German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke of "an explosion of violence" during a session of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, in March, where he was asked about violence against women.

He said there was a need to talk about the causes of this, adding that "a significant portion of this violence comes from immigrant groups."

Merz continues to link violence and criminality with immigration. In October 2025, he said that his government had reduced the number of people seeking asylum in Germany by about 60%.

"But we still have this problem in the cityscape, of course, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations. That must be maintained," he added.
Now, as then, his comments sparked a backlash in Germany.

AfD breathing down the government's neck

The election successes of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD) are putting pressure on the conservative parties, Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian counterpart the Christian Social Union (CSU). The AfD received about 19% of the vote in the first two of five state parliament elections to be held this year.

When Jens Spahn, who leads the CDU/CSU bloc in the Bundestag, analyzes the success of the AfD, he quickly comes to the everyday experiences of Germans.

"It is about the question of how safe I feel in my daily life, how comfortable I feel in my everyday routine, what is changing around me, and how quickly it is happening," Spahn told mayors and district administrators during a conference of local leaders from his party, held in Berlin.

Spahn defended the Chancellor, saying that citizens could see that the cityscape had changed. "Christmas markets that look like fortresses, the train stations, not only in large cities, market squares in many medium-sized cities, where things have changed, there is an increase in shoplifting and other issues — you can't pretend that irregular migration hasn't changed the cities."

Why Germans feel unsafe in public spaces

According to a representative survey conducted by pollsters infratest dimap in late 2025, about 48% of citizens feel unsafe in public spaces such as parks, trains and buses. In 2017, only 23% reported feeling that way. But will the feeling of safety in Germany increase again with a restrictive asylum policy?

What came through at the conference of conservative mayors and other local representatives in Berlin casts some doubts on this theory. If the inner city looks neglected, it contributes to a sense of insecurity and causes discomfort among the population.

"What most influences people's subjective perception of safety in the cities is not serious crime, but rather the socially inadequate behavior of certain groups," said Thorsten Wünschmann, who leads the department responsible for public order, the Ordnungsamt, in Hanau, a city near Frankfurt.

This behavior does not constitute criminal or administrative offenses, but "it does, however, scare people in public spaces," according to Wünschmann.

Examples of "socially inadequate behavior" include beggars, drug addicts, groups of drunks and homeless people. Vacant buildings, neglect and litter on individual streets often negatively impact the entire neighborhood.

When dilapidation causes fear

Rainer Wendt, head of the German police trade union (DPolG), told the conference in Berlin, "I lived for a long time at Alexanderplatz (a large public square and transport hub in central Berlin). Anyone who has stumbled over mostly Eastern European migrant workers or the stuff they have left behind in the entryways of buildings in the mornings knows what I am talking about."

The parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Interior Ministry, Christoph de Vries (CDU), spoke of organized begging groups whose members were positioned in the same places each morning in his home city of Hamburg. Often these were people from eastern European EU countries. They cannot be deported.

Then Hamburg's public order office began to regularly check on them, de Vries explained. "It did not take long at all for them to stop coming."

De Vries reported that, especially in larger cities, entire streets were becoming hangouts for drug addicts "where residents are now barricading their front doorways, so that people do not inject themselves, use or sell drugs there."

There are intolerable conditions, de Vries said. "It cannot be that public space is taken up by the people on the margins of society so that normal citizens are too afraid to go there," he argued.

Citizens are also fearful of an increase in serious crime, he said, noting that there had been a rise in organized crime, "often of foreign origin, which presents itself as ever more violent, openly using firearms, hand grenades, racketeering."

How German law enforcement is structured

In Germany, the police deal with serious crimes. Police forces are organized at the state and federal levels. Local governments have public order offices (Ordnungsamt), which are specialized entities for handling regulatory matters, minor offenses and business inspections. The police are a state authority responsible for preventing danger and prosecuting crime.

Wünschmann from the Ordnungsamt in Hanau points out the advantages of the municipal public order service in influencing certain groups in the city. 

"Because we know the people, we can speak with them very early on and often we know the people there better than our colleagues from the police do."

German municipalities in a debt trap

Ensuring safety and order, however, needs more personnel, more modern surveillance technology and more money from the federal and state governments. Most municipalities are deep in debt. In 2024, they recorded a combined record deficit of almost €25 billion ($28.6 billion); in the first half of 2025, that rose by another €20 billion.

The main drivers are social spending and personnel costs. At the same time, local business tax revenue has plummeted due to the economic crisis. Money to invest in infrastructure is lacking.

For many years, state and federal governments have paid little attention to the municipalities' concerns. That seems to be changing. In the Bundestag, many ways to strengthen the city and local governments are now being discussed. Funding for urban development is set to increase from €1 billion to €1.6 billion.

This money can then be used to pay for urban development projects that help to prevent crime. For example, to eliminate "places of fear" where few people dare to go, especially after dark, enhance public spaces and convert vacant buildings to different uses.

This article was originally published in German.