Overwhelming

Germany is an immigration country. It's a country of hope for people from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Balkans. For people fleeing war, tyranny, torture, persecution, oppression, discrimination, poverty and hopelessness. They are fleeing in the hundreds of thousands, often risking their lives, and putting themselves at the mercy of criminal bands of human traffickers. And they are fleeing to a country where most people welcome them with empathy and exemplary generosity. It's emotionally overwhelming.

But it's overwhelming in other ways, too. None of the rules, laws, norms, or certainties seem to apply anymore. Reservations and worries are suppressed or cast aside. Germany is faced with the task of taking in 800,000 refugees - a task that must be regarded as an opportunity, not as a burden.

The new German virtue

Germans really do appear to be rising to the challenge and receiving the refugees with kindness and curiosity, not to mention an enormous willingness to help. It's almost with a sense of incredulity that we watch these new Germans, called on by Chancellor Merkel to exhibit a whole new German virtue: Flexibility. These are Germans who are able to go with the flow and make the best of things.

Where has this come from, this readiness to accept strangers and refugees without reservation, just like any other immigration country?

It is the legacy of the Third Reich, and the hundreds of thousands of Germans who were forced to flee and seek asylum in England, the United States, France, Switzerland, or Shanghai. It is the memory of the fate that awaited the many Germans who were unable to flee, and who, in their desperation, committed suicide, or who were arrested, deported and murdered.

Germany's social DNA

Germany's unique asylum law, which grants the right of asylum to victims of political persecution, has been anchored in our constitutional Basic Law precisely because of what happened during World War II. The right to asylum is not an act of mercy, but a legal and moral obligation. And although the asylum law was altered and attenuated 20 years ago, at its core, it is unchanged. It is part of Germany's political and social DNA.

The overwhelming majority of Germans believe in this moral obligation. For the country's leaders, it's a matter of course. A small minority is attacking and demonstrating against the refugees. Their actions are ugly, to be sure, but they remain a very small minority. And yet no one should assume that the welcoming majority will never feel overburdened. That empathy could morph into rejection. That's why politicians must finally take action. They need to say what they can do, and what they can't do, at both the national and at the European level. In the midst of this crisis, it's the state that appears to be overwhelmed - at least, much more so than its citizens.

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