Following the release of figures which reveal almost four in ten children under five have foreign roots, Michael Paulwitz says the demographic change will be the death of Germany’s welfare state.
The journalist and historian predicts that “hard struggles” over resources will take place when ethnic Germans are a minority, and that native Germans “will inevitably lose out”.
Mr Paulwitz’ article follows the release on Friday of official figures from the Federal Statistics Office. While they show 21 per cent of the total population currently have a migrant background he notes that such people are disproportionately represented in the younger age cohorts.
One in three people aged under 18 who are resident in Germany have foreign roots, and the number jumps to 36 per cent among people under five.
This, he ominously points out, “allows one to appreciate where [Germany] is headed”. Mr Paulwitz points to the demographics of Berlin, where people with a migration background comprise 30 per cent of residents.
Mr Paulwitz also mentions that ethnic Germans are already minority in the district centre and many of the surrounding central districts.
With these trends in mind, he observes: “First in the cities, later throughout the country, ethnic Germans are to become a minority in their own city and in their own country.
“Will Germany still be, in the coming years and decades, the land of the Germans when immigration of people from non-European cultures continues at a high level?” Mr Paulwitz asks.
The historian writes that “one does not need much imagination to imagine how profoundly the population picture will change within the next two decades”.
He calls attention to the fact that in this timeframe many current pensioners will die and that the, mainly German lineage, cohort of 45 to 65 year olds — those “at the peak of their working lives” with regards to paying taxes — will have withdrawn from the workforce.
The demographic statistics for this year also show that people with foreign roots are twice as likely to be unemployed than Germans and are significantly more likely to have been educated to only a lower secondary school level, or have no education background at all.
Mr Paulwitz writes: “The social and redistributive state as we know it will no longer be affordable at its present level when the population is no longer dominated by ethnic Germans, and is a multicultural population mix.”
Collected in mid 2015, the Federal Statistics Office data fails to reflect the more than 1.6 million migrants who arrived in 2015 and the first half of 2016, or the huge number of estimated illegal immigrants living in Germany.
Mr Paulwitz points out that while Angela Merkel’s open door policy was a “dramatic escalation” of previous policies, even before she “opened the lock” a quarter of people aged between 15 and 45 had foreign roots in 2014.
He contends that these demographic trends can only increase as, “through family reunification, this number [1.6 million] is expected to at least double if not multiply”.
Furthermore he observes there is an “inexhaustible supply” of Arabs and Africans who want to move to Germany. The historian typifies them as “second, third and fourth sons” of families, who are “demanding” but “lack the education or drive to create their own wealth”.
Taking all of this into account, Mr Paulwitz diagnoses a grim future for Germany and its native population. He forecasts “hard struggles over resources will be the result” and contends that ethnic Germans are “pacified” and “ageing”.
Considering the huge number of people with foreign roots already present, their far higher fertility rate and no sign of an end to the country’s policy of importing hundreds of thousands of migrants a year, Mr Paulwitz says indigenous Germans “will inevitably lose out”. He also foresees that “the sexual assaults, a result of the surplus men imported, will increase”.
Mr Paulwitz concludes: “A government that decides to change the ethnic and cultural structure of the country without asking its people violates the principle of popular sovereignty, constitutional lawyer Dietrich Murswiek has said … It’s surprising that citizens have begun to fight it at the ballot, but more surprising is that so few are doing so.”