“We As Germans Cannot Help But …”
Translated by Julia Bosson
At the conference “Der grosse Kanton: Rise and Fall of the BRD,” that took place in Zurich in December 2025 and for which the following ideas were prepared, the political scientist Daniel Marwecki argued that current experiences of social crisis in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) can be narrowed down to three anxieties regarding the future: “Never again good, never again rich, never again safe.” A fourth anxiety can be added to this triad of fears of national decline: Never again white. For it is not only the moral certainties, the economic model of success, and the security policies of the Federal Republic that are currently being shaken. The recent upheavals also affect the conditions of coming together in this society among people whom the long history of European imperialism and colonialism placed on different sides of what sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois called the global color line.1 The notion that the long-taken-for-granted structure of the world, which benefits those who are considered white, could, like the internal combustion engine, be a thing of the past, plays a central role in the spectacle of fantasies of decline. And yet, this is largely being denied by those who consider themselves part of the “liberal center.” Developments in recent years clearly show, however, that the unease surrounding this issue is by no means limited to the easily discredited “right-wing fringe.” Instead, it is shared by a good portion of those who see themselves as champions of a morally-purified post-Nazi Federal Republic.
The racial contract2 of the FRG is changing at a rapid pace. Safeguarding white dominance has become a political project pursued by a wide variety of actors. This is quite remarkable, given the history of the Federal Republic, because for a long time, addressing racial inequality was a shameful taboo in post-war German societies, and the explicit defense of white supremacy was considered an unmistakable characteristic of the extreme right. Racist distinctions, of course, played a role in structuring society and shaped the everyday experiences and life trajectories of racialized people. In public discussions about “society,” however, these remained largely unaddressed. The mechanisms of social exclusion that ensured the continuity of white dominance relied on structures of habit — dispositions of perception, thought, and action that produced sharp exclusions, yet were hardly noticed by those who benefited from them.
Today, in contrast, structures that arrange the world to the advantage of those who are considered white are being actively developed, defended, and expanded. The exclusion of those who are not meant to be part of the hegemonic center no longer takes place solely through preconscious habits. Rather, the public participation of racialized people is openly questioned. This development is reflected not only in the deportation fantasies of the extreme right, but also in discourses and policies of Staatsräson that are radically reshaping the idea of what it means to belong to the Federal Republic.
In a country where, according to recent data from the Federal Statistical Office, nearly one-fifth of the population immigrated after 1950 and more than one in three young adults between the ages of 20 and 39 are second generation migrants, discourses of Staatsräson imagine the Federal Republic as a society of descendants of German Nazi perpetrators.
These changes are captured in variations of a phrase that after October 7 was repeated over and over again to justify both personal decisions and political positions as well as drastic foreign and domestic policy measures: “We as Germans must…We as Germans cannot help but…”
The “we” evoked here refers to the descendants of the German perpetrators of and accomplices to National Socialism. It is a “we” that, in a reductionist interpretation of important ideas in remembrance culture, narrows historical responsibility for Nazi crimes to responsibility for Jewish victims and their descendants and then extends it to the State of Israel. This “we” excludes all those who live in this country and cannot claim Nazi ancestors because their (family) biographies are connected to completely different parts of the world, shaped by other histories of violence. It also excludes those whose family histories are not marked by Nazi perpetration or complicity, but by active resistance to German fascism — and/or by having been victims of Nazi persecution and violence.
In a country where, according to recent data from the Federal Statistical Office, nearly one-fifth of the population immigrated after 1950 and more than one in three young adults between the ages of 20 and 39 are second generation migrants, discourses of Staatsräson imagine the Federal Republic as a society of descendants of German Nazi perpetrators. The phrase “We as Germans cannot help but…” claims to spring from a sense of historical responsibility and traditions of remembrance, but it becomes a vehicle for redefining belonging under ethno-nationalist premises. It is an ethno-nationalism that thrives in liberal milieus that sharply distance themselves from right-wing actors and right-wing politics. And yet, this phrase is driving and accelerating precisely the ethno-nationalist shift that the extreme right has been longing for for years. And the pace at which the Federal Republic is currently becoming German is likely to exceed even their wildest dreams.
