After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany reunified for a few brief decades, only to find itself partitioned once again. This time, not by barbed wire and concrete, but by three small words: “Wir schaffen das!” (We can do this!).
No words spoken this century have divided Germany more. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel used them to justify opening the country’s borders during the 2015 migration crisis — and to keep them open despite the backlash.
This polarized the nation, pitting open-borders progressives against those who feared the consequences of mass migration. It deepened regional divides, as cities welcomed the influx while rural and eastern areas resisted. And it marked a rupture in time, transforming Germany from what it was into what it became.
Before Merkel’s declaration, Germany was a relatively safe, high-trust, and politically stable nation. Then came 2015. As conflicts raged across the Middle East and North Africa, millions of asylum seekers — predominantly young men from failing or failed states — set their sights on Europe. A trickle became a flood, yet Merkel did not waver. She left Germany’s borders open, ultimately admitting 1.2 million migrants in what was, in effect, the most radical social experiment in the Federal Republic’s short history.
Since then, towns and cities have changed beyond recognition. While some migrants have successfully integrated, a third of the 2015 cohort from Africa and the Middle East remain unemployed. Official figures show such migrants are vastly overrepresented in violent crime, and a troubling pattern of mass attacks on civilians is emerging.
In just the past two months, deadly assaults by migrants in Munich, Aschaffenburg, and Magdeburg have left 10 dead and more than 340 injured — a grim echo of the broader surge in violent crime, disproportionately involving migrants, across Western Europe.
That such consequences were foreseeable is beyond doubt. But in the emotionally charged, self-congratulatory haze of Wir schaffen das!, the political class ignored the elephant in the room.
One can ignore reality, as Ayn Rand noted — but not the consequences of ignoring reality. And the consequences have now proved too much for the German public to stomach. Migration has overtaken the economy and defence spending as the number-one concern among voters.
The backlash has catapulted the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to unprecedented heights. A party once confined to the fringes — long ostracized for its far-right ties — is now poised to become the Bundestag’s second-largest force in Sunday’s election.
In response, Germany’s mainstream parties have clung to their so-called “firewall,” refusing to cooperate with the AfD in any form. But even this, one of postwar Germany’s most sacrosanct political principles, is beginning to crack.
Last month, Friedrich Merz, leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the likely next Chancellor, introduced tougher migration policies that passed with AfD support. The backlash was immediate. His opponents denounced him for breaking the firewall, but his response was defiant:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with the choice of continuing to watch helplessly as people in our country are threatened, injured, and murdered… or to stand up and do what is indisputably necessary.”
Merz has since ruled out further collaboration with the AfD, but the political calculus is shifting. His CDU is projected to win around 30 per cent of the vote, with the AfD at 22 per cent, and the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) trailing at 15 per cent. This means Merz will likely have to form a three-way coalition with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD and another smaller left-leaning party.
Here lies his Catch-22: if Merz maintains the firewall, he may preserve a fragile coalition — but at the cost of addressing migration, likely fuelling even greater AfD gains in 2029. If he brings the AfD further in from the cold, his coalition government could collapse — just as Scholz’s did last year.
Either way, the AfD wins.
The window for Germany’s centrists to prevail is closing fast. Merz, a former BlackRock executive, will need Bismarckian cunning to hold his coalition — and his country — together.
Merkel once declared, Wir schaffen das! But for Merz, the question now is: Can he?
Michael Murphy is a journalist based in London. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and presented the documentary ‘Ireland is full! Anti-immigration backlash in Ireland’. You can follow him on X: @michaelmurph_y.