Reading this week’s passages provided a glimpse into how a party that has never governed at the national level can still reshape a country’s migration policy. What struck me most was Correctiv’s investigation into the secret meeting outside Potsdam, where Martin Sellner presented a “remigration” plan that targeted not only asylum seekers and foreign residents, but also “non-assimilated” German citizens. The idea that citizenship itself could be conditional, granted to some and withdrawn from others, was the most unsettling part of the story. Although the meeting was to remain secret, copies of letters were leaked revealing how this masterplan was an attack on the German constitution. This article made me question how secure citizenship is when its protections depend on who holds political power, and how democracy can protect itself against these extremes?
What complicated the story for me was what came after. The Brussels Signal framed a Berlin court ruling as proof the story was “completely fabricated,” yet the dispute centered on specific statements rather than the meeting itself. This connected to last week’s readings on accountability, such as how Azmat Khan’s reporting revealed what military investigations had overlooked, Correctiv exposed what was meant to stay hidden. Both cases show that investigative journalism often becomes the only form of accountability available to expose the underbelly of this political battle.
The Courthouse News Service piece on the Brandmauer, the informal pact for mainstream parties never to govern with the AfD, showed how the firewall can hold formally whilst also eroding in practice. When Friedrich Merz’s CDU passed a migration motion with AfD votes, it demonstrated that the AfD does not need to hold power to set the agenda. Also, the Economist added that the AfD’s support is concentrated in struggling regions like the Ruhr, where economic decline and distrust of established parties have made its message more heard. From these readings, I gathered that the political ground in Germany actively shifting with the AfD strengthening in western Germany and reaching unseen levels of growth in the east.
Perhaps the most revealing pattern was how differently each refugee group has been treated as policy hardened. Ukrainians arriving after April 2025 were moved onto a lower benefit rate, while those who came earlier kept the higher one, creating a two-tier system within the same community. For Syrians, the protection rate collapsed from 44.4% in 2024 to 2.1% in 2025 after Assad’s fall, and family reunification was suspended until 2027. Afghans saw their resettlement program suspended, even though a court ruled that one family’s 2023 commitment was legally binding. The contrast suggests that migration policy in Germany is being shaped not only by numbers, but by which groups are seen as belonging.
I hope to pay closer attention to how these policies are experienced on the ground in Berlin, particularly among groups whose status has shifted the most, like Syrians awaiting family reunification. I have begun to wonder whether the firewall’s greatest weakness is not a formal coalition with the AfD, but the gradual adoption of its ideas by the parties meant to keep it out?
