In 1973, an "Anwerbestopp" (recruitment stop) was imposed citing the risk of unemployment as a result of the oil crisis as an explanation, and no further Gastarbeiter were allowed to be recruited. In his essay “Gastarbeiter in West Germany,” which was published in 1974 immediately after the recruitment stop, W.S.G. Thomas postulates contrarily that the recruitment stop essentially reflected the growing hostility of German nationals towards migrant workers in the mid-1970s (Thomas, 348). Even though the term Gastarbeiter linguistically suggested that the guest workers were only intended as guests in Germany from the German point of view in order to work and not to remain in the country or integrate into German society, Germany suddenly had a population of just over 4 million foreigners within its borders when the Anwerbestopp was imposed in 1973. Although the German government offered incentives for Gastarbeiter to return to their home countries, many chose instead to bring their entire families to Germany and settle there, thus turning Germany into an immigrant country purely by chance. In the article “Als Deutschland zum Einwanderungsland wurde” (When Germany became an immigrant country) by Klaus Bade in Die Zeit, Bade explains this backfire effect: “In this way, most of them settled down and brought their families with them, and the foreign population continued to rise above the level reached in 1973 until 1978. The guest workers became immigrants” (Bade).