Reviewing German Current Events and Political Happenings- An Interview with Jörg Luyken

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If there is one word to describe Germany and all of the problems the country has been facing, it would be this: Complicated.

Since the Scholz government has taken over in 2021, things have gotten complicated. For years, especially under the rule of Angela Merkel, Germany had a comfortable life, immuning itself from the external factors that would have sunk every other country in Europe, plus the United States. However, these problems were pushed aside and since the last elections, have come to a head. These problems have become so complicated that it has caused frustrations, anger and even some to go extreme.

How bad have the problems been with Germany and what are the implications, especially as 2024 will be the year of elections and decisions that will be painful and to a certain degree, altering for long periods of time? This is where Jörg Luyken of The German Review comes in.

The German Review is like no other magazine, column or journal. It is a journal that focuses on German affairs but from a critical standpoint. By reading the articles, it gives the reader some perspective and looks at the topics objectively and with some discussion.

I had an opportunity to interview him and talk about his column, the current situation in Germany and the future which realistically speaking is as dark and blurry as they can be. Here’s what we can learn from him. Enjoy the interview and feel free to comment…

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• Tell us about yourself, also in terms of career.

I’m 38 years old, grew up to a British mother and German father in the Highlands of Scotland and have lived in Germany for a little over a decade. I’ve been in journalism since I left university almost twenty years ago. After graduating, I moved to the Middle East, where I worked as a freelance journalist in Jerusalem and Cairo. After doing a postgraduate degree in politics I moved to Germany and started a job with a local news website called The Local. I switched back to freelance in 2019 and set up the German Review a year later. 

• What led to the creation of the German Review?

I came up with the idea with a friend who was also interested in doing some writing. We felt that there was room in Germany for a news outlet that didn’t just focus on ‘softer’ expat issues like adapting to German culture, but which also tries to explain the bigger social and political developments the country is going through. We both also felt like a lot of the coverage of Germany from abroad tries to fit it into domestic arguments. At least from the British perspective, the conservative press can be a bit too suspicious of Germany’s economic success, while the liberal press tend to portray Germany as a model of social democracy. Neither is really true in my opinion, so I hope the newsletter gives a more nuanced perspective on the country’s successes and failures. Plus, I enjoy writing columns but don’t get much of a chance to do so in my other work, which is generally straight-up reporting. Unfortunately, the friend I set it up with took on a full-time job and left shortly afterwards, but it was already showing signs of good growth so I kept it on.

•  Apart from the current affairs, what other subjects should the readers expect from the German Review?

It is very current affairs focused. That is my day job, so it is what I read and think about most of the time. I like to also go into history on occasion, but I still tend to try and compare that topic with today.

• How would you view the current state of affairs in Germany from your perspective? And also from the population in general?

I think Germany is facing very serious challenges. For a long time, the country lied to itself about the complexity of building a post-fossil fuel energy system that would be able to carry its industrial base and provide affordable energy to the masses. That lie was shattered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine but it would have become increasingly obvious anyway as prices kept rising over this decade. There are also various other pressures Germany is facing: competition from abroad to its car industry, replacing skilled workers, the desire for ever more people to work less hours even though the labour market is already strained. The biggest strain being put on the system is that of migration from the Middle East and Africa. Whenever I go and do reporting in smaller towns it’s the number one issue that people talk about. That’s obviously not an issue that is unique to Germany, but finding solutions to both integrating people better and slowing the level of migration are key to calming the tensions that have been fuelling the far-right for several years now.

• Then we have the problem with the far-right Alternatives, AfD. Tell us more about what they are doing to complicate matters.

A democracy is a marketplace of ideas, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing in itself that the AfD has emerged as a party that provides another option for people who feel like none of the other parties address their concerns. Where they become a problem is when they propose things that are in direct opposition to central tenants of the constitution. While they are careful about what they put into the party programmes, there are clearly leaders in the party who want to suppress freedom of religion and who want to create a two-tier society based on a German ‘blood line’ and ‘just’ having a German passport. There are also people in the party that want to push a revisionist view of the Nazi era. The CDU have therefore decided not to work with them at any level. Whether that works as a long term strategy remains to be seen.

