In Germany politicians did not need to be so explicit. All Germans listening would know precisely what it was that Angela Merkel was referring to during her big announcement of 31 August 2015 when she said, ‘The world sees Germany as a land of hope and chances. And that wasn’t always the case.’ It was a reference that resonated with them and which they felt was relevant. In those crucial days of late August there had been protests outside a refugee centre and an arson attack on a facility for migrants in the east German town of Heidenau. When the Chancellor subsequently appeared in town she was roundly booed and heckled by the crowds. Other Germans watched this in horror and were ready to act to show a different side of their country. In the first days of September hundreds of thousands of people were crossing from southern Europe up through Serbia, Hungary and Austria, and into Germany. And as the Chancellor threw her country’s doors open these countrymen took up the challenge. At the borders and at train stations like Munich and Frankfurt crowds of hundreds of people gathered to welcome the arriving migrants.

This footage went around the world. Here were crowds of Germans not merely offering assistance to the migrants as they arrived, but giving them what often looked like a welcome party. Migrants who had travelled across at least one continent looked dazed and often jubilant as they walked into crowds of Germans applauding and cheering them on all sides. The welcoming committees waved balloons and banners with slogans like ‘Welcome’ and ‘We love refugees’ on them. As the trains came into the stations and the migrants got off and went through the crowds some locals wolf-whistled and gave them high-fives. Human chains of volunteers handed out food and gifts, including sweets and teddy bears for the children. It was not just an expression of the Willkommenskultur (‘welcoming culture’) that Germany says it likes to practise. These migrants were not merely being welcomed. They were being celebrated, as though they were the local football team returning triumphant, or heroes returning from a war. Among the recipients of this greeting, some got into the spirit, raising their hands or punching the air as they passed through this guard of honour.

This spirit did not only affect Germans. People came from across Europe to take part in this effort and the historical parallels were explicit everywhere. Two students from Britain went to the Austrian-Hungarian border with a car to ferry migrants into Munich. Interviewed by the media one said, ‘We’re here because seeing scenes on television the thought belongs to the 1940s and because the historical parallels here are so reminiscent of things like the underground railway. And you just like to ask yourself what would you have done then, and I would like to say I would have helped, which is why we’re here today.’3