Germans on the verge of a nervous breakdown

We are in general sceptical of opinion polls because they tell us what we already know. If the evening news bulletins are bleak, then so are public perceptions the next morning. It is therefore unsurprising that the Germans have transitioned from complacency to panic with the same speed as SPD politicians have shifted their views on Vladimir Putin.

Having said this, it is still worth reflecting on a poll by Allensbach, Germany’s oldest polling institute, which has been running the same annual poll on public sentiment since 1949, the year the federal republic was founded. This year, the results, published in FAZ, are the worst ever. Only 19% are now optimistic. The most curious result is that a majority is now in favour of prolonging the remaining nuclear power stations. The terror attacks in 2001, the Korea and Vietnam wars, the cold war, and the 1970s oil crisis also affected sentiments, but nothing quite like this.

One third of Germans now believe that there will be a third world war. Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 hardly had any effect on sentiment.