2025 German Federal Elections 🇩🇪

[Raze]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Come on, that's misleading, and you know it.

Foreign nationals made up 37.4% of crime suspects in 2022 despite being only 14.6% of the population, while 62.6% of suspects were German citizens. This clearly shows a higher per-capita crime suspect rate among non-Germans.

Let’s get the facts straight - this isn't about racism. Basic sociology explains a lot of it. 

Many migrants, particularly those fleeing conflict or economic hardship, face significant challenges - cultural adaptation, economic instability, and social isolation. In certain cases, frustration, especially among young men with limited opportunities, can escalate into violence. However, this is not inherently about ethnicity or religion - those explanations are often just post hoc rationalizations used by perpetrators to make sense of a psychological rupture and, of course, serve as convenient narratives for fascist agendas.

He said the majority. 

[TimStr]

On 20.2.2025 at 7:23 PM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I would love if more German users could give their perspectives.

What's the situation of the ground in the Fatherland. Why is the AfD so so popular, and with whom? Who are you going to vote for, and why?

German here. AMA, I will try my best to answer. (And thanks for caring!)

So generally, this election feels very very significant. People are caring and debating, the air is very charged and thats actually the good news, I would say! The people really think, that there is something at stake. So let me share a couple of points.

Things that concern voters the most in this election:

1) Economy
Many germans think, that their economy is in bad shape. The reality for many people here is, that rents and cost of living have risen. Many people blame this on the economic policy of the last coalition. It's hard to judge if this is overblown, because inflation in the last years was global and covid stimulus also backfired globally. Also, energy prises have skyrocketed because of the start of the ukraine war and sanctions on russian gas and because of the governments descision to transition to green energy. Yet, people look for someone to blame. They think, that the "Energiewende" is made on their backs and that the red-green coalition ruined the economy with their pro environmental policies, since there were deficiancies in the national budget. Many people feel like financing their life is getting harder and politicians promising a better economy sounds like an aid for that.

2) Migration
Germanys demographic has been shaped by Merkals liberal immigration laws and syrian and ukrainian refugees coming here. Since germanys burocracy is a hell of a nightmare, many foreign people have a really hard time to get their paperwork, especially non-german speakers. So he country struggles to properly integrate these people and is running into real issues. There have also been a couple of attacks on civilians like in Magdeburg and Solingen that were immediately exploited by all parties to push their points on migration before being properly investigated. So migrants are scapegoated and many people think that the country is in trouble because of mass migration and the social service these migrants get. Many also think that crime is on the rise because of this. There was a new, very recent study, that showed that it actually isn't [Tagesschau.de]. Still, this leads to many people leaning to more conservative policies on migration, despite, that germany is dependant on foreign workers to not suffer from the demographic overhang (see below).

3) War in Ukraine
I think, germans are really divided here. Left parties (Linke) are against supporting Ukrain and want to find peaceful solutions, center to left parties (Green and SPD) want to support Ukraine and center to right (CDU) as well. Exterme parties (AFD and BSW) are against ukraine support. So the whole political spectrum is really divided on this.
But since germany is part of NATO and has had years of underspending on militairy, contiuing the war would mean huge investments in the next couple of years. This again fules the economic concerns of many voters, as they see a continuing support for Ukraine as a drag on their wallet.

Some underlying dynamics:

1) Demographics:
There is a generational overhang in germany. The biggest generation, the boomer generation will retire in the next 5-10 years. This generation will leave the work force and get pension. Because of low birth rates, there is more pressure on younger generations, yet, their interests have less voting power, because there are just less voters in this generation. This means, that germany is at the risk of becoming a gerontocracy (a hegemony of the old).

2) Money and lobbyism in politics:
Allthough its not as extreme as in other countries, this is definately an issue. Parties have to disclose, who they are getting money from. And so far, its prohibited to recieve money from non-german funders. But there are still huge donations and corporate lobbyism.  Also, many of the heads of german parties have connection to industry and big money (eg. Friedrich Merz (CDU) to BASF and Black Rock[Correctiv.org] and Olaf Scholz (SPD) has been connected to CumEx tax crimes [tagesschau.de]).

