German Benevolence Tested by Unrelenting Influx of Third World Refugees

While often sad, the migrant crisis is utterly fascinating in the end.

And note, this story's from over a month ago. With this last week's news of "biblical" incursions of migrants, German benevolence is being tested even more.

At Der Spiegel, "Testing the Limits: How Many Refugees Can Germany Handle?":

More Germans than ever before are at ease with themselves and their asylum-seekers. But this year the country is expecting to receive around 400,000 new refugees, a figure that raises the painful question: Can Germany's new welcoming culture handle it?

Anyone wondering about the state of the nation in Germany would be well advised to take a ride on the A33 highway and get off at the very last exit in Bielefeld, in northwestern Germany. The state of the nation is now encapsulated in a property in the city's Brackwede neighborhood. A few weeks ago, the name of the street would have been worth mentioning. But now it doesn't seem like a good idea.

The property is the site of a four-story addition with room for 200 asylum-seekers, complete with a dining room with floor-to-ceiling, soundproof windows and white-tiled bathrooms. Everything is state-of-the-art. The building even has the same kind of stand-up toilets made from stainless steel that are so often found in Mediterranean countries -- the kind your typical asylum-seeker from that region is accustomed to.
If ever a building epitomized Germany's architecture of goodwill or its welcoming culture for asylum-seekers, this is it. But it comes at a time when Germans' fears of that welcoming culture are also building. The new wing isn't finished yet. Completion is scheduled for Aug. 1. That's why for the past six weeks, security guards have been patrolling the construction site day and night, on the lookout for anyone trying to burn the place down before the first asylum-seekers can move in.

Jürgen Beier, the facility's manager, couldn't have imagined any of this a year ago, when the foundation was laid for the new addition to the existing refugee hostel. But today, in the summer of 2015, it's a different story with the number of people seeking asylum here rising sharply. It's not like anyone has sprayed graffiti on the walls or sent threatening letters. On the contrary, women from the local parish show up every day to play "Memory" and the beloved boardgame, "Sorry," with the refugee children.

But who knows what could happen now, what with arsonists active elsewhere in Germany and ordinary citizens filing lawsuits against new asylum hostels? Not to mention the good, old acquaintances of Beier's -- no, these people don't have a drop of xenophobic blood in them! -- who are suddenly asking him where all this is heading. Even the new facility, with its 200 beds, is far from enough, they say. What happens when more asylum-seekers turn up?

State of the Nation

This, it seems, is the state of the nation: a plot in Bielefeld where the most wonderful aspects of Germany are concentrated. There are people who are generous, who know they are fortunate -- at least more so than others. These are people who are determined to do everything right and to atone for Germany's sins, even 70 years later. They know that they owe something to their collective conscience, and that whenever they give something up, they also gain something in return. That something is the feeling of doing the right thing, the important thing.

But there is also the fear of being overwhelmed. It is the fear of people who are willing to give, but only to a point, only as long as it doesn't hurt them. People who are willing to share as long as they don't have to make sacrifices. And that, all generosity aside, is why so many people now feel that limits should be imposed on immigration. They may not know where these limits should lie, but they are convinced that they should exist.

So what is the state of the nation really? When it comes to refugees, it's a state of anxiety. In reality, it boils down to a question of how the growing influx of refugees and asylum-seekers adversely affects the Germans' relationship to these newcomers. The 400,000 asylum-seekers predicted to arrive this year will put Germany's new welcoming culture to the test. Can it endure? Can it survive?

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