The new Germans

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amid the 2015 migrant crisis, when millions of refugees were seeking safety in Europe, Germany’s then Chancellor, Angela Merkel, took an extraordinary step to take in more than a million asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East. She famously declared, “Wir Schaffen Das” - We can do it. Now, almost 10 years on, many from this generation of refugees are living settled lives in Germany and a recent liberalisation in German citizenship law means they are now eligible for citizenship, giving them a vote in where Germany goes from here. But it is a fraught time to become German. The AfD, a far right party harshly opposed to immigration of all kinds, is rising in popularity, especially in the former East. Damien McGuinness meets former refugees now on a path to citizenship, and finds out what this piece of paper means to them.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Damien McGinnis and this is the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:06.8	Right now I'm standing outside the town hall in Pankaw in eastern Berlin, the district
0:11.5	where I live.
0:12.6	Now, this rather unspectacular red brick building
0:15.5	has a very special significance for me.
0:18.4	It was here, after a loss of bureaucracy and paperwork,
0:21.8	I was granted my German citizenship but when I put
0:25.1	aside my perspective on this place and that piece of paper and look at it through
0:30.0	the lens of my job as a BBC correspondent here in Berlin,
0:34.0	I see the center of a political firestorm
0:37.0	and a massive social shift in this country.
0:40.0	We're in Germany, a country that's agreed to open its doors.
0:44.0	Just to hundreds of thousands of refugees.
0:46.0	Well over a million people have sought asylum in the country.
0:49.0	Just under 10 years ago, one and a half million refugees and migrants arrived in Germany mostly
0:55.1	from the Middle East.
0:58.1	Where are you go?
0:59.1	So you want to study?
1:01.1	Yeah and also be as a citizenship of the countries of Europe.
1:06.7	Do you want a citizen show?
1:08.3	Angela Merkel, the then Chancellor, famously declared in 2015 Vyshafendas. We can do it.
1:15.0	Many of those people who arrived then and now able to do what I did.
	...

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