IMMIGRATION was firmly established yesterday as the most divisive issue of the German election campaign after the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt broke ranks to declare that Germany was incapable of integrating its millions of foreigners.
The blunt statement, profoundly embarrassing for his fellow Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, came as new, politically explosive figures were leaked about the number of illegal migrants hiding in Germany.
Despite last week’s parliamentary passage of an immigration Bill, the issue remains the one that could make or break Herr Schröder’s coalition government of Social Democrats and Greens when it faces a general election in September.
Germany, according to Herr Schmidt, opened its gates to asylum-seekers to compensate for its Nazi past. “Now we have a heterogeneous, de facto multicultural society and we can’t deal with it,” said the 83-year-old politician in his new book Hand on Heart, which is being serialised in the German press.
“We Germans are incapable of assimilating all seven million foreigners,” Herr Schmidt said. “The Germans don’t want to either; for the most part they are xenophobic deep down.”
In fact, as figures leaked yesterday show, the number of 7.3million foreigners used as a basis for the new immigration law and for Herr Schmidt’ s comments, are wrong. A report compiled by the government ombudsman for foreigners shows that a further 500,000 to 1.5million foreigners are now living and working illegally in Germany.
The authorities have had very little success in limiting these illegal immigrants: barely 40,000 a year are caught on the German borders and 11,000 are detected in workplace raids. With unemployment having risen to 4.3million and the trade unions restless, illegal immigration has become a concern for voters on the Right and the Left.
Edmund Stoiber, the conservative rival of the Chancellor, knows that the fear of the foreigner is one of the few mobilising passions in Germany. Herr Schmidt, a Social Democrat veteran, concedes as much in his book. “Very few of the foreigners want to integrate; and they are not being helped to integrate.” (...)