Manuel Ostermann serves as the First Deputy Federal Chairman of the DPolG Federal Police Union in Germany. He is also the domestic policy spokesperson for the Junge Union, the governing CDU/CSU alliance’s youth organisation in the state of North Rhine–Westphalia, and an expert on internal security and policing. We spoke with him last week in the Hungarian city of Szeged, on the sidelines of a conference on the 10th Anniversary of the European Migration Crisis organised by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and the Migration Research Institute (MRI).
The European migration crisis began with Angela Merkel’s Willkommenskultur and her famous words, Wir schaffen das (“We can manage it”). Ten years on, what has Germany learned?
First of all, we know today—and in fact we already knew back in December 2015—that this historic sentence had little to do with everyday reality. Germany was heading towards unforeseen challenges. Looking back, it must be said that the chancellor did no favours to internal security or to the German population with that decision. Today, we are dealing with crumbling infrastructure, overstretched social systems, financial burdens, spiralling crime, and an Islamist-inspired threat that is clearly connected to migration.
German police unions are among the most outspoken critics of migration. Is that because officers see the problems firsthand every day?
Yes. As a police union, our main duty is to protect the wellbeing of officers—and we see what they face daily. In Germany, police officers become victims of crime every five minutes. Violence against officers is rampant. Violent crime in general, sexual offences, and crimes against personal freedom are all on the rise. Every single day, officers go out to keep people safe and, if necessary, risk their lives for strangers. That’s not an exaggeration—it’s the reality now in Germany. This is why we cannot stay silent. Our responsibility is to speak up, because it is ultimately about protecting the lives of our police forces. As a union, we see it as our duty to be vocal and resilient on their behalf.
In your speech you said dealing with offenders of migrant background is particularly difficult. What do the figures show?
The statistics are clear. According to the 2023 federal crime report, men from the main asylum countries of origin—who make up less than 1% of Germany’s population—were responsible for 8,800 sexual offences. That’s 24 every single day. Before 2015, numbers of this scale simply did not exist. We also see it in youth crime and knife-related offences: suspects from these backgrounds account for nearly half of all cases. Ignoring these facts only creates more problems—division, extremism, and the erosion of collective freedoms. It is already statistically proven that this wave of migration has fuelled crime. To deny that would be irresponsible.
Do politicians take police unions more seriously today than they did a decade ago?
In 2015 and 2016, no one listened. We were dismissed, ignored, labelled as right-wing radicals. Today the situation is different. Our voice carries real weight, including in the public sphere. We now have a federal interior minister who is doing an excellent job, and we can see things starting to move—in politics and in society. The key now is to remain serious but clear in our demands. At the end of the day, this is about Germany’s security infrastructure, and there can be no compromise. Political correctness, which got us into this mess in the first place, has to end. Numbers and facts do not lie—they must guide action.
Yet reports suggest migrants are still acquiring German citizenship too easily. Isn’t that cause for concern?
Under the old government, we had so-called turbo-naturalisation: migrants could apply for a German passport after just three years. Thankfully, that has now been changed by law, although it’s not yet in force. The previous administration was left-wing and created chaos—a field of rubble, to be honest. The current government has only been in office a short while, so we need to give it some time, but at least there are signs of change. One of Germany’s problems is its bureaucracy: up to five different authorities can be responsible for a single migrant. It’s not simple. We urgently need to streamline procedures. I am optimistic that we are moving in the right direction, but if the government doesn’t deliver, they will be judged by their actions.
How much of an obstacle are the Social Democrats, the junior coalition partner, to these anti-migration measures?
It certainly doesn’t help that left-wing Social Democrats repeatedly try to block a consistent and realistic asylum policy. Still, I am confident the interior minister has the strength to push back. If the government does not deal with this issue decisively, voters will turn elsewhere—with results that mean only radicalisation and division. That’s why the Social Democrats must be told clearly: there’s no time left for endless negotiations. Either we act now in line with the rule of law, or radical forces will gain power. And none of us want that.
So cooperation between the CDU and the AfD is out of the question?
That’s not for me to decide—I’m not a politician. What I will say is that I don’t believe in firewall rhetoric. I am a democrat through and through. I don’t need to like a party or agree with its platform, but I must respect that any party which is democratically elected to parliament has a right to participate in political debate. To deny that only strengthens the extremes. Democracy cannot mean talking to some and excluding others. Ultimately it’s the voters—the people—who decide who governs. If established parties keep shutting others out, the result will not be less radicalisation, but more. That’s why I appeal to everyone’s democratic responsibility.
