“Welcome to Germany!”
“Look at these smiles.”
These were images we had never seen before.
“Germany and Austria welcomed thousands of refugees...
and migrants with open arms.”
Tens of thousands of refugees
arriving in Germany by train
as they were cheered on by crowds of volunteers.
“refugees are welcome here”
In 2015, a third of refugees went to Germany.
The following year this was 60%.
“Germany! Germany! Germany!”
But there is now a second wave of migration
without taking Ukrainian refugees into account.
If we add these figures,
the numbers well exceed that of the migrant crisis
and once again, Germany is taking the largest share.
Germany is now the largest refugee hosting country in the EU
and the third largest in the world.
27% of the German population has a migration background.
And in some cities like Offenbach.
Nearly half the residents don't have a German passport.
But this second crisis is different.
It is happening after two difficult years
of suffering through the pandemic
and after the war in Ukraine,
made everything from gas to food
much more expensive.
How has the first migrant crisis affected crime rates?
The economy?
And Germany as a whole?
And how is this second crisis related to recent protests
that amassed over a million people?
This is Germany's migrant crisis...
with Hindsight.
It's not easy to speak about migration.
It is such an emotional subject
and the opinions about it are very strong.
It's not always socially accepted to speak
about the negative consequences
of accepting refugees into your country.
And at the end of the video,
I'm going to share my personal opinion about this.
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And now back to the video.
“Extraordinary scenes...
extraordinary!”
people handing them water.
Welcome to Germany!”
These images were broadcasted life around the world.
Conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East
forced millions on the move.
Germany had taken in waves of migrants before
in the 1950s and 60s.
Their economy was experiencing rapid growth,
and they made deals with primarily Turkey
to recruit large numbers of workers and their families
to solve a considerable shortage of workers.
Later in the 1980s and 90s,
there was a considerable influx of refugees,
and Germany's handling of these asylum seekers was very poor.
They often lived in deplorable conditions,
causing friction with local residents.
But complaints about these refugees
were often ignored,
and this situation escalated into large scale rioting.
Mobs of neo-Nazis attacked refugee communities,
often with hundreds to thousands of local residents
cheering them on.
These images spread across Germany
and were a wake up call for many.
These riots resulted in large scale
demonstrations against racism.
This history, at least partly
explains why Germans in 2015 were exceptionally willing
to welcome refugees.
But it simultaneously led to a growing number of Germans
who were worried about their country's migration policy.
Merkel’s decision was partly ideological,
but he also envisioned
that these refugees would solve a more practical problem.
Germany's population is aging and their workforce is shrinking.
Official figures show
that Germany's workforce is expected
to shrink with 4.4 million by 2040.
And this is in part due to low birthrates.
It has become common for women to work over having children,
and this contributed to birthrates
to reach a historic low in 2011.
On top of this,
the baby boomers from the 1950s
and 60s were now entering retirement.
Adding a costly expense to the German society.
With these trends,
Germany would need 400,000 immigrants per year
to prevent a population from shrinking.
“wir schaffen das”
became her mantra.
and so began Germany's exceptional intake of refugees.
In 2015,
they took in well over 440,000 refugees,
which represents a third of all asylum seekers
that year in Europe.
The next year they took 722,000 or about 60% a year total.
This strategy has a name: Replacement Migration,
the theory that migration is needed for a region
to achieve a particular demographic, economic, or social goal.
This concept often has the objective
to avoid the decline of the total and working age population,
and is often influenced by low birthrates.
And German women have some of Europe's lowest,
at only 1.3 per women on average,
whereas 2.1 is necessary to maintain the size of a population.
Foreign born women in Germany,
however, have a higher birth rate at 1.8 on average.
Today, nearly
half the children under the age of five
are first or second generation immigrants.
Setting Germany up for a future
with a significantly higher
share of residents with a migration background.
This demographic shift was sudden and unexpected.
And from the moment it started,
a growing number of Germans
were expressing concern
first primarily about whether Germany
could handle such large numbers,
and later increasingly about
whether this demographic shift is desirable.
This growing concern was amplified
by the sexual assaults in Cologne during New Year's Eve in 2016.
Beneath the fireworks that lit up the German sky,
hundreds of women were allegedly assaulted
in Cologne on New Year's Eve.
Who was 20 or 30 men that just surrounded us.
They touch us everywhere they could
between the legs and our breasts.