3) Media and Social Media:
Overall, I feel like germany has some really solid media, sice some of them ARD, ZDF and a bounch of other news outlets are founded by Rundfunkbeitrag (basically public money that is not part of taxes, that should allow financing a media with no political interference). But social media is a nightmare and alternative news outlets have gained foothold among some groups of voters. The problem of information bubbles, alternative narratives "schwurbeln" and of fake news is real, though I would say its not as bad as in many other countries.

4) Infrastructure and "Schuldenbremse"
There is a constitutional law, that germany cannot surpass a new national debt of above 0.35% of the GDP. Though there are exeptions to this for natural disasters and some other things, most economic experts see this as highly problematic and as a hurdle for much needed investments eg. in public infrastructure, education and the public sector. Yet many older people think that getting rid of Schuldenbremse would basically eat away their pension fund, so the conservatives (CDU) want to keep it in place.

5) A general lack of visionairy leadership
Especially in this election, most parties and candidats are just fighting for votes. There are few to almost none politicians, that actually offer a realy vision for germany as the impactful political heart of the EU, that it could be. And voters are usually very concerned with their personal needs, so these reactionairy populist campains gain a lot of foothold.

About the AFD:

The AFD has ties to actual Nazis[Correctiv.org] and some AFD members are under constant observation by the "Verfassungsschutz" (basically, germanys FBI). They are also actively trying to undermine democratic instruments, as they did in the hometown of my parents, where there was extreme lobbying and misinformation for a "Bürgerentscheid" (referendum) on constructing a small wind park. Most of their leaders are also blatantly out of touch with consensus reality and attack the media as biased, when being fact checked. Also, their economic policy would be the worst, that germany had for decades and would weaken the country massively. So basically, they should be ineligible.

BUT (and this is a really big but): There is a significant chunk of voters, that feel like their voice is not being heard within all this and that their past vote didn‘t have any impact. We call it "Politikverdruss". (Yes, we have a word for everything.) They feel like what their country needs most is a anti establishment party. I would say that a good chunck of AFD voters vote for this reason. They are probably not overtly racist or fascist, but they would be fine with supporting structural racism if it serves their personal agenda.
In general, if you want to support corruption, this party is the real deal!! This is also why Musk and Vance like to flirt with them. Because getting them to power would hugely destabilize germany and europe as a whole, which is of interest for US and russion oligarchy.

There has been an agreement in the past by all the other parties to not work together with the AFD. Though this agreement was undermined by the CDU a couple of weeks ago, when they proposed a migration policy with the intention to gain AFD support in the Bundestag. This created massive backlash and some of the biggest protests in the last years (which is good.) But it still feels like doing policy with the AFD is beginning to be normalized.

How I vote:

I will vote for "Die Linke" (the Left Party). This party is the only one that has a quite consistent pedigree of keeping up to their political program. They are also the party that historically take the least money from private donors. Though I disagree with a couple points of their program I support the majority of their policy. So despite those one or two things, that I don't agree with, I decide to vote for them because they are the party with the highest integrity, which is my main criteria for voting.
Though they are historically a opposition party, I feel, they are much needed in the Bundestag to balance far right. Also, they had a quite successful campain in the last weeks. There is actually a rule in the german voting system, that excludes parties from the Bundestag that are below 5% (except for direct mandates) and the left party was below that up to a couple weeks ago. Now they poll at about 7-9%.

Hope this helps someone here out. As I said, feel free to ask if you want to have more details.

[TimStr]

On 20.2.2025 at 11:08 PM, Contrast said:

Here is my assessment of the parties spiral dynamics stages:

AfD: Pure Blue, and maybe with a bit of Red

CDU: a mix of mostly Blue and Orange

FDP: Pure Orange

Greens: Green (duh), and maybe with a bit of Yellow

Linke: Pure Green

BSW: Green and Orange (i think???)

