Over the past year.....there were two surveys done....one by by the Institute for Demoscopy Allensbach and the other by the Center for Strategy and Higher Management in Koln.
This topic came up today in N-TV news (commercial news in Germany).
Basically, what the surveys do agree upon....is that one out of every four Germans (roughly) are fearful of conflict, war, or an escalating crisis.
I read through the material and article, and it's an interesting prospective. Frankly, if you walked into a regular German pub, and asked a dozen people about their worries in life.....I don't think any of them would come up with war-worries, or conflict-worries....unless you encouraged them or suggested it yourself.
Some of the material out of these surveys suggest that some conflict between Iran and the US is now possible. It's up around two-thirds of those who took the survey....who think this.
About half of the those polled....suggested that the US cannot be trusted as a partner.
Three years ago, before the 2016 election....the vast majority of Germans would have not said that....suggesting that Barak Obama would prevent chaos and crisis.
But wait....they aren't just worried about external threats....they are also starting to worry about internal threats....like crime, and gang-violence on German streets. Three-quarters of those polled....even said they were willing to give up privacy, in the interest of public safety. That's something that would NOT have occurred three years ago.
So the question is.....is the worry valid?
In the late 70s as I first arrived in Germany and worked around some Germans at the base....most of the guys had been in WW II, and would openly comment on the Nazi business, the war, and the rebuilding era that came after 1945. They all had a shared opinion that West Germany was a heck of a lot better off than East Germany, and openly voiced negative chatter over the USSR.
Another war in that period? It was always hyped up and openly discussed, with NATO as part of the 'solution'. In the end, no conflict ever occurred, and eventually the Warsaw Pact dissolved. Today? It's almost a joke if you suggested that Russia would storm Germany. For pete's sake, the Germans buy their natural gas from Russia, and all the Russian Oligarchs depend on German business.
As for the Iran/US thing? It's mostly all news media hype over the past two years. The public TV crowd can always find some professor who'll chat up the major threat, and how Iran could do vast damage. Then you sit there waiting for him to explain how, and the journalist just carries the conversation off to another subject.
So this suggested worry is just hyped up? Yeah. Go talk to working-class Germans, and they've got a list of a thousand things they worry about. They worry about the train toilet being non-functional tomorrow. They worry about their diesel car being outlawed for use in the local town. They worry about the one ATM machine in the village being blown-up by mafia characters. They worry about the German national soccer team being filled with second-rate players. They worry about airline going on strike right before their two-week vacation starts up. They worry about Chancellor Merkel having another fainting spell. They worry about some teenage hoodlum breaking into their garage and stealing the lawnmower. The list goes on and on.....with war and chaos being pretty far down on the list.
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