Beggars

If you walked around any significant urban area in Germany back in the 1980s....you rarely saw begging.  I could have walked around Frankfurt or Wiesbaden in 1984 and maybe seen one or two beggars in an entire day.  Well....here in 2015....on an average morning or afternoon walk in Wiesbaden.....I'll probably come across fifteen to twenty beggars.  Cops kinda motivate people to stay out of the train station and mall areas....but the shopping district is open territory.

The trigger of the mess?  Some Germans will say that once the wall came down in the late 1980s.....everyone started to notice street begging picking up.  These weren't Germans.....they were East Europeans or from Arabic countries.

I noticed in regional news this morning that Salzburg (Austria) has written up a ban on begging....to start shortly.  Within the city limits of Salzburg...at least in shopping districts.....it's a no-go area for begging.  There's even talk that cemeteries will be put on some special no-go list for beggars.

After WW II.....no matter where you went in Germany.....there were jobs.  Most were full-time....some were part-time....but anybody could find work and avoid the particular nature of begging.  If you count in Hartz IV welfare and social help......no German stands out on the street and begs.   Things are different though with the significant number of non-native Germans or immigrants.
If you asked most Germans about the beggars.....they will respond that they don't give money to them and they don't buy the 'sob-story' image given.  Germans, in essence, are absolutely born into being natural-skeptics.  It might not have been that way in the 1930s, but they've kinda wised up, asked questions, and are a tougher breed of character today than they were forty years ago.  It's hard to find some sympathetic side of a German for these beggar characters.

Living with the beggars?  As each year goes by and you start to see more and more beggars.....I think some German cities will eventually get around to making some tough rules as the Austrians did with Salzburg.  If you remove the beggars from the most active market areas.....where they've got potential....and put them into limited locations for begging capital.....they will eventually get the message.