On Germany's immigration debate

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Img: Steffen Prößdorf, CC BY-SA 4.0.

If Germany were a person, I’d say she seems permanently on edge these days. Every utterance has the potential to ignite the powder keg of public discourse. This week, an explosion of outrage was sparked by a single sentence Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a press conference.

The comment in question is hard to translate. But let me try. It’s worth it. The acrimonious debate his remarks triggered reveals a lot about the fragility of societal consensus, not just in Germany but across the West.

Here is what happened last week: Merz was asked by journalists about the growing support for the AfD (which is leading in many polls). Among other things, he explained, his centrist coalition was trying to combat this with a more uncompromising stand on illegal immigration. The sentence that caused the debate was: “But in Germany, we still have this problem in the townscape.”

Then he left that statement hanging. But who or what was “this problem”, and what exactly did he mean by “townscape”? The German word he used was “Stadtbild”, which refers to the impression residents and visitors have of a town or a city. The word describes more than streets and buildings. It’s about people and atmosphere, too. It's about how a place feels.

Put it all together, and Merz was effectively saying that uncontrolled immigration has caused a “problem” in the way places in Germany look and feel. That sentiment, combined with the vagueness in which he shrouded it, proved a potent mixture.

Some interpreted it as referring to the visible presence of migrants or non-white people in public spaces. Others thought it pointed to social disorder, crime, groups of young men gathering or a general feeling of insecurity. Still others believed he was hinting at a loss of cultural familiarity or social cohesion in German cities. Many also read it as a statement intended to resonate with voters who are sceptical about migration, i.e. voters who may have turned to the AfD.

A tidal wave of public protest followed, complete with street demonstrations and a social media storm. There is barely a politician who hasn’t commented on it. Heidi Reichinnek from the far-left Die Linke accused Merz of “sheer racism”. He was also attacked by the Greens and by his coalition partners, the Social Democrats. Even some people in his own conservative camp were critical, though most backed him.

On the other hand, a representative survey found that only a third of participants considered Merz’s Stadtbild comment “xenophobic”, suggesting he may have reason to believe there is widespread, if largely silent, consent.

The case is a remarkable study in how pent-up social and political tensions find their vents when there is no room for debate. In and of itself, there is nothing new here. Merz is a conservative, centre-right politician, and as such, he says conservative, centre-right things.

His party promised in its manifesto to “stop illegal migration”, arguing that “immigration is too high and no longer manageable” and that “a strict limitation of immigration is urgently necessary.” People on the left disagree with this, and that’s par for the course in any democracy, especially one confronted with seismic changes.

Merz has also previously said plenty of things that were more explicit than the sentence last week. A couple of years ago, he triggered a debate when he said that failed asylum seekers stayed in the country and “sit at the dentist’s, getting their teeth done while German citizens next door can’t get an appointment.”

Another time, Merz talked about “law-free” areas that had developed in cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Leipzig and that female teachers were challenged by migrant fathers when they told off “their sons, the little pashas”. There are countless examples of Merz’s views on immigration, and last week’s utterance was by no means the most explicit.

Nor was what he said racist. Merz spoke in the context of his Interior Minister finding ways of deporting more people from Germany who have no legal right to be in the country. That’s what his party promised voters it would do. In that context, references to “problems” in Germany’s townscapes are references to a specific form of migration and some of its consequences. Agree or disagree with that, but seeing it as a racist remark is speculation.

Nonetheless, the deliberate ambiguity of Merz’s words created room for people far to the right of him to agree with him — and for people to the left to fear just that. That was part of the reason for the enormous backlash. By not defining what or who he saw as “problems” in Germany’s “Stadtbild”, he’s left gaps for everyone to fill, especially when such words come from the chancellor. As such, they exacerbate the heat of the debate and make it even more challenging to talk constructively.

Crucially, Merz’s remarks hit a raw nerve in German society. The country has seen very high levels of immigration in recent years. Around 30% of the population now has what the official statistics call a “migration background” – around half of that number consists of German citizens, the other half has no German passport. In 2014, the total number was 20%. What this rapid increase means for society, religion, politics, culture, public safety, language, education, housing, the economy and the Stadtbild has never been systematically debated. Many conservatives fear a backlash when they speak about these things in public. Many progressives believe that any discussion of immigration-related issues will fuel the rise of the AfD and is therefore best avoided.

Merz now raises this significant and emotive issue in a way that enables everyone to project their own hopes and fears onto the debate. He has so far shown no desire to specify or explain the remark. Asked in another press conference to clarify it, he just said: “Ask your daughters what I meant,” a phrase that, if anything, added another layer of suggestion without explanation.

Still, what Merz said was neither especially original nor unusually provocative for a centre-right politician, particularly in a European context where migration and urban change are high on the agenda. Merz has made no secret of his desire to win back disaffected voters while retaining a combative stance towards the AfD. The Stadtbild remark attempts to walk that line: it signals toughness, concern and cultural anxiety but avoids specifics.

This kind of strategic ambiguity has become increasingly common in political speech. It allows politicians to connect with certain emotional or cultural undercurrents without being pinned down to concrete statements or targets. But it also carries risks. The more open-ended the phrase, the more it becomes a vessel for wider frustrations about landscapes, identity, class and belonging.

Ultimately, the debate says less about Merz himself than about the social climate he’s speaking into. Germany is grappling with the questions of how much change is too much and what integration entails. The phrase “problem in the Stadtbild” struck a nerve precisely because it left everyone to assume it confirmed what they already feared. The response, in turn, revealed something rather volatile: a country that still hasn’t found a way to talk about immigration.