Chancellor Merz’s recent statement that there is still “a clear problem in the German urban landscape due to immigration” and that deportations are already taking place has caused something that doesn’t happen often in the country of nearly 84 million people and the huge diversity among the federal states: a single issue dominating the public debate. For days. But not because it touched on a common truth, but because the wording was highly problematic. Speaking about the “image” of cities referring to immigration, Friedrich Merz divided an entire country with a dangerous rhetoric. That immigrants “spoil” the image of German cities.

The “daughter” Merkel

Asked by a journalist a few days later if he could explain in more detail exactly who he was referring to, the German chancellor did not clarify anything, nor did he make any distinction. He replied to “ask their daughters, to understand” who he means. Thousands of “daughters” took to the streets to protest the exploitation of women’s fear in immigration policy. They called on Mertz not to victimize women and asked him to address the real problems of the cities. And among other things: to apologize.

Mertz did not apologize. He did something else. Or at least he tried. To clarify and differentiate which immigrants he ultimately meant. A week after his initial statements in Potsdam, Brandenburg on “urban landscape”, from the stage of the Western Balkans Summit in London, he emphasized yesterday that Germany needs immigrants.

“There is no way we can do without them, whatever their origin, whatever the color of their skin, whether they have been living and working in Germany since the first, second, third or fourth generation,” he said. One word is perhaps more impressive: “any more”.

Speaking of the power of words, Germany’s perhaps best-known “daughter” comes to mind.

“Watch your language,” Angela Merkel said in 2020 during a speech. “Because language is, in a way, the preform of action. And when the language goes downhill, the action very quickly follows, and then violence is not far away.”

Migration “pedestal”

Many German residents, immigrants, but especially the children of immigrants born in Germany, take Merz’s generalized statements as a personal insult.

In Germany, the term “migration background” (Migrationhintergrund) has been used for years as a more politically correct term. Regardless of the person’s nationality or place of birth. A well-known example: journalist Linda Zervaki. Daughter of Greek Gastarbeiter, born and raised in Hamburg. Zervaki has stated in the past that it was always clear to her that Germany was her homeland. In 2013, she engaged more intensively with the issue of identity and origin, when she became widely known as “the first presenter of the main Tagesschau newscast with an immigrant background”.

The term “background” creates an implication that some belong “less”. And this in a country where immigration – not only in terms of demographics, but also the economy – is a “pedestal”, not a “background”.

Islam, the elephant in the urban landscape

The “little pasades” originating mainly from Arab countries, who according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz “respect nothing and do not integrate into society”, are the result of a policy of neglect and marginalization.

The Greek Minister of Immigration and Asylum Thanos Pleuris, for his part, attributed the difficulties of integrating immigrants in Greece to values ​​and religious factors, emphasizing that Islam remains, as he said, “the elephant in the living room” of European identity.

Before the election, Mertz was calling for “more Sauerland for Germany”. However, Germany cannot and should not become a Sauerland. “And that’s okay”, as the former mayor of Berlin, Klaus Vovereit, had characteristically said when he “outed” that he was gay in 2001. Because simply Berlin has different problems than any Sauerland. Because the people of Niederheimer, Merz’s hometown, are “bothered” by completely different issues than people in the German capital.

There is no doubt that there are issues of security and social cohesion, especially in large urban centres, but it is dangerous to attribute these problems solely to immigration.

The urban landscape is a synthesis of many factors. Let alone in cities like Berlin or Frankfurt. In the second, an ancient Greek saying adorns the characteristic bridge in the center of the city, thus underlining its multiculturalism:

“Now they pour wine on other people.”