Politics

You've spent more time in Germany than I have, but I have visited numerous times over the years and have family there that I talk to regularly. I feel as though I've felt the slip over the years.

I have very happy childhood memories of visiting family in Germany from the 90's, but not enough social consciousness to be aware of any troubles.

My first visit since the mid 90's was around 2004, shortly after adoption of the euro. At that time I encountered a small amount of negative sentiment (in public) against 'Turks' who were willing to work for far less than native Germans.

My next visit was not until 2009, by which time that sentiment seemed to have solidified into a solid core of hatred for the 'Turks'; I got the impression by this time that the term 'Turks' was a catch-all for migrants from all over the world who were willing to work for far less than native Germans would. People would tell me stories of their children being out of work because an up-market hotel's entire hospitality staff was replaced overnight by cheap off the books labour. At this time it seems the majority of negative sentiment was of an economic nature, and made far worse by unscrupulous operators willing to pay cash rather than go through the correct channels.

Fast forward to 2015 and Germany was destination number one for Refugees and Asylum Seekers fleeing Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. 1.1 million 'official' arrivals during this crisis, and likely far more 'unofficial' result in 16 billion Euro spent on them, as Angela Merkel welcomes them with open arms. It was at this point that I began to encounter a level of viciousness in public discourse that I did not think would ever be possible in Germany again.

At the risk of trotting out a broken record, things rapidly came to a head on New Year's Eve, as waves of new migrants started sexually assaulting native Germans in their thousands.

Call it growing pains if you will, but I can't think of a better illustration for the massive shift in sentiment than the the New Year of rape and sexual assault:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany

From this point onwards, all migrants were associated with the increase in crime and assaults across the country, and forever soured in the minds of Germans. As you can see from those articles, many of the assaults were carried out by North Africans, who did not actually have any legitimate claim to asylum, but were still in-country awaiting processing.

At any time in history when mass migration has occurred there have been major difficulties as the clash of cultures takes place, but rarely outside of war times has it ever resulted in a mass-rape or mass-sexual assault event. There was no possible way for these people to be welcomed into the country after this imo.

Almost immediately small vigilante groups were formed to protect German women on the streets, and this is where the AfD finds its origin.

The main reason it has continued to get worse is this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/22/skilled-migrants-arent-interested-in-germany/

Germany is ending up with all of the dregs, and none of what they actually need.

I don't really have much more to say on this topic save for this: The German people are proud, strong and have a deep respect for their culture. They have demonstrated time and again that they are happy to use that strength to help those in need economically, through donation of medical resources and military resources, and to basically prop up the Euro for 2 decades. But, everyone has a limit on what they are willing to endure in order to help.

I don't think there's any coming back from the events of the last 10 years. Perhaps Germany just isn't the best spot to enact a multicultural wonderland.