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The fall of German Christianity leaves an emptiness that seems likely to be filled by a more multicultural and Islamic society. That is why Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, just called for the creation of a "German Islam." Merkel's powerful ally linked the rise of a German Islam with the national demographic disaster. "Demographic change is one of our great challenges," said Schäuble. Germany today houses Europe's largest Muslim community.
The latest annual report of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration explains that, due to the decline in the number of Christians in a period of mass immigration from Islamic countries, "Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country." Christians in Germany, Die Welt reports, will become a minority in 20 years.
Religious decline is usually followed by a demographic one. The London-based think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, just shed light on the "Europe's demographic timebomb." In the report, "From empty pews to empty cradles," three American scholars, Eli Berman, Laurence Iannaccone, Giuseppe Ragusa, explain that in many European countries, the sudden drop in religious practice has determined a demographic suicide.
It is not only a question of religious faith, but also of optimism about the future.
If the current fertility rates persist, Germany is set to decline from a 2002 peak of 82 million people, to 74.5 million by 2050. Greece, with a loss of 29% of its the population, would decrease from 11 million to fewer than 7 million inhabitants. Poland, suffering a decline of 25%, would pass from 38 million to 29 million.
The projections indicate that Germany will experience more than 64 million deaths during the next half century, and fewer than 40 million births. The falling birth rate will remove a piece of Germany larger than the former communist East Germany. It will result in a demographic loss which would be the equivalent to the population of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt combined.
It is a new situation. Since 1972, Germany has not seen a single year in which the number of newborns has exceeded the number of deaths. It was then that families began to go out of fashion in West Germany. Now there is a talk of many small communities in Germany that could become ghost towns.
In 2003, at the peak of the US war against Iraq, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld criticized the German and French opposition to the military campaign as a symptom of "old Europe". Rumsfeld would later say:
"Some people were sensitive about my comment because they thought it was a pejorative way of highlighting demographic realities. Apparently they felt it pointed a white light at a weakness in Europe -- an aging population. Europe has come some distance since World War II in becoming Europe."
Germany's decline today is, in fact, also a military one. The German military (Bundeswehr) during the Cold War was the first line of defense against a Soviet invasion; now the army is decaying. The German army just spent 428 million euros on various operations relating to migrants during the past year. It has been the costliest mission within German borders that the army of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever undertaken.
While Ukrainian troops were battling pro-Russian separatists on the eastern borders of Europe, a German battalion took part in a NATO exercise in Norway. The Germans had no weapons and used broomsticks as simulated guns. The Bundeswehr today has helicopters that cannot fly and tanks that cannot shoot. This is a cultural decision.
In the decades after World War II, the Germans have turned into hard-core pacifists, enjoying their role on the sidelines of global conflicts. The Bundeswehr was then turned into a humanitarian organization. To quote journalist and author Henryk Broder, "pacifism has become a German lifestyle" -- not only for Germany's leadership but for the society as well.
Already today, one in 20 Germans -- 5% of the population -- is over 80 years old. By 2050, it will be one in six. Europe's largest and richest nation is becoming a country for old men. A quarter of German men said "no" to children. It is such a terrible irony that Nazi Germany, which devastated the continent in its search of Lebensraum ("living space"), is now a nation for decrepit, disarmed and secularized men. And soon, Islamized as well.
To quote Ursula von der Leyen, Germany's Minister of Defense (and a mother of seven): if Germany does not reverse its plummeting birthrate, "we will have to turn out the light."