The victims say the attackers were of Arabic
and North African appearance,
fueling preexisting tensions
between Eastern and Western values and sexual attitudes.
And then, after the terror attack in Bataclan
and a shark rampage on Berlin's Christmas market,
witnesses say the truck jumped a curb,
barreled into the Christmas market crowd and just kept going.
Even when these crimes weren't
carried out by refugees who arrived in 2015.
This contributed
to a more widespread fear
about how the government's migration policies
were affecting the country.
In 2017, the newly formed alternative for Germany, or AfD, ran
on an anti-immigration agenda and out of nowhere
became Germany's third biggest party.
For some, this wind of change
felt like a victory, while others feared these developments
But Germany was on the verge of a new crisis,
The number of asylum seekers in Europe rose in 2022 and in 2023,
of which Germany
once again to the largest shares,
albeit less than in 2015 and 2016.
The numbers of detected illegal border crossings rose by 70%.
Most refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey,
and this increase was partly due
to lax restrictions on the movement of people after the pandemic.
On top of this, 4.2 million Ukrainians received
temporary protection in the EU
and about a quarter of which was in Germany.
Germans welcoming displaced Ukrainians into their country
once again,
an exceptional number of Germans showed a willingness
to accommodate those seeking protection.
But it coincided with a noticeable change
in rhetoric about migration policy.
Olaf Schultz was now Germany's chancellor
and his vice chancellor and minister of finance under Merkel.
He was partly responsible for
the government's handling of the first migrant crisis,
When Scholz took office
his approval rating was 65%, but this had lowered to 28%
by June 2024.
Official government figures show that the crime rate in Germany
had risen by 6% compared
to 2022,
and authorities attributed this increase
to higher levels of migration.
While foreigners made up only 15% of the population,
they accounted for 41% of all crimes in 2023.
Following the attack
from Hamas on Israel,
there erupted celebrations
in various neighborhoods across Germany,
adding to a growing sense
of incompatibility with the values of some migrant communities.
A month later, in a hotel near Potsdam, a group of high ranking
politicians from AfD
had a secret meeting with neo-Nazis
to discuss the deportation of millions of people
with a migration background.
But they didn't know that a group of journalists
had infiltrated the meeting,
and in early January they exposed their plans.
More than a million people across the country
took to the streets to protest.
This was stopped off by a series of violent attacks,
of which some were politically motivated.
There's a Portuguese proverb
that says the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But only in hindsight.
We can tell which intentions those are.
Next year
there are federal elections in Germany,
and migration is now a top issue for voters.
67% of people was worried
about migration last year, and that is now up to 86%.
The action or inaction from the government in the following months
will likely influence how people will vote.
At the time of writing, in July 2024,
the headlines read
Scholz vows to step up deportations
and he vows to deport criminals
and that he agreed to a historic, stricter migration policy.
Scholz announced the long awaited plans
that were negotiated for many years.
Asylum procedures will be sped up,
social benefits restricted, and more funding
will be made available from local communities.
This came after his endorsement for a bill
that deports foreigners who praise acts of terror,
even if it's only on social media.
For Scholz, a failure to implement more significant reforms
might go down in history as the beginning of his political end.
But there's also another side of this coin.
After migrants who entered in 2015, the employment rate is now
almost similar to that of other Germans,
and these figures are improving with every passing year.
Some studies show that immigration
to the EU increase Germany's GDP by over 1% per year.
These migrant communities
have created a larger consumer pool
and a higher demand for products.
The policies of merkel
have been successful in the sense that they have achieved
many of the goals that she set out to achieve.
But whether these aims are desirable is subject to opinion.
Germany is Europe's largest economy
and there centrally located on the continent.
How they choose to evolve their migration
policy will not only influence them,
but it will have a cascade effect across the continent.
So I'm personally a little bit
conflicted on the entire topic of migration.
And the reason for that is because I am a migrant.
I am a Dutch national
and living here in Spain, and my wife is a Mexican
and we have a baby together who's half Peruvian.
So that's exactly issue here.
The fact that you sympathize with a migrant community
doesn't mean that you cannot also be critical.
Take, for example, what's happening in Ukraine right now.
I see those images and I deeply sympathize with those people.
And I want to lend a helping hand.
But that doesn't mean that
I want to deny the fact
that taking in large numbers of asylum seekers or refugees
can also have negative consequences.
But that's often a taboo to speak about.
If you're interested in immigration and geopolitics,
consider watching one of these two videos next.