It took a while for relief to set in on the bus. It took about an hour for the 19 Afghans in the rows of seats to slowly gain confidence in the Bundeswehr soldiers who were accompanying them, says Jürgen Bredtmann. The people were reluctant, stressed from the grueling journey. With the help of two interpreters among the Afghans, they all talked to each other as the bus drove further and further on the autobahn from Frankfurt to the north, and slowly the tension eased. The first then also fell asleep. On Wednesday evening, shortly after 7 p.m., after a good eight hours of bus travel, they finally arrived. The aim of the 19 Afghans was to find accommodation for refugees in Rahlstedt in the north-east of Hamburg. It was the first local staff with their relativeswho found refuge in Germany after fleeing Kabul.

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Matthias Wyssuwa

Political correspondent for Northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

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Bredtmann is the spokesman for the German Armed Forces in Hamburg.

The state command in the Hanseatic city has been given the task of picking up all Afghan local workers and their relatives from the airport in Frankfurt and distributing them throughout the country.

It then brought 13 buses to Frankfurt, but initially only one was needed.

The refugees had been flown from Kabul to Tashkent and from there to Frankfurt.

When the plane landed in Germany at around 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, 132 people were on board.

Embassy staff were among them, people with other nationalities or with families in Germany.

In the end, 19 Afghans were left to get on the bus.

Three families, including seven children.

Because Hamburg was the first federal state to offer 250 places for local workers from Afghanistan on Tuesday, the bus also drove to the Hanseatic city.

And the closer they got to their destination, says Bredtmann, the more the interpreters were relieved and thanked the Bundeswehr for getting them out of Afghanistan.

Compare with terrorists

Germany may not be able to do much for the local staff in Afghanistan. The federal and state governments have prepared for the Afghans who made it onto one of the planes. At Frankfurt Airport, people first do a rapid corona test and are registered. Fingerprints are also taken and the name is transcribed into Latin letters. The Federal Police and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) work closely together on the so-called registration route.

The Federal Police has the task of issuing exceptional visas. A security check takes place in the process, but this only consists of an automatic comparison with terrorist lists. Then the people are taken to the initial reception center on the buses of the Hamburg regional command. At least one bus with other local workers from Afghanistan was expected in Doberlug-Kirchhain in Brandenburg on Thursday. How many people will end up on the buses, says Bredtmann, will only be known after the planes have landed in Frankfurt and all the data has been recorded.

The Königsteiner key applies to the distribution, which determines which federal state has to accept how many people according to tax revenue and population size. As stated in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the willingness of the federal states to accept is "taken into account". Hamburg was particularly early, but now there are offers from all federal states to accept Afghans. Some municipalities, including in Bavaria, had also contacted us. The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet, who is also a candidate for Union Chancellor, announced that it would provide accommodation for 800 Afghan local staff and 1000 Afghan women from the fields of civil rights, art and journalism. However, such announcements are more aimed at the public than at the BAMF.There one tries to organize the distribution in such a way that all countries contribute their share.

Leave the initial reception facility quickly

The local workers and their families do not have to go through the asylum procedure.

You will receive a residence permit directly from the local immigration authorities, which is usually limited to three years.

You can then quickly leave the initial reception center and move to communal accommodation.

This regulation also applies to a second group, as Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announced on Thursday: people who are on the lists of the federal government because they are particularly worthy representatives of Afghan society, including journalists and human rights activists.

On Thursday morning, the federal and state interior ministers agreed that they too would not have to go into the asylum procedure.

Among those arriving in Frankfurt, however, are Afghans who were neither local staff nor are on one of the lists.

You have to apply for asylum in the initial reception center.

Those who cannot prove persecution by the Taliban can still stay in the country for the time being because the deportations to Afghanistan have been suspended.

The Hamburg interior authorities also say that it is assumed that the people do not have to go through an asylum procedure, but are given a right of residence.

The initial reception center was quickly set up for her, the beds made, food and toys and medical care organized.

In Hamburg everyone then did a PCR test.

It is said that another bus should arrive in town this Friday.