It is no coincidence that all this is happening right now. These are defensive movements. It is a reaction to the slow but persistent changes in the Federal Republic’s self-image that gained momentum at the turn of the millennium. After decades of being shaped by notions of homogeneity, the narratives of German post-war society had grown increasingly responsive to the empirical diversity of life stories and lifestyles. And diversity was no longer seen as a problem, but as part of social normality. In the second decade of the 21st century, the promise of a pluralistic society was in the air — a Federal Republic that would be a home for people with a wide variety of life stories, family histories, and lifestyles.
Community organizers and civil society organizations had fought long and hard for these changes — through projects and initiatives that campaigned for the recognition and equal participation of different minorities, but also through remembrance work that tirelessly reminded the state and society of the responsibility arising from Nazi history, especially towards minorities.
And so, the years around the turn of the millennium did not only see right-wing street violence, an erosion of asylum rights, and the consolidation of extreme right-wing parties, but also an increasing pluralization of Germany’s self-image.
It was the political climate after the end of the Cold War that led to these civil society concerns being adopted in the centers of power of state and society. Reunification presented the Federal Republic with the task of proving to neighbors and allies its democratic reliability and its renunciation of nationalist and imperialist ambitions. And so, the years around the turn of the millennium did not only see right-wing street violence, an erosion of asylum rights, and the consolidation of extreme right-wing parties, but also an increasing pluralization of Germany’s self-image.
An important milestone on this path was the reform of citizenship law in 1999, which for the first time in German history allowed children born in Germany to become German citizens regardless of their parents’ passports. Now a generation was growing up that was connected to a wide variety of world regions and aspects of global history through diverse family biographies, and that at the same time could see itself as part of the culture of the Federal Republic. In a country that had learned to deny its character as an immigration society and to keep demographic heterogeneity invisible, this generation claimed social and political participation as a matter of course. They demanded not just equal rights, but actually being treated as equals. The altered status was expressed not only in their greater public visibility, especially in urban centers and the media, but also in their growing presence in positions of social and political decision-making and responsibility. Them being there served as a reminder that the dominance of white perspectives is less self-evident than it had long appeared.
Yet, the promise of a Federal Republic that was a pluralistic society and pluralist democracy was more than a promise of participation for those who had once been excluded and marginalized. Many whose family histories tied them to German Nazi perpetrators also welcomed these developments and were emotionally and morally invested in them. For here, a different society seemed to be taking shape — a truly post-Nazi Germany that proved to the world and, above all, to itself in the everyday coexistence of its many citizens that it had finally shaken off the legacy of National Socialism, in which “Never again!” was not only a personal and political commitment, but was also expressed in institutional arrangements that enabled and protected plurality.
The ethno-nationalist turn described above can be understood as backlash to these emerging openings of the Federal Republic’s self-narrative. It had already begun in the late 2010s, before the current wave of discourse and policies of Staatsräson,3 but it has accelerated enormously under the impact of October 7, the subsequent Israeli military operations in the region, the genocidal violence against the Palestinians in Gaza, and the international protests against this all. In a society where, for several years, many hoped it could reinvent itself in the language of plurality, ethno-nationalist notions of belonging based on the construction and exclusion of racially discredited others are now becoming normalized. These others are not simply different and foreign, but are imagined as a danger and a threat, which is why otherwise unjustifiable measures can be taken against them.
These developments are politically alarming and offensive in view of questions of historical responsibility. For this new ethno-nationalism is justified in the name of protecting Jews. Descendants of Nazi perpetrators are mobilizing the history of antisemitic persecution and violence in order to rehabilitate a central aspect of a world-view that gave rise to that persecution. This new ethno-nationalism feeds on instrumentalizing the fears of the descendants of its historical victims. And it allows the descendants of perpetrators and accomplices of National Socialism to find moral clarity, historical closure, and a new sense of superiority in the role of the protector.
Related articles
- Du Bois, W.E.B., 1903: The souls of black folk: essays and sketches., Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. [↩]
- The idea of the “racial contract” was coined by the US-American philosopher Charles W. Mills. Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 1997 [↩]
- Recently, philosopher Robin Celikates has reconstructed the history of the racist signature of Staatsräson in detail in an English text: Celikates, Robin. “Staatsräson as State Racism: Notes on the Authoritarian Turn in Contemporary Germany.” New German Critique 53, no. 1 (2026): 225–50. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-12158880. [↩]