AS war in Syria raged and thousands of refugees headed for the German border, Chancellor Angela Merkel famously insisted in 2015: “We can do this.”
Hundreds of locals gathered at train stations across Germany to welcome the newcomers with heartfelt cheers, gifts of flowers, food and toys for children.
Chiming with the spirit of the times, brash German tabloid Bild launched the campaign “We help — #refugeeswelcome”.
Its Sunday edition Bild am Sonntag devoted seven pages to celebrities such as footballer Lukas Podolski and the rock band Scorpions’ lead singer Klaus Meine mobilising “against refugee hate”.
Buoyed by Merkel’s warm words, some 1.1million asylum seekers headed for Germany that year alone.
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Yet now, with Berlin’s powerhouse economy faltering and anti-immigration far-right party Alternative for Germany surging in the polls, Bild has performed a “reverse ferret”.
Under the headline “Germany, we have a problem!”, Bild am Sonntag published a highly controversial 50-point manifesto outlining “house rules”.
With a photo of what it said were pro-Palestinian rioters in Berlin, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper wrote: “In our country, there are many people who oppose our way of life.”
The paper said “there are two words” more important than Merkel’s “We can do this”.
The editorial thundered: “They are: ‘Never again’! And ‘Never again’ is now! They mean: Never again anti-Semitism in Germany, never again tyranny and racism.”
Racist insinuations
Like Britain, Germany has experienced a surge in anti-Semitic hate since the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel.
Last week it was revealed there had been an average of 29 anti-Semitic incidents per day in Germany since the outrage, an increase of 320 per cent compared to the same time period in 2022.
In October, 65 police officers were injured when a pro-Palestinian march in Berlin turned ugly.
The same month, two masked people fire-bombed a Berlin synagogue.
In Giessen, in Germany’s south west, two men forced their way into an Israeli’s home and pulled down an Israeli flag flown from a window, while the Star of David was daubed on homes in Berlin, which was chillingly reminiscent of Germany in the Thirties.
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Bild’s editors wrote that their manifesto was aimed “not only to the unbear- able supporters of Hamas terror, but also to left and right-wing radical violent criminals or hooligans”.
Its editorial contin- ued: “Since 2015 alone, our country has taken in more than three million refugees.
“However, the photos on these pages show that we haven’t managed to make clear what we expect from everyone who wants to live in this country with us. That we do not want to change our way of life just because we have guests.”
Among the manifesto points were: “For us, there are no infidels! Everyone can believe in whatever they want — even Santa Claus.”
Another read: “We don’t see social services as employers but as institutions that help people in financial need, people who can’t work. Not people who don’t want to.” While a third said: “Beer and wine are part of our culture here. Respect it, and if you don’t want to drink, don’t.”
A further comment was: “Men are allowed to love men and women women. Whoever has a problem with that is the problem himself.”
The manifesto was labelled “crackpot” by English language magazine Exberliner.
The Berlin-based publication said Bild bosses were “posturing as defenders of liberal freedoms in order to make a bunch of racist insinuations about Arab immigrants”.
It said examples of this from the manifesto were “Many Germans eat pork” and “Women who have affairs are not ostracised, let alone beaten or stoned!”
The manifesto sparked fury online, with one social media user calling it a “summary of German racism to come in one badly written text”.
This poster added: “This is terrifying for any migrant in Germany and should be equally terrifying for any white person who has learned anything from the history of fascism.”
When I contacted Bild this week, it pointed me to politicians, activists and readers who had responded positively.
A spokesman said the plan “addressed an important topic that concerns people in Germany”.
Bild editors pride themselves on tapping into the national mood.
Selling more than a million copies a day, making it Europe’s best-selling newspaper, a further 25million visit its website each month.
Politicians eagerly scour its pages and seek its backing.
Among those responding to Bild’s manifesto was activist and author Seyran Ates, 60, who said Germany has a “big problem with people who live here and hate the country”.
While Josef Schuster, 69, President of the Central Council of Jews, told Bild that anti-Semitism was being seen “openly on the streets, in lecture halls and theatres”.
And Germany’s Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, 44, told the newspaper: “I have been warning about disorderly immigration to Germany since 2016.”
The newspaper, and many of the nation’s politicians, appear to be reacting to changing public opinion.
An Ipsos poll found that 48 per cent of Germans believe the country should stop accepting any refugees, up from 32 per cent last year.
Danielle Kasparick, a migration policy researcher at the University of Hildesheim, said: “Germany had the feeling that, due to our history, we have more of an obligation to help those in danger by their governments.
“I would say that sentiment is starting to erode.”
That mood has translated to the ballot box, with the anti-immigration AfD polling at a record 21 per cent — ahead of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre left Social Democratic Party.
More than 322,000 migrants requested asylum in Germany last year, second only to the US globally.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said recently that the number of migrants had pushed it to “breaking point”.
While, astonishingly, even the German Green Party in Scholz’s governing coalition have called for a crackdown on illegal asylum seekers.
Green co-chair Ricarda Lang demanded the Government “finally make progress on repatriation agreements” so deportations could take place and added the administration must act “to avoid more and more people arriving”.
Governments across Europe who failed to act on their electorates’ fears over migration have been punished at the ballot boxes.
In the famously liberal Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Party for Freedom topped General Election results last month.
The hard right can boast a prime minister in Italy — Giorgia Meloni — while Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is heading polls in France.
In Britain, Tory bigwigs are nervously eyeing Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, with support rising to around eight per cent.
With far-right parties making gains in Germany, Chancellor Scholz has been spurred into action.
Border checks have been reinstated, which slashed unauthorised entries by more than 40 per cent in a month, while last month Scholz promised to examine deals similar to the UK’s much-maligned Rwanda policy.
The Chancellor also agreed to cut benefits for asylum seekers to relieve the strain on local authorities.
Retired German constitutional court judge Hans-Jürgen Papier said the EU and successive German governments had buried their heads in the sand over migration.
He added: “The population was always largely aware of this. But politicians have suppressed the problem for a long time, kept it quiet.
“Only now, under the renewed pressure of the numbers and the influx of extremist parties, have people finally, finally woken up.”
Bild will believe it has done its bit to awaken the German political class from its slumbers.
