Germany

Germany’s ‘lockdown light’ strategy has failed: the country, which has been widely-praised for its response to the pandemic, recorded a daily record of 952 coronavirus-related deaths last night. After experiencing relatively low numbers of infections and fatalities compared with other European countries in the spring, Germany has plunged into a crisis. It's true that Wednesday’s number was artificially inflated by delayed reporting of data from the state of Saxony, one of the coronavirus hotspots in Germany. But even without the 153 coronavirus-related deaths recorded in that region, the grim tally marks a new peak.

The Bundestag can’t be an easy place to be a politician right now. At the start of the pandemic, Germany seemed to be steering a steadier course than other countries, who looked on in awe at the speed with which it launched its testing regime. But as Britain, Canada and the USA begin vaccinations, Germany has been left tapping its feet. It is still waiting for the European Medicines Agency to approve the Pfizer vaccine, which it is set to do on 21 December – a state of affairs that is rapidly turning into a national and international embarrassment. The German public have grown increasingly irritated at the delays. ‘It’s just beyond belief,’ the Bild newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Germans, just like Britons, will have to cope with restrictions during this year’s Christmas holidays. Yesterday, Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany’s federal states agreed on an updated catalogue of regulations that will allow ten adults to meet for a Christmas party. After three weeks of what is widely called a ‘lockdown light’, the infection rates in German cities and regions continue to remain above the threshold that has been set by medical experts. The vast majority of Landkreise (regional districts) have recorded an incidence proportion of higher than 50 cases per 1,000 inhabitants within the last week.

Germany has been in uproar over the events that unfolded this Saturday, when 38,000 protesters gathered in Berlin and clashed with the police. The organisers of the gathering, entitled Umdenken (Rethinking), claimed they wanted to show their frustration at government measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Among the 38,000 were at least 3,000 far-right sympathisers and extremists, according to Berlin’s interior minister. The run-up to Saturday’s protests was already marked by controversy, as Berlin’s local government had initially banned the gathering due to concerns that the event could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus.

At first glance, the pretty German town of Coburg seems an unlikely arena for the latest skirmish in the culture wars. The birthplace of Prince Albert (and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday spots), it’s a quaint and tranquil place which miraculously came through the last century virtually unscathed. Yet now this historic backwater finds itself at the centre of controversy, on account of its patron saint, St Maurice, aka the Coburg Moor. St Maurice is a ubiquitous presence in Coburg. His profile adorns the town’s coat of arms, and numerous public buildings. It’s even on the manhole covers. Now Alisha Archie and Juliane Reuther (who live in Berlin but come from the region) have started a petition calling for this symbol to be redesigned.

Tensions between Germany and the United States have increased considerably since Donald Trump became president. Trump has repeatedly criticised Berlin for a variety of things, most vocally accusing the German government of failing to pay its way on defence. Trump has said that Europe’s Nato members, including Germany, should no longer rely so heavily on the US to shoulder the costs of maintaining the alliance. The debate has focused on the target agreed by all alliance members that defence spending should reach 2 per cent of each country’s GDP by 2024. Germany’s military expenditure equalled 1.4 per cent of its GDP in 2019.

Coronavirus is grim news for all major economies and Germany is no exception. The country’s economic output decreased by 2.2 per cent during the first quarter of the year, the sharpest fall since the 2008 crash and the second biggest since German reunification in 1990. A double-digit dip in the second quarter, when the full impact of the lockdown restrictions introduced in March become more visible, seems likely. But while Germany is not alone in facing up to grim economic statistics, it is using its economic clout – unavailable to poorer countries in Europe – to try and spend its way out of the crisis. Many German employers have been able to switch staff to shorter working hours during the outbreak, avoiding mass layoffs, under the terms of a government rescue package.

Germany’s national parliament has made the public burning of the European Union flag and flags of foreign countries punishable by up to three years in jail, classing it as a hate crime. In a vote last Thursday, the German parliament made the act of defiling foreign flags equal to the crime of defiling the German flag. The new law also applies to acts of defilement other than burning, such as publicly ripping a flag up. The initiative for this legislative change dates back to 2017 when protesters in Berlin burned the Israeli flag to emphasise their outrage about the United States’ support of Israel, causing indignation in parts of German federal politics.

Uppsala Last week, Europe started its liberation from lockdown — and it all feels like a study in national political identity. Belgium took its first step towards ‘deconfinement’ but no one seems exactly sure what that means. France is opting for complexity rather than simplicity. Italy’s national plan for the easing of its lockdown is more convoluted still, but few regions bother to follow it anyway. Spain, goes a national joke, went more slowly and started with a reopening of the siesta. And in Germany, everyone is praising the country’s scientific approach to the pandemic, but as soon as they were allowed to roam freely again, many Germans headed for the beer gardens. Governments say their approach is ‘guided by the science’.