For more than a decade, Germany was widely praised for opening its doors to people fleeing Syria’s devastating civil war. Beginning in 2011 and accelerating during the 2015 refugee crisis, the country became home to roughly one million Syrians escaping violence, persecution and economic collapse. Today, however, Germany appears to be turning the page on that humanitarian legacy.
In November 2025, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced plans to deport Syrian refugees “in the near future” and called on Syrians living in Germany to return voluntarily to their home country. Coming just a year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime ended Syria’s 14-year civil war, the announcement marked a dramatic shift in tone — and policy.
While Merz has framed the move as a pragmatic response to changing conditions in Syria, critics argue that Germany’s new stance reflects deeper political pressures at home. Most notably, the far-right Alternative for Germany has surged in recent elections, winning nearly 21% of the vote in February 2025 and becoming the second-largest party in parliament. Immigration has been central to its appeal.
By hardening his rhetoric on refugees, Merz appears to be attempting to neutralize the AfD by adopting parts of its agenda. Yet this strategy has historical precedents — and troubling implications.
Despite the end of Syria’s civil war, many Syrians in Germany are reluctant to return. Over the past decade, they have built lives, careers and families in their host country. Around 15% have obtained German citizenship, nearly half of working-age Syrians are employed, and approximately 250,000 Syrian children attend German schools.
International law further complicates Germany’s plans. The principle of non-refoulement, embedded in both international and German law, prohibits the forced return of refugees to countries where they may face serious threats. As of December 2025, the United Nations Refugee Agency continues to warn against compulsory returns to Syria, citing ongoing insecurity and humanitarian need. Germany has therefore focused on encouraging “voluntary return”. Since January 2025, Syrians have been able to apply for government-funded financial incentives of up to €4,000 per family to assist their return. Similar programs exist elsewhere in Europe and are often presented as humane alternatives to deportation.
Human rights organizations, however, have sharply criticized the policy. They argue that the sums offered are insufficient to rebuild lives in a country where two-thirds of the population relies on humanitarian aid, millions remain internally displaced, and basic infrastructure such as electricity, healthcare and housing is severely degraded. Activists also warn that Syria remains unsafe for women, religious minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals.
Even Germany’s own foreign minister has acknowledged these realities, conceding after a visit to Damascus that dignified living conditions are still out of reach for most Syrians.
Germany’s current approach echoes a lesser-known chapter of its postwar history. In the early 1980s, the same political party now led by Merz — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — pursued a remarkably similar policy aimed at another predominantly Muslim group: Turkish migrants.
During the 1960s and 1970s, West Germany recruited millions of Turkish “guest workers” to support its booming postwar economy. Initially expected to stay temporarily, many settled permanently and brought their families, forming Germany’s largest ethnic minority. By the 1980s, however, economic stagnation, rising unemployment and growing cultural anxieties fueled racism and Islamophobia across the political spectrum. While neo-Nazi groups carried out violent attacks against Turks, mainstream politicians increasingly questioned whether Islam was compatible with German society.
Then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl openly expressed a desire to reduce the Turkish population by half. Yet forced deportations were politically and morally untenable in a country still grappling with the legacy of Nazism. Kohl’s solution was a so-called remigration law passed in 1983, which offered Turkish migrants financial incentives to return voluntarily.
The policy was widely criticized as discriminatory and coercive. Nevertheless, around 250,000 Turks — roughly 15% of the community — accepted the offer and left. It was one of the largest mass remigration efforts in modern European history. The outcome was far from successful. Many returnees struggled to reintegrate into Turkey’s fragile economy and were socially marginalized as “Germanized Turks”. Children, in particular, faced identity crises and discrimination. The policy reduced migrant numbers, but it left lasting scars on individuals and communities.
The parallels between the Turkish case and today’s Syrian policy are striking. In both instances, a centrist government responded to political pressure by offering financial incentives to remove a Muslim minority deemed problematic. In both cases, the policy was framed as voluntary but carried implicit coercion. Yet the circumstances Syrians face today may be even harsher than those confronting Turkish returnees four decades ago. Syria remains deeply unstable, its economy shattered and its social fabric torn apart. Unsurprisingly, the uptake of Germany’s voluntary return scheme has been minimal: only around 1,300 Syrians — just 0.1% of the population — have returned since Assad’s fall.
Merz has now signaled that deportations may follow if voluntary returns fail, beginning with Syrians who have criminal records. Germany is not alone in this approach; neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan have already begun deporting Syrians.
Merz’s policy reflects genuine political pressures. The rise of the AfD has unsettled Germany’s political center, prompting mainstream parties to move rightward on immigration in an effort to retain voters. Yet history suggests that such strategies risk legitimizing, rather than containing, exclusionary narratives. As the Turkish experience shows, policies driven by fear of the far right often end up reinforcing the very prejudices they seek to counter. Racism and Islamophobia are not fringe phenomena in German politics; they have long existed within the mainstream.
Today, Syrians — like Turks before them — find themselves caught between geopolitical change and domestic political maneuvering. Whether Germany’s new course will succeed politically remains uncertain. What is clearer is that it revives uncomfortable questions about belonging, responsibility and the lessons of history that Germany once vowed never to forget.
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