People & Histories
2015–2016

The 2015 Refugee Summer

Germany takes in around 890,000 asylum seekers in a single year, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and divides over the decision.

Well established migrationidentitypolitics

In the summer of 2015, war in Syria and conditions in camps across the Middle East drove hundreds of thousands of people toward Europe via Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. On 31 August Chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference “Wir schaffen das”, “We can manage this”. On 4–5 September, with thousands stranded in Hungary, Germany and Austria agreed to let them in.

The registration system first counted about 1.1 million arrivals in 2015, later corrected to about 890,000 after double counting was removed. Formal asylum applications reached 476,649 in 2015 and over 745,000 in 2016. Syrians were the largest group.

The mood turned within months. Asylum rules were tightened, and an EU–Turkey deal in March 2016 sharply cut arrivals. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party, remade itself around opposition to immigration; it entered the Bundestag in 2017 and came second with 20.8% in the 2025 federal election.

How it's seen
Willkommenskultur

Thousands of volunteers met trains at Munich station with food and toys. Supporters argue Germany met a humanitarian emergency, that many refugees have since found work and learned German, and that an ageing country needs immigrants.

  • Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
  • Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)

Critics

Critics, including many in Merkel's own conservative camp, argue the government lost control of the border, strained towns and schools, and underestimated the difficulty of integration. Events such as the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve 2015–16 and later terror attacks hardened these views.

Refugees' own experience

For many Syrians and Afghans, Germany offered safety and a future, but also long waits in shelters, bureaucracy, family separation and, at times, hostility. Many have since become German citizens.

Why it matters today

Germany

2015 is a dividing line in German politics. For some it showed Germany at its best, a country that learned from its past and opened its doors. For others it was a loss of control that fuelled the rise of the AfD. Debates about borders, asylum, Islam and integration since then all refer back to it.