Thilo Sarrazin, the anti-immigration author of Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany abolishes itself"), must be especially alarmed at the 2011 census data released yesterday:
It’s as if Leipzig, Hanover and Dresden had disappeared in the blink of an eye, statistically speaking.
Germany, which has been deeply concerned about its rapidly dwindling
population, released the results of its first census in nearly a quarter
of a century on Friday and found 1.5 million fewer inhabitants than previously assumed.Chancellor Angela Merkel was already worried about the shrinking numbers
of taxpayers and able-bodied workers. How future smaller generations
will repay German debts, much less the mounting liabilities and
guarantees meant to contain the euro-zone debt crisis, is a central
question here.
But immigrants to Germany are not the danger to the gene pool that Sarrazin warned against. If anything, the census data underscores the fact that immigrants are Germany's salvation:
Sie, die Einwanderer und ihre Nachkommen, gehören also längst zu Deutschland,
und wie sehr das Land sie braucht, zeigt ein Blick auf die
Altersstatistik: Fast jeder vierte Einwohner ohne, aber nur knapp jeder
zehnte mit Migrationshintergrund ist bereits im Rentenalter. Umgekehrt
stammt mehr als jedes vierte Kind von Einwanderern ab. Ohne die
Migranten hat Deutschland keine Zukunft.(The immigrants and their offspring are an established part of Germany. And the age statistics only prove how much the country needs them: nearly one out of four German residents without any immigrant background is now in the retirement age. On the other hand, more than one out of four children are immigrants. WIthout immigrants Germany has no future.)