SPD: Yellow and Green

I would say, this looks overrated.

I don't see any stage Yellow in german politics, currently. Maybe some individual people, but definately not whole parties.

[Schizophonia]

19 hours ago, Raze said:

False,

“The latest German Police Crime statistics (PKS), relating to 2022 show that the overall number of crime suspects rose by 10.7% compared to 2021. Out of the 2,093 782 crime suspects, over a million (1,309 906) had German citizenship”

These are people who are naturalized or have the right of the soil, It is fortunate that undocumented immigrants alone are not responsible for most crimes.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Lol.

You don't have to argue that point. We have a real world example - Britain.

Inflation in the UK is an independent consequence of Brexit.

There is a big inflation all over Europe.

Btw it was not Farage who had the power during all this time.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

People who actually have to interact with those systems. Aka - the productive part of society. 

Do you have any idea how much easier logistics within Europe are compared to moving goods to other countries? This affect literally all the shit that you buy and take for granted.

This is completely false lol.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

And that's just one example. 

Do you know that most truck drivers in Europe are from the Eastern Europe? And that without that delivery rates would probably double and there would be a crazy truck / driver shortage, making it really hard to move anything?

Again, you are implying that France would be autarkic without the European Union, which makes no sense.

What is true, however, is that European legislation allows the employment of workers posted from Eastern Europe by French companies; You could actually have a real left-wing critique and target that it is a way for those who hold the capital to hire cheaper staff.
I have tons of examples around me even though I'm not a sociable person at all; especially in real estate and construction, transportation too.; It is not due to a lack of means, it is really due to greed.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Do you know how many German firms have their factories in other European countries?

Ditto

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Do you know how many people live in Germany, because its cheaper, but go to work in Luxemburg?

Ditto + people should support their country's national economy.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Other big players in the world, whose economies and militaries actually matter. Like the US, and China.

The European Union is useless in protecting European soft power; literally useless.

19 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Sure, lol.
 

[Raze]

44 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

These are people who are naturalized or have the right of the soil, It is fortunate that undocumented immigrants alone are not responsible for most crimes.

Not true, that was citizens and non citizens, non citizens aren’t all undocumented. The vast majority of citizens are white. Also many of the non-citizens are also white, for example Romanians.

[Schizophonia]

4 hours ago, Raze said:

Not true, that was citizens and non citizens, non citizens aren’t all undocumented.

By undocumented I was counting all those who do not have the right to permanent residence/nationality; It has no importance since it only takes 3 years to obtain nationality in Germany, 1 year with marriage and there is the right of the soil.

Racial statistics are illegal in Europe, but if you look at the ethnic-cultural profile of criminals in the media and prison (everyone in France is summoned once in their life to be part of a jury of citizens drawn at random in a trial, with equal weight to the judge, I don't know if it's the same elsewhere but it dates back to the French Revolution) you will see that these are essentially non-white people.

And once again as @Nilsi said, and as I have already said in other topics the problem is certainly not racial in base but rather sociological.

4 hours ago, Raze said:

The vast majority of citizens are white.

Precisely lol.

And how do you know that? There are no racial statistics in Germany.

4 hours ago, Raze said:

Also many of the non-citizens are also white, for example Romanians.

Who cares about the Romans, there are few Romanian migrants in Germany. It is as relevant as talking about Italian migrants in France or Polish migrants in Great Britain.

[oldhandle]

444,000 Italians live in France and 696,000 Poles live in UK

Edited 14 hours ago by oldhandle

[oldhandle]

The Polish language is the second-most spoken language in England and the third-most spoken in the UK after English and Welsh.

About 5.5 million French nationals are of Italian origin, corresponding to about 8% of the total population. According to data for 2021, the number of Italian citizens residing in France was 444,113.

