Nowhere were they more commented upon and worried over than in Germany. But what was to happen developed against a backdrop that was far from propitious. An upsurge of migrants coming into Germany meant that already by 2014 immigration into the country had reached a twenty-year high. That year an estimated 200,000 people claimed asylum in the country. As a response some Germans began to feel security concerns and also identity concerns. How could Germany cope if it had to take in refugees and asylum seekers at this rate, on top of the decades in which the country had – like everyone else – already opened its borders to people who were honestly or otherwise admitted as guest-workers? What would be the likely impact on the country given that most of these new arrivals were also of the Muslim faith? During 2014 these often-uttered private concerns began to be voiced more loudly on the streets. A movement calling itself Pegida (People against the Islamisation of the Occident/West) began in Dresden and other German cities that objected to this upsurge in immigration.

In her New Year message on 31 December 2014 Chancellor Merkel singled out these movements for criticism. The German people, she insisted, must not have ‘prejudice, coldness or hatred’ in their hearts, as these groups did. Instead she urged the German people to a new surge of openness to refugees. She explained that wars and crises worldwide were creating ‘more refugees than we have seen since the Second World War. Many literally escaped death. It goes without saying that we help them and take in people who seek refuge with us.’ She also talked about Germany’s demographics and explained that with an ‘ageing population’ this immigration that many people were worried about would in fact prove to be ‘a gain for all of us’.1 The following May the Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière announced in Berlin that the German government was expecting 450,000 refugees to arrive in the country that year.