Society
Pollster: The “German Angst” is back!
The Germans are Worried. In times of mass migration by refugees and asylum seekers grows the fear of change, according to the Demoskop Thomas Petersen in the DW interview.
DW: It is not so long ago, we were a selbstzufriedenes people without major social tensions. Peace was our trademark. This is suddenly different, why?
Petersen: I don’t know if peace will always be our trademark. Actually, that was our trademark, always restlessness, and it is rather unusual to have been that in the last years of the German after a while came to rest were, which previously had not been the case. The reason, why now the rest that we are still one year ago, not there anymore, it certainly has with the immigration wave to do. People are, of course, enormously concerned about the large number of refugees coming into the country, and have a bit of a fear that the familiar, safe world in which you have been, uncertain.
Befall us once again the German Angst? The term is not random international in circulation. We react to scary changes?
Previously I would have said Yes. I believe it is now no longer so. The population will react scared and confused, but not scary as the others. I do not believe that a comparable Situation in France or the UK do not also similar Concerns would trigger.
What worried the Germans on the Flüchtlingsaufnahme in a big way especially?
There is a General feeling that as the post to which you hold could suddenly not there anymore. There is a General feeling of uncertainty. I don’t think one really concrete. It is a strange feeling that the skins away swimming, and with einemmal you look uncertain in the future, because they are afraid that the situation is not calculable.
Thomas Petersen: The people are concerned
It is the fear of Terror or predominantly the concern of rising crime?
Putting it all together. Of course the people have now in light of recent events, also large fear of crime and a strong fear of terrorist attacks, but this is after major events, actually always so, so, this is nothing Unusual. Today, over 80% of the respondents indicated that they were afraid of the growing crime, of course, is an Echo of the events of Cologne on new year’s eve. But it’s not really. Behind this feeling of disorientation, the day-to-day goes.
Takes us just fear of the Future?
We are in the presence of disturbed, because we care about our future. With the present, the population is indeed reasonably satisfied. This is probably an essential core of the phenomenon at the time. If a person asks if, perhaps, you also see that in Germany everything goes well and it would be Best if nothing would change, then say very many: Yes. The concern is not that the present is somehow uncontrollable, but the concern is that in the future there will no longer manageable it could be.
Who is the prototype of the currently fearful German?
The tendency, on the Existing record, is getting stronger, the older people are. This is also understandable. Young are in doubt dynamically, you still want to achieve something. They are in many ways more flexible, and the older the people are, the more important is it to you that the Existing remains. This is typical for an aging society. An aging and affluent society is becoming more and more the Preserve of the Reached value set, and tends to be less and less to the Reach of the New.
Anxiety is known to be not a good adviser. The Fearful gathering just beyond the AfD. Changing the political parties are just fundamentally different?
You can’t tell yet. Currently benefits the AfD course of this uncertainty. Whether you are a permanent force in the political spectrum will remain, will depend on whether it succeeds, the refugee crisis in the handle to get and also the crises in Europe. If the population has the feeling that the government has made things somewhat in the handle, then I could imagine, that the agreement to AfD again low, and then it depends of course of the AfD itself, for example, from the inner-party development. There are many factors in the game. It is clear that the relative strength of the AfD is currently one of the day-to-day owed development.
Dr. Thomas Petersen, is a journalist and communication scientist at the Institute for Demokopie in Allensbach on lake Constance. He is the author of the current Allensbach study about the Germans and their fear of change.
The Interview was conducted by Volker Wagener.