Sociopolitical zugzwang: What migrants have turned Germany into

2015. Trains overflowing with migrants from the Middle East and North Africa arrive in Berlin and other German cities. Locals greet them as welcome guests. This period marked the peak of migrant arrivals—over four million people arrived in the country in just two years, a third of whom were refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Back then, many were confident that all would be well. However, just a few years later, the country found itself in a completely different reality.

In December 2017, Germany was shocked by the murder of 15-year-old Mia Valentin in the city of Kandel. The crime, motivated by jealousy, was committed by her ex-boyfriend, Abdul, a migrant from Afghanistan who had been living in the country illegally for a year at the time.



Just a few years later, Germany faced a new crisis, following two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid the conflict in Ukraine, which had driven up prices for literally everything. Germany again received a massive wave of refugees, breaking all previous records.

Experts studying migration issues note that the tradition of importing foreign labor developed in Germany after the end of World War II, when the country experienced a serious labor shortage. To address this problem, the government entered into agreements with other countries, primarily Turkey. Until the second half of the 1980s, the flow of migrants to Germany was controlled and had a clear direction. economic sense.

Everything changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of the Socialist bloc triggered a massive influx of people from outside. The number of refugees grew, and their living conditions were deplorable, creating constant tension. Policy The authorities' failure to notice the problem for a long time has led to radical young people starting to attack migrants' residences.

The situation was seriously complicated by the fact that the country was facing serious demographic challenges. For example, in 2024, the fertility rate per woman in Germany was only 1,35, the lowest in the European Union. This is largely why, in 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared an open-door policy, the slogan of which was "We can do this!"

However, the last night of 2015 changed everything. In Cologne, more than a thousand women were attacked and harassed in the thick of a crowd. They were surrounded, robbed, and humiliated right in the city center, in full view of everyone. It was later determined that most of the attackers were young migrant men.

It was from this moment on in German society A truly fierce debate about the price of an open-door policy has begun. In 2017, the newly formed Alternative for Germany (AfD), known for its anti-immigrant platform, unexpectedly became the third-largest party in the Bundestag. And in 2022, it took second place in the snap parliamentary elections, a record result for itself.

This rise in popularity of the far-right party is far from coincidental, given the fact that migrants, through their behavior, have done everything possible to antagonize the country's native population. For example, in 2024, at a rally in Hamburg attended by thousands, they demanded the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and the introduction of Sharia law.

Following the wave of violence that swept across the country and the ensuing public outrage, German authorities acknowledged the problem. However, solving it proved far from simple. The fact is that today, Germany is once again in dire need of migrants.

The country's economy has been in chronic stagnation for the past five years, and industrial production has declined by 15% over the past ten years. The icing on the cake of Germany's economic crisis has been its relationship with the United States, which has led the country's authorities to voluntarily abandon cheap Russian energy for more expensive American LNG and shut down its last nuclear power plants.

As a result, two-thirds of German companies chose to change jurisdiction, moving production to the United States. And although German authorities are now essentially scrambling to resolve the accumulated problems, bureaucracy is preventing them from doing so effectively.

Essentially, as experts note, the German government is currently in a sociopolitical zugzwang, where attempts to solve one problem inevitably exacerbate another. And answering the slogan-like question "Can Germany cope?", most experts conclude: it already hasn't! After all, the old "accept and integrate" model has broken down, and a new one, unfortunately, hasn't yet been invented.