[Schizophonia]

3 minutes ago, oldhandle said:

470,000 Italians live in France and 696,000 Poles live in UK

They are white, christian, and are underrepresented in crimes, and these are significantly low numbers in proportion according to total population. 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

By undocumented I was counting all those who do not have the right to permanent residence/nationality; It has no importance since it only takes 3 years to obtain nationality in Germany, 1 year with marriage and there is the right of the soil.

Racial statistics are illegal in Europe, but if you look at the ethnic-cultural profile of criminals in the media and prison (everyone in France is summoned once in their life to be part of a jury of citizens drawn at random in a trial, with equal weight to the judge, I don't know if it's the same elsewhere but it dates back to the French Revolution) you will see that these are essentially non-white people.

And once again as @Nilsi said, and as I have already said in other topics the problem is certainly not racial in base but rather sociological.

Precisely lol.

And how do you know that? There are no racial statistics in Germany.

Who cares about the Romans, there are few Romanian migrants in Germany. It is as relevant as talking about Italian migrants in France or Polish migrants in Great Britain.

There are nearly 1 million Romanians in Germany 

Only 35% of Germany’s prison population is foreign 

If racial statistic are illegal, where is your proof non-whites do most crime in Germany 

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Raze

[Nilsi]

6 minutes ago, Raze said:

There are nearly 1 million Romanians in Germany 

Only 35% of Germany’s prison population is foreign 

If racial statistic are illegal, where is your proof non-whites do most crime in Germany 

 

Again, you seem to lack a basic understanding of statistics.

When foreigners make up 14.6% of Germany’s general population but 35% of the prison population, it clearly indicates that foreigners are disproportionately represented in prison.

This isn’t racism - it’s just basic statistical reasoning

[Raze]

17 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Again, you seem to lack a basic understanding of statistics.

When foreigners make up 14.6% of Germany’s general population but 35% of the prison population, it clearly indicates that foreigners are disproportionately represented in prison.

This isn’t racism - it’s just basic statistical reasoning

And you seem to lack reading comprehension. As I already said, that wasn’t the claim made.

On 2/21/2025 at 8:20 AM, Schizophonia said:

Yes, the majority of crimes come from non-white people whether they have nationality or not; Germans also do not want to be ethnically replaced.

He said the majority. That’s what I’m disputing.

Edited 12 hours ago by Raze

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

There are nearly 1 million Romanians in Germany 

Again, this is barely more than 1% of the total German population and it is a close ethnocultural population anyway.
And even, you can easily and quickly become a naturalized German, so the notion of illegal immigrants is not relevant.

1 hour ago, Raze said:

Only 35% of Germany’s prison population is foreign 

Lol this is literally huge.

1 hour ago, Raze said:

If racial statistic are illegal, where is your proof non-whites do most crime in Germany 

 

I've already explained it.

[Raze]

43 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Again, this is barely more than 1% of the total German population and it is a close ethnocultural population anyway.
And even, you can easily and quickly become a naturalized German, so the notion of illegal immigrants is not relevant.

That’s irrelevant to my point.

43 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

 

Lol this is literally huge.

So it’s not the majority like you claimed.

43 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

I've already explained it.

No you didn’t. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Raze

[Schizophonia]

3 minutes ago, Raze said:

That’s irrelevant to my point.

So it’s not the majority like you claimed.

For the 10th time I am not talking about foreigners in the strict sense of the term but also and especially about people who have immigrated and adopted German nationality or people born to these people on German territory.
If already 35% of crimes are committed by illegal immigrants then imagine the waves of naturalized migrants and their children who are obviously much more numerous.

3 minutes ago, Raze said:

No you didn’t. 

I had, read again my previous posts.

Go to a prison if your country has the system of randomly selected judges that I described, or just look at the news stories, the ethno-cultural profile of those involved.