• A recent survey among 18-25 year olds finds the AfD as the most popular political party. There have been even some events where Nazi slogans and songs played by the youth have become a “cult.” What does the population see in the AfD that is so great?

I don’t know. I think that the popularity of these Nazi slogans is really worrying and is one of those moments that should make everyone wake up to the changes in attitudes that are taking place under the surface. I’d put it down to the pace of migration. Just in the ten years I have been here the change in the make of society has been rapid. My partner is from a small town in Baden-Württemberg and that has gone from being a place where you basically only heard Swabian dialect to having lots of different languages. I understand that people feel that their culture will get lost if this changes continues at the same pace. But the fact that such extreme solutions as mass deportation are seriously being discussed by some people is alarming. At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that most people still don’t like the AfD. And I think that they particularly damage themselves with their attempts at historical revisionism. In my experience, your “everyday German” has no interest in re-writing the Nazi era.

• You wrote in your recent article that a government under the AfD would mirror the government in the Netherlands under Geert Wilders. Why is that?

I’m not an expert in Dutch politics, but the coalition agreement that Wilders wrote could have easily been the draft of a German coalition pact in a few years time. A lot of people put the unpopularity of the Scholz government down to bickering between the junior coalition partners, the Greens and the FDP. I think that is too short-sighted. The bickering is a symptom of the fact that something fundamental isn’t working. People notice that climate policies are responsible for pushing up prices and making businesses invest elsewhere. Whatever you think about the need for such policies, the fact that they would make life more expensive was never honestly communicated. The Scholz coalition is now paying the bills for such dishonesty, but it goes back years.

• What about the other parties? How would you rate their performance and what is yet to come? This includes the newly established BSW party and the Left.

I’m very interested to see how the BSW does. Sahra Wagenknecht is the only face I’ve seen on their posters for the upcoming EU elections. That makes sense from the point of view of her popularity, but she’s not even standing! I think Wagenknecht does offer something different to the AfD. For one, she is much smarter than any of their top people and knows exactly what buttons she should press and which ones he should avoid. Everything is up in the air at the moment. It wouldn’t shock me if her party won over 10 percent at the next election, but basing a party around a single person also seems risky.

• If you were to compare Germany under the current government coalition to the country at the time of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which one is better and why?

I don’t see a huge deal of difference to be honest- Most of the problems Germany is facing today started in the Merkel era. It is probably just a fact of human nature that we put off difficult change until we have little other choice. The whole ethos of the Merkel era seems to have been to save up money so that you have it on a rainy day. I’m not sure that that was such a good strategy because, first the government splurged money during Covid to pay businesses to stay closed. Perhaps this is contentious, but I don’t think that that was money well spent. And secondly, you can’t just rebuild an army overnight. Splurging money drives up prices – so money you thought you had might not be so much when you look back on it.

• The Europe Elections are on June 9th with the upcoming elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg set to follow in September. In your opinion, which parties will dominate the elections and why?

It is looking increasingly likely that the AfD are set to sweep the board in the three state elections this autumn. I do think there is a deep cultural divide between east and west Germany that makes that possible. Appeals to German history as a reason not to vote AfD just don’t seem to wash in the east. There will be a lot of shock around those results but I’d be suspicious about translating them to the west. I think one thing we can say is that AfD wins in east Germany this autumn will galvanise a big turn out at the federal election next year. 

• If you were approached by someone who is looking for advice on how to vote, what would you give that person?

Does the Wahl-O-Mat come in different languages? That is probably a good starting point.

• What are your future project plans for the German Review?

At the moment I’m just growing it at its natural pace. At some point it would be great to put some other voices and opinions into the newsletter. But I don’t want to promise something that I can’t properly deliver on. The newsletter is funded only by subscriptions, I’ve thought about bringing in advertising as a way for growing it further but I think that the time it takes to look for advertisers would probably outweigh the benefits.

While I will feature a couple examples of the works produced by the German Review in my next posts, you can visit the website and read up on the stories involving the current events affecting Germany and its relations with the rest of Europe and beyond. Click here to access the website:

Link: https://www.thegermanreview.de/

You can also find the German Review on its social media pages, including substack, X and facebook.

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