Germany, remember who you are

Excuses are growing. Responsibility is shrinking. And too many people call it normal.

In my latest monthly column for the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, I ask what happened to the values that once made Germany strong, effort, reliability, and shared responsibility. Because progress does not come from talk, but from action, courage, and contribution.

First grade, 1988. My teacher is handing out the math notebooks. She places mine on the desk, smiles briefly, and moves on. Nothing unusual, and yet that was what made it special. She did not see a child whose parents had fled Iran two years earlier. She saw a student. My performance mattered, not my background. In that moment, I knew I belonged. Not as an exception, but as a student.

By the end of elementary school, I was top of my class. Not because anyone made it easier for me, but because they expected the same from me as from everyone else. That was Germany to me: a country that did not ask where you came from, but what you could do.

My parents understood that. “Here, you can achieve anything,” they said, “but you have to earn it.” My father studied electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen in a language he first had to learn. At the same time, he worked 20 to 30 hours a week as a student assistant. At night, he sat at the computer and programmed. I still remember the sound of the keyboard late at night. He did not just learn German; he taught himself C++. His professors gave him those jobs because he delivered results.

Years later, my parents founded a company. More than a hundred people started their careers there, many with a background similar to their own. That was how the contract worked. Germany demanded a lot, but it also promised a lot. Whoever contributes, belongs.

At eighteen, I held my German passport in my hands. I swore allegiance to the Basic Law: “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” But also: “To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.” Rights and responsibilities, both together. One does not exist without the other. That passport was not a gift. It was a contract.

Germany once took pride in that. In diligence, reliability, and precision. In the belief that good work matters, no matter who does it. While America dreamed of the individual who rises from nothing to become a millionaire, Germany dreamed of the collective. Of a strong middle class. Of craftsmanship and engineering. Of a society where everyone who works hard can live well.

That was the German Dream. Not quick money, but earned success. Not redistribution, but shared creation. Ludwig Erhard called it “prosperity for all,” but he never meant prosperity without performance.

If you want to see what that spirit looks like today, watch our national basketball team. World and European champions with a fraction of the NBA stars that other countries have. Dennis Schröder, Franz Wagner, many names, different backgrounds, one team. The best individual player does not win. The best collective does.

That is how we rebuilt Germany after the war. With pragmatism, not bureaucracy. With courage, not excuses. But today, we seem to have forgotten that.

We talk about entitlement, not responsibility. We ask what we deserve, not what we can contribute. We manage problems instead of solving them. Our parents still knew the saying “From Nothing comes Nothing.” Today it sounds old-fashioned. Meanwhile, other countries are copying the very virtues we have abandoned: discipline, effort, and community spirit. China is one of them. Instead of asking what we can learn, we explain why it would not work here. Too complicated. Too risky. Too inconvenient.

We have an excuse for everything, except a solution.

In politics, too, we prefer talking to doing. We moralize, we lecture, and we demand from the world what we do not live up to ourselves. But responsibility does not begin on the world stage. It begins in the mirror. That is what my parents taught me, and my teacher as well. Before you criticize others, ask yourself: what is my part in this? That mindset does not make you small. It makes you strong.

Entrepreneurship does not mean owning a company. It means taking responsibility. For yourself, for others, for the future. Whether you are a founder, an employee, a teacher, or a politician. German prosperity was never built on good intentions or fine words. It was built on action. By people who did not ask what they were owed, but what they could build. Who did not point fingers, but rolled up their sleeves.

We need that spirit again. The courage to improve things instead of just criticizing them. The clarity to understand that freedom and responsibility belong together, just like rights and duties. The willingness to make difficult choices.

Germany does not need to reinvent itself. It just needs to remember what made it strong. The contract between contribution and belonging. The idea that everyone who contributes, belongs.

My teacher knew that. My father lived it. Germany made it possible for me.
Now it is our turn.

Germany, remember who you are.