permanently. This group was part of wider Italian migration to the industrial regions of Northern Europe, namely Belgium, France and Luxembourg.
Foreign Jews were also a growing number as some 76,387 lived in Germany by 1910. Like their counterparts in London, Paris, Vienna, most of these were fleeing political persecution in the Russian Empire or poverty in Galicia and Rumania. Many became successful in the small trades. Unfortunately, the growing number of this group did lead to increasing anti-semitisim.