Germany may never be the same after coronavirus

When Emmanuel Macron told the French people how his government would tackle coronavirus, he used the word ‘war’ six times. Boris Johnson adopted a similar stance, invoking wartime language to tell Brits we will ‘win the fight’ and beat the enemy’. In her recent televised speech, chancellor Angela Merkel specifically avoided suggesting that Germany is ‘at war’ with the coronavirus. Such over-the-top rhetoric wouldn‘t fit Merkel‘s persona, and to declare war would unsettle rather than motivate Germans. But the softer language doesn’t mean that this isn’t a pivotal moment in Germany’s history. 

The country went into lockdown on 23 March to battle the continuing spread of the coronavirus. For the first time since its foundation after World War II, fundamental rights are severely restricted; something that might seem only inconsequential elsewhere is an event of historic proportion in a country that was once ruled by dictatorship.

The establishment of civil rights was a particular concern of the authors of the German constitution in 1948/49.