“Merkel promised ‘We can do this.’ She never asked if we should—or if we could.”
- Adaptation-Guide
Chancellor Merz contradicts Merkel: 'In many ways, Germany didn't make it' | DW News
“We Can Do This”: Germany’s Grand Self-Deception and Its Explosive Consequences
Ten years later, the smoke is still rising over Angela Merkel’s wreckage. The question is: can Germany still be saved—or is it already too late?
Back in August 2015, Angela Merkel uttered the now-infamous words:
“Wir schaffen das” – “We can do this.”
With that, she opened Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and war refugees.
It was hailed as a moral triumph by the chattering classes, the liberal media, and corporate elites. A decade later, the verdict is in:
Germany didn’t “do this.”
Instead, it has become poorer, more divided, and less secure—on the streets and in its trust in the state.
This isn’t right-wing propaganda. This is hard data, bitter truth, and the price of political arrogance wrapped in a sentimental slogan.
The Myth of the Great Integration
Fast forward ten years:
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Over 6 million migrants entered Germany in the past decade.
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490,000 Syrians in 2015-16 alone, plus 161,000 Afghans, 133,000 Iraqis, and more than 200,000 with no clear nationality.
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Add 1.6 million from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria.
And then 2022 smashed the record with 4.6 million migrants—including 1.4 million Ukrainians.
Let’s kill the fairy tale:
Merkel once predicted Syrians would “go home and rebuild” after the war. Reality?
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1.06 million Syrians came to Germany between 2014 and 2024.
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Fewer than 170,000 left.
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After Assad fell in late 2024, only 4,000 returned in the first half of 2025.
Translation: The majority are here for good.
The Price Tag of Fantasy
“Refugees will become the skilled workers of tomorrow,” we were told. The result?
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In 2016, only 7% of Syrians had a job.
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85% were on welfare.
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By 2024, the employment rate rose to 64%—better than expected, yes.
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BUT: Most jobs are low-wage, barely above the poverty line.
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More than half of these “skilled workers” still earn below 66% of median income.
The social state is groaning. Even if half the migrants became highly qualified and started paying like top German taxpayers within five years (fantasy scenario), the state still loses money, says economist Bernd Raffelhüschen.
Why? Because Germany’s welfare state is a leaky bucket. Everyone—German or migrant—takes more out than they put in over a lifetime.
Add millions of newcomers with low education, high dependency, and the arithmetic becomes catastrophic.
Culture Clash? No, Culture Explosion
What happens when you flood a country with poorly educated, mostly young men from pre-Enlightenment societies into a nation already struggling with teacher shortages and social decay?
You get ghettos. You get crime. You get death.
Call that harsh? Fine—look at the numbers:
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By 2017, 12% of sex crime suspects were asylum seekers.
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Migrants accounted for 12% of solved crimes, while being only 2% of the population at the time.
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Algerians? 0.2% of refugees in 2023, yet 3.6% of crime suspects—18 times their population share.
Research explains it bluntly:
Many young male migrants come from cultures where “violence-legitimizing masculine norms” dominate. Combine that with no jobs, no hope, no belonging and you’ve got a ticking bomb.
The Education Collapse Nobody Wants to Talk About
In 2011, the gap in math performance between migrant and non-migrant kids was 55 points. By 2021?
87 points—equal to a full year of lost learning.
Reading? Even worse:
1.7 years behind.
Germany’s classrooms are sinking under the weight of linguistic chaos, cultural conflict, and sheer overload. Privates schools are booming for those who can afford them. For everyone else? Welcome to the new two-class society—imported and homegrown.
The Gender Apartheid in U-Bahn Cars
Welcome to 2025 Germany, where female-only subway cars are now seriously proposed. Why? Because Merkel’s multicultural utopia didn’t include protecting women from patriarchal violence imported from war zones and failed states.
How’s that for progressive values?
Merkel the Saint? Or the Arsonist?
Angela Merkel isn’t the only culprit. The media acted like cheerleaders for “Willkommenskultur” long after reality screamed otherwise. The CDU threw her farewell parties instead of accountability hearings. Critics were silenced as racists while the social fabric tore apart.
The reason? Germany’s neurotic relationship with its own identity.
The elites want to be “good Europeans, climate saviors, global moral leaders”—anything but German.
But if you erase “German,” what do you expect migrants to integrate into?
You can’t preach diversity and then demand unity. Integration needs a clear “we”—a culture, a canon, a contract. Merkel never offered one. She opened the gates and prayed the problem away.
What Now?
Germany is poorer, less safe, and culturally fractured. The AfD is surging. Entrepreneurs are planning their exit strategies. The social state is on life support.
Ten years ago, Merkel said:
“We can do this.”
Reality replies:
“No, you couldn’t.”
And here’s the bitterest pill:
If a country cannot defend its borders, its schools, and its women, then it has already lost control.
And Germany? It’s almost there.
Read that again. Let it burn.
This isn’t a call for hate. This is a call for honesty—brutal honesty—because denial built this mess.
“The EU applauded while Germany became the experiment—and the lab rat.”
- Adaptation-Guide
