Katja Hoyer

Katja Hoyer

Katja Hoyer is an Anglo-German historian. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

German politics is a mess

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament yesterday. It’s almost certain now that Germans will head to the polls for a snap election on 23 February. What is less certain is whether this will bring about the change so many of them crave. Of 717 Bundestag deputies only 207 expressed their

Olaf Scholz’s dreams of election victory are wishful thinking

Three years ago today, Olaf Scholz was sworn in as Germany’s chancellor. He had narrowly won the election by presenting himself as Angela Merkel’s natural successor. Appearing as the continuity candidate was good enough to clinch it in 2021, but Scholz is unlikely to pull that off again in Germany’s snap election, expected to be held

Why are Germans happy to continue paying a dog tax?

Local authorities in Germany are making more money than ever from dogs – or their owners to be precise. The very idea of charging dog owners an annual tax for keeping their pets may sound archaic to British ears but it carries on fairly unchallenged in Germany. In 2023, Germany’s municipal authorities received a total

Germany and the fuss over the ‘idiot’s apostrophe’

‘Now it’s official,’ the German press lamented, ‘the idiot’s apostrophe is correct.’ The Council for German Orthography, the body that regulates German spelling and grammar, has relaxed the rules on when and how apostrophes can be used to show possession. What seems like a matter for grammar pedants has fuelled angst for the very future

Banning Germany’s AfD won’t make it disappear

The opening of a regional parliament doesn’t usually make for edge-of-the-seat politics. But in the German state of Thuringia, the first session of newly elected MPs descended into such unsavoury chaos that some commentators now fear for German democracy itself. A few weeks ago, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won the Thuringian parliamentary election, making it

Germany’s immigration crackdown will heap pressure on Brussels

In a drastic move to curb illegal immigration, the German government has announced that it will tighten controls on its borders. Long-term measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers entering the country are being discussed in cross-party talks in Berlin. This represents paradigm shift on immigration. Germany opened its borders to over one million

The remarkable success of the Allied occupation of Germany

‘We came as adversaries, we stayed as allies, and we leave as friends,’ British prime minister John Major told crowds in Berlin on 8 September 1994, thirty years ago today. The last 200 British, American and French soldiers withdrew from Berlin that day, leaving the city without a foreign military presence for the first time

Olaf Scholz’s immigration quagmire

Shock quickly turned to anger in Germany when a Syrian asylum seeker was arrested for the brutal knife attack in the city of Solingen last weekend. Three people were murdered and eight more injured by a man who had no right to be in Germany.  Politicians from the coalition government reacted with a flurry of

Alt reich: Is Germany’s far right about to go mainstream?

46 min listen

This week: Alt reich. The Spectator’s Lisa Haseldine asks if Germany’s far right is about to go mainstream, ahead of regional elections this weekend. Lisa joined the podcast, alongside the historian Katja Hoyer, to discuss why the AfD are polling so well in parts of Germany, and how comparable this is to other trends across Europe

Has Germany run out of money to give to Ukraine?

Germany is Ukraine’s biggest military donor in Europe. On paper, it appears determined to ensure that Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression does not pay off. But now a German newspaper has seen documents suggesting Berlin wants to halt new support for Kyiv.  According to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Finance Minister Christian Lindner sent a letter

Germany will regret cutting Ukraine aid

It wasn’t so long ago that the German chancellor Olaf Scholz tried to convince fellow European leaders to do more to help Ukraine. Wherever he travelled in the spring, the message was the same: Vladimir Putin will only withdraw Russian troops ‘if he realises that he cannot win the war on the battlefield,’ Scholz told European social

The Euros couldn’t come at a worse time for Germany

Like many Germans, I remember the summer of 2006 with fondness. We hosted the football World Cup, and for a few glorious weeks the country was transformed. The sun literally didn’t stop shining. Every cafe, bar and park seemed to have the football on TV. The country was in an exceedingly good mood.  When it

It feels like the social order is crumbling in Germany

I’ve been in and out of Germany a lot in recent months, and it’s hard not to gain the impression that its society is falling apart at the seams. Wherever you go, there seem to be angry political rallies and street protests. The news is full of violent attacks on politicians and activists. The fear

Germany was right to take the Reichsbürger threat seriously

Germany is in the grip of one of the most extensively covered courtroom dramas in recent memory. On trial is an alleged terrorist group of nine men and women centred around the 72-year-old aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. They stand accused of having plotted to violently overthrow the state before they were arrested in December

A Russian spy scare won’t undermine German morale on Ukraine

The news that German police have arrested two alleged Russian spies in Bavaria has understandably raised some alarm bells in Berlin. The men stand accused of targeting military infrastructure, aiming to undermine German support for Ukraine; such acute security threats are always bad news. But the response so far has been more defiant than divided.

Germany’s Holocaust dilemma

‘In 2024, Jewish money is once again being confiscated by a German bank’. This is a headline that makes for uncomfortable reading in Berlin. It is part of a story currently making the rounds on social media and being described as a ‘worrying echo of history.’ But there is more to this story than meets the eye.

How Germany became a security liability

There were lots of smiles and some awkward football banter when German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock met her British counterpart David Cameron in Berlin earlier this week. Cameron was careful to tiptoe around Berlin’s recent security blunders, after an online call between German officials discussing British military activities in Ukraine was intercepted by Russia. Alliances

Germany’s anti-AfD marches are backfiring

The rise of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has set off one of the largest waves of protest in modern German history. Half-a-million or so demonstrators took to the streets last weekend: they were a mixed bunch of all ages and ethnicities; politicians also marched alongside members of the public. All were united in their desire

What a secret far-right meeting reveals about the AfD

It sounds like a scene from a dystopian TV drama: in a country hotel west of Berlin, far-right politicians met neo-Nazi activists and sympathetic businesspeople to discuss a ‘masterplan’ for Germany that involves the forced deportations of millions from the country. But this is no fiction. According to reports in the German media, such a