Carl Jung wrote about German guilt after WWII. The term ‘Kollektivschuld’ came to symbolise the immense sense of guilt Germans felt after the Nazi atrocities of WWII. Central to this guilt ridden state, was a tormenting regret for the atrocities of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered. But no one could have predicted the long-term effects of German guilt on Germany’s immigration policy. Germany decided to form an immigration policy designed to relieve its collective guilt while renouncing a taboo subject, nationalism. With Merkel allowing in over one million Syrian immigrants, the Scholz government must pick up the pieces, and Germany must look to nationalism if it is to find its own identity amidst the crisis.
“I say quite simply: Germany is a strong country. The attitude with which we approach these things has to be: We have done so much—we can do this! We can do this, and where something stands in our way, it must be overcome; it must be worked on. The federal government will do everything in its power—together with the states, together with the municipalities—to achieve exactly that.”
Under Merkel, Germany accepted over one million immigrants from Syria into Germany.
Bashar al-Assad’s murder of thousands of his own people triggered the sensibilities of German guilt. Some estimates hold that Assad murdered 300,000 Syrians in order to quell the rise of democracy in Syria.
The Syrian people, much like the Jews of WWII, were massacred and millions were displaced as a result of the Syrian dictators aggressions against his own people.
The psychoanalysts would say that Merkel was seeking redemption for the errors of Germany’s past.
So it happened, Merkel brought in over one million Syrian immigrants and continually opposed German nationalism in all forms.
“Europe is our best chance for peace, prosperity, and a good future. We must not let this chance slide; we owe this to ourselves and to past and future generations. Nationalism and egoism must never have a chance to flourish again in Europe.”
Merkel was wrong. Bringing in over a million immigrants from the Third World spiked a rise in crimes across the nation. 41% of criminal suspects are ‘foreigners’ and 75% of victims are Germans. Sex crimes have risen by 2% as one third of suspects are foreigners. Home burglaries spiked by 18.9%, car theft by 17.5%, and shoplifting by 23.6%. Furthermore, 44% of all suspects in these crimes were foreigners.
Germany learned some valuable lessons. You cannot have unfettered migration from the third world, brining in millions of immigrants is not the answer to German guilt and furthermore, nationalism is vital to the lifeblood of the German nation.
In a state of frantic panic, the Scholz government has moved to address the immigration crisis. Scholz said, ‘Our shared goal is to push back irregular migration.”
But Scholz in in shambles. In a 2023 speech that should have been entitled ‘This is Germany’, Scholz instead delivered a speech in Strasbourg entitled, ‘This is Europe’, in which he reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to the EU.
That’s exactly where the problem lies. On one front, Germany remains blindly committed to the strength of the EU, while at the same time, Germany is also fearful of embracing any sense of national identity amidst the immigration crisis.
The AfD has been accused of harbouring ‘Nazi tendencies’. In an article entitled, ‘Germans thought they were immune to nationalism after confronting their Nazi past’. Kirsten Grieshaber of AP news wrote:
“Many Germans believed their country had developed immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority after confronting the horrors of its Nazi past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.”
Nationalism is not Nazism.
AfD party’s Beatrix Von Storch was asked in a BBC news night interview, “would you support a census to expel immigrant groups from Germany?” She replied, ‘Of course they should be expelled, if there are hundreds of thousands of legal migrants in our country, they should go voluntarily, but if they don’t do so, we have to force them to leave”.
German hesitation to embrace nationalism is based on a complex blend of German guilt and fear of a return to Nazism.
In his book, How to Be a Conservative, the late Roger Scruton wrote about how nationalism can fill a void in the absence of religion.
“Nationalism, as an ideology, is dangerous in just the way that ideologies are dangerous. It occupies the space vacated by religion, and in doing so excites the true believer both to worship the national idea and to seek in it for what it cannot provide—the ultimate purpose of life, the way to redemption, and the consolation for all of our woes.”
Scruton argued that ultimately nationalism is necessary to a nation state.
“For ordinary people, living in free association with their neighbours, the ‘nation’ means simply the historical identity and continuing allegiance that unites them in the body politic. It is the first-person plural of settlement. Sentiments of national identity may be inflamed by war, civil agitation, and ideology, and this inflammation admits of many degrees. But in their national form, these sentiments are not just peaceful in themselves, but a form of peace between neighbours.”
Germany can only move forward if it embraces a sense of nationalism. If Germany continues to tell itself the lie that any nationalist sentiments are dangerous then on what grounds can it claim there ought to be a standard of German culture to which immigrants should seek to assimilate?
The Scholz government made Germany’s immigration laws stricter in January 2024. But that won’t be enough; Germany needs to embrace what it fears most, a sense of national identity in the face of an immigrant invasion. It is not racist to deport illegal immigrants; it’s necessary.