 

[Jannes]

18 hours ago, TimStr said:

How I vote:

I will vote for "Die Linke" (the Left Party). This party is the only one that has a quite consistent pedigree of keeping up to their political program. They are also the party that historically take the least money from private donors. Though I disagree with a couple points of their program I support the majority of their policy. So despite those one or two things, that I don't agree with, I decide to vote for them because they are the party with the highest integrity, which is my main criteria for voting.
Though they are historically a opposition party, I feel, they are much needed in the Bundestag to balance far right. Also, they had a quite successful campain in the last weeks. There is actually a rule in the german voting system, that excludes parties from the Bundestag that are below 5% (except for direct mandates) and the left party was below that up to a couple weeks ago. Now they poll at about 7-9%.

Hope this helps someone here out. As I said, feel free to ask if you want to have more details.

Thanks, that was a good read! 

Also German here. I am not that deep into politics so I am a bit late trying to make sense of it all. 

I See that Die Linke puts the most effort into wealth distribution (in favor of the poor) which is huge and I would love to vote for them because of it. But in terms of foreign policy they are against funding Ukraine in war, against NATO and want to shrink the military, that just seems so hippie-braindead to me especially with unreliable support from US. What are your thoughts on that?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

46 minutes ago, Jannes said:

I See that Die Linke puts the most effort into wealth distribution (in favor of the poor) which is huge and I would love to vote for them because of it. But in terms of foreign policy they are against funding Ukraine in war, against NATO and want to shrink the military, that just seems so hippie-braindead to me especially with unreliable support from US. What are your thoughts on that?

If I may add my input as an American.

The Ukraine cause and war is rapidly coming to an end. Germany was never the forefront of aid to Ukraine, it was always America. The war was always hinged on American support, and now that American support, and this war, is coming to an end.

No matter what Linke's foreign policy is, that doesn't change the face that Linke is the only party right now fighting for the working class and SPD has been thoroughly corrupted by neoliberalism. 

[Raze]

2 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

For the 10th time I am not talking about foreigners in the strict sense of the term but also and especially about people who have immigrated and adopted German nationality or people born to these people on German territory.
If already 35% of crimes are committed by illegal immigrants then imagine the waves of naturalized migrants and their children who are obviously much more numerous.

I had, read again my previous posts.

Go to a prison if your country has the system of randomly selected judges that I described, or just look at the news stories, the ethno-cultural profile of those involved.

 

I said 35% are foreign period, that includes legal immigrants.

Also not all foreign prisoners are non-white, many are Russians or Poles.

No you didn’t. I posted a stat that the large majority of crime is committed by German citizens, you just said it’s easy to be naturalized in Germany and the citizens can be non-white. That doesn’t prove the majority of citizens committing crime are non-white.

Random news stories or courts aren’t proof because it’s a small sample.

Where is your proof that the majority of crime is done by non-whites?

Edited 8 hours ago by Raze

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

If I may add my input as an American.

The Ukraine cause and war is rapidly coming to an end. Germany was never the forefront of aid to Ukraine, it was always America. The war was always hinged on American support, and now that American support, and this war, is coming to an end.

No matter what Linke's foreign policy is, that doesn't change the face that Linke is the only party right now fighting for the working class and SPD has been thoroughly corrupted by neoliberalism. 

It's uncertain how the Russian-Ukraine war will end and when it will end in some way it might be important to protect boarders. Also without US support NATO seems pretty unprotected. Die Linke wants to cut military spending - that I think is a very bad idea. 

Yes that Die Linke wants to redistribute wealth in favor of the working class is great, I agree completely with you on this point! 

If you want to vote tactically though its unlikely that they get into the coalition because the CDU doesn't want to work with them but the CDU has so many votes there is no way around building a coalition with them. Die Grüne is also for the working class, a lot less moderate then Die Linke though but they want to increase military spending which seems necessary and they have higher chances to get into the coalition. My heart is with Die Linke but I dont know if it's the best choice.