Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8470 Plough Quarterly • Autumn 2016 opened their hearts and their homes. Volun- teers and authorities worked together with surprising efficiency and effectiveness, despite the inevitable problems that arose as ten thousand people crossed into Germany each day between October 2015 and early Febru- ary 2016. In real terms, the border was now open; border controls were extremely minimal. What had been intended as a one-time humanitarian gesture became a lasting state of affairs. Public discussion pivoted from Willkommens­ kultur to the less rosy term Kontrollverlust (loss of control). The influx only slowed when, as a result of prompting from Austria, first Macedonia and then the other Balkan states closed their borders to refugees. (Hungary had already cordoned off its borders to Croatia in mid- winter, a move that earned a sharp rebuke from the German government.) April 2016 saw the implementation of the European Union’s deeply problematic and much-criticized agreement with Turkey to reduce the number of refugees fleeing via Greece and the Balkan route. By that time, in the period between September 2015 and March 2016, about 1.3 million people had entered Germany. The exact number is still unknown because many failed to register with the authorities (some perhaps deliberately), while others continued their journey toward Scandinavia, the Nether- lands, and the United Kingdom. By the summer of 2016, the once- overwhelming support for Merkel’s policy of Willkommenskultur was giving way to deep divisions. Polls in July showed that 83 percent of Germans regard the influx of refugees as the nation’s biggest political problem. The refugee crisis has become a key issue in regional elections for those who favor the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AFD). The symptoms of the breakdown of Willkom- menskultur have a kind of symmetry. On one hand we see an alarming number of attacks on refugees and their housing, and on the other hand there have been the New Year’s Eve assaults on women in Cologne by immigrant young men and terrorist attacks committed by migrants. Worries that the German state was losing control were only underlined when, after July’s coup attempt in Turkey, voters watched as mass demonstrations of immigrants battled out domestic Turkish political disputes on the streets of German cities. The polarization of German society comes at a time when the institutions of the European Union, which could play a fruitful role in the refugee situation, have become increasingly paralyzed. The EU debt crisis, an outgrowth of basic flaws in the European monetary union, is far from over; the European Central Bank’s current policy of quantitative easing is only postponing the day of reckoning. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Southern Europe is stagnating at a level that jeopardizes the legiti- macy of the entire political system. Europe is also split over how to address the war in eastern Ukraine and how to confront Russia. And increasing centrifugal forces within the EU are threatening to divide it further, as Brexit demonstrates; several other European governments are anxious about upcoming elections in 2017. Germany’s place within the EU is marked by increasing isolation as a result of Merkel’s response to the refugees. Her policies have met with rejection, ranging from cool rebuffs from the French and British to the enraged, Germany has taken in 1.3 million refugees – an event that will permanently transform the country.