Strangers Like Us. Germans in the Search for a New Identity
Strangers Like Us. Germans in the Search for a New Identity

Author(s): Anna Kwiatkowska-Drożdż
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, Politics and religion, Politics and society, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Sociology of Religion, Politics and Identity
Published by: OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia
Keywords: AfD; national identity; refugees; migration; social and political crisis; German democracy;
Summary/Abstract: The sudden influx of more than one million refugees and migrants to Germany in late 2015 and early 2016 exacerbated the country’s social and political crisis. The latent, protracted dispute about the character of Germany as a migration state resurfaced with renewed force and will divide the German public for many years to come. The scale of this conflict resembles those with which the Germans had grappled for decades, concerning attitudes towards the past and German history, or the use of nuclear energy. There are many indications that this time the division will be longer-lasting and certainly deeper, since at the centre of the dispute is Germans’ sense of national identity. It can be assumed that of all the recent crises (starting from the financial crisis, through the Eurozone crisis and Brexit, to the war in Ukraine), it is this migration crisis that will engender the most conflicts in Europe, creating a toxic mix of identity problems. Those problems could also be dangerous for German democracy.

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