Refugee and Asylum Policies in Germany

In the autumn of 1992, Helmut Kohl threatened to declare a state of emergency in Germany, a country which had enjoyed almost unbroken economic, social and political stability since its creation in 1949. Once before, in 1977, faced with terrorist attacks on the state itself, Helmut Schmidt had ‘thought the unthinkable’. Fifteen years later, what comparable threat menaced the Republic? Kohl warned of the ‘danger of a profound crisis of confidence in our democratic state’ as a result of the increase in the numbers of migrants, in particular asylum seekers, that had crossed ‘the threshold of our capacity’ (Der Spiegel 46/1992).1 The German state at this time was economically the strongest in Europe and it was one of the most politically stable, having had only six changes of government since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949.