For 14 years whilst Syria’s brutal civil warfare raged, Germany supplied a protected haven for the ones fleeing the violence. Now, a yr after that war ended with the autumn of the Assad regime in December 2024, many in Germany – together with the rustic’s chief – need those self same Syrians long gone.
In November, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz introduced a debatable plan to deport Syrian refugees “in the near future.” He additionally steered the 1 million Syrians in Germany, maximum of whom are Muslim, to voluntarily go back.
This hardened stance towards Syrian refugees, expressed on the best degree of presidency, has been interpreted as Merz’s try to stave off Germany’s emerging far-right birthday party, the Selection for Germany (AfD). Within the February 2025 nationwide election, the AfD received virtually 21% of the vote, making it the second-largest birthday party within the parliament. The federal government’s perceived rationale is that during getting difficult on immigration, Merz will thieve one of the most thunder on a subject matter that has observed the AfD swell its beef up.
Alternatively, the truth is extra complicated. Racism and Islamophobia don’t seem to be purely far-right phenomena. Moderately, they have got been a part of mainstream German politics and society for many years.
As knowledgeable in German migration historical past and far-right extremism, I’ve studied the historical past of racism and Islamophobia in Merz’s personal birthday party, the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU). My contemporary e-book explains how the CDU used identical ways throughout the Nineteen Eighties to kick out any other workforce of predominantly Muslim migrants: Turks, who’re Germany’s biggest ethnic minority.
Paying Syrians to depart
Since Bashar Assad’s regime used to be toppled on Dec. 8, 2024, just about 1.5 million externally displaced Syrians have voluntarily returned to their house nation. That quantity accommodates about one-quarter of all those that have fled since Syria’s civil warfare started in 2011.
Alternatively, Syrian refugees in Germany had been reluctant to go back. Many have built-in into German society. About 15% have received German citizenship, and just about part of working-age Syrians are hired in Germany. Some 250,000 Syrian youngsters attend German faculties.
Supporters of the far-right Selection for Germany protest underneath the slogan ‘Zukunft Deutschland’ (‘Future Germany’) in 2018.
Kay Nietfeld/image alliance by the use of Getty Photographs
The global criminal concept of non-refoulement, which applies to German regulation, prohibits refugees from being forcibly returned to a rustic the place they face severe threats to their existence or freedom. As of December 2025, the United Countries Refugee Company nonetheless stresses that refugees must now not be pressured to go back to Syria.
In the meantime, an authentic German program that facilitates the voluntary go back of Syrians has been in impact since January 2025.
To steer Syrians to depart, Germany is now providing to pay them. Since January, Syrian refugees in Germany had been ready to use on-line for as much as US$4,650 (4,000 Euros) consistent with circle of relatives to lend a hand their voluntary go back. The monetary incentives are facilitated in the course of the German executive’s authentic program.
Different Ecu international locations, along side the Ecu Union and the U.N. Refugee Company, also are providing Syrians monetary incentives. A identical German coverage applies to different migrant nationalities.
A destroyed fatherland
Germany’s repatriation schemes have come underneath serious complaint from main human rights organizations like Amnesty World and Human Rights Watch.
For starters, critics say, the cash is some distance too meager to restart one’s existence in Syria. Monetary incentives can lend a hand with reintegration, however provided that they’re “robust and durable,” in keeping with the Migration Coverage Institute.
Additionally, two-thirds of other folks in Syria are depending on humanitarian assist. Over 7 million stay internally displaced, and plenty of Syrians would not have electrical energy, water, sanitation or scientific provides.
Many of us’s houses there are destroyed or mired in land disputes.
Syrian human rights activists have additionally argued that the rustic stays unsafe for spiritual minorities, girls and queer other folks.
Even German International Minister Johann Wadephul softened his stance after a consult with to Damascus on Oct. 30. “Here, hardly anyone can live a dignified life,” he mentioned.
Turks within the Nineteen Eighties: A identical coverage
This isn’t the primary time Germany has tried to pay migrants to depart. Within the Nineteen Eighties, Merz’s birthday party, the CDU, carried out a identical coverage towards Turkish migrants.
Thousands and thousands of Turks got here to West Germany within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies. The federal government officially recruited them as visitor staff to lend a hand rebuild Germany after Global Conflict II.
By way of the overdue Nineteen Seventies, they more and more introduced their spouses and youngsters, changing into Germany’s biggest ethnic minority.
In the meantime, racism and Islamophobia skyrocketed in Nineteen Eighties Germany — each at the some distance appropriate and within the middle.
Whilst neo-Nazis violently attacked Turks, Germans on both sides of the political spectrum argued that Islam used to be incompatible with Europe. This can be a view that 40 years on is being echoed via politicians at the appropriate each in Europe and within the Trump management.
Turkish visitor staff in West Germany close up forward of heading to their fatherland in 1984.
Henning Christoph/ullstein bild by the use of Getty Photographs
Kicking out the Turks
In that racist local weather, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who led the centrist CDU from 1982 to 1998, expressed his need to cut back the Turkish immigrant inhabitants via 50%.
However kicking out part of West Germany’s Turkish inhabitants used to be no simple feat — particularly given the sensitivities that also plagued a rustic scarred via Nazi atrocities and the genocide of Ecu Jews.
Within the post-war years, West Germany used to be determined to reestablish its recognition as a liberal democracy dedicated to human rights. As such, pressured deportations weren’t an possibility.
Kohl’s answer, a precursor to Merz’s, used to be to pay Turks to depart. In 1983, West Germany handed the debatable remigration regulation, which introduced Turks monetary incentives to voluntarily go back.
The 1983 regulation used to be broadly criticized via rights activists as a “kicking out policy.”
In the end, 15% of Turkish migrants — roughly 250,000 males, girls and youngsters — took the cash and left. It used to be one of the most biggest and quickest mass remigrations in trendy Ecu historical past.
Alternatively, returnees frequently confronted monetary and social hardship in Turkey. They struggled to reintegrate into the country’s then-flailing economic system. Many, particularly youngsters, have been ostracized as “Germanized Turks.”
Because the Turkish case displays, even a voluntary go back isn’t all the time a cheerful homecoming.
Will Germany deport Syrians?
Germany lately can not realistically be expecting massive numbers of Syrian refugees to just accept the monetary incentives. Amid the nonetheless ongoing humanitarian disaster of their house nation, they might face way more dire hardships than Turks did within the Nineteen Eighties.
If truth be told, handiest about 1,300 Syrians in Germany have voluntarily returned since Assad’s regime collapsed ultimate yr. This is simply 0.1% of Germany’s Syrian inhabitants.
Merz has already introduced that if Syrians refuse to depart, Germany will start deporting a few of them. He not too long ago invited Syria’s president to Germany to talk about deporting Syrians with prison information.
Different international locations have already begun deportations of Syrian nationals, together with Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, the international locations the place maximum Syrian refugees are situated.
Merz is, in fact, responding to actual political dynamics in Germany. The some distance appropriate is certainly emerging, which the middle has answered to via transferring additional appropriate. And as such, the truth that Merz’s birthday party is cracking down on migration must now not come as a marvel.
However lately, as prior to now, the reaction dangers pandering to racism and Islamophobia which were embedded in Germany’s mainstream. And Syrians, like Turks ahead of them, are stuck within the crossfire.
