Less Crime and Happy School Children Five Years After Germany’s Huge Wave of Immigrants

In 2015, the German chancellor Angela Merkel stood firm on her decision to open the doors to massive migration. Today, more than 80% of the refugee children and teenagers have a strong attachment to their German schools.

“I put it simply, Germany is a strong country,” the German chancellor told the media at a press conference in Berlin on 31 August 2015. “The motive with which we approach these matters must be: we have already managed so much, we’ll manage this.”

Many feared, including the opposition, that the repercussions from massive immigration mostly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan would impair the country for decades, meaning that the burden would be primarily on the population. Many envisioned rise in criminality, but the number of overall recorded crimes was decreasing. Last year, crime in Germany sank to an 18-year low. “In the end, the fears [we had] were misplaced,” says Peter Newmann, a terrorism expert at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies.