germany free speech

Comment: Please note this has been machine translated from the German original and roughly edited for clarity.


Never before have there been such great concerns in the Federal Republic of Germany to freely articulate political opinion. Only supporters of the Greens are still convinced of freedom of expression.

Fewer and fewer people in Germany have the feeling of being able to express political opinion freely. This is possible from a survey of the The Institute of Demoscopy Allensbach and the Media Tenor Media Research Institute. According to this, the perceived freedom of expression in of the population reached the deepest level since the 1950s.


Comment: So, just a few years after Nazi rule...


The authors of the study primarily blame the media climate for this.

Accordingly, 44 percent of respondents believe that they must be cautious when expressing their opinion. Only 40 percent said that they can freely express their political opinions. Freedom of expression is enshrined in the German Basic Law, the results of the study refer only to the respondents' perceived expressions of opinion.

"Since the fall of the Wall, when in 1990 78 percent of the Germans answered this question very confidently, are the values that first fell with the Schröder government, then continued to steadily fall under Merkel, to their historical low point" write the authors of the study.

There are clear differences between the age groups. Among the respondents between 16 and 29 years of age, it is around 50 percent, which indicated that they can speak freely. For all older age groups it is only 36 to 38 percent. By contrast, at 51 percent, a majority of the 45- to 59-year-olds think they need to be cautious. Among 16- to 29-year-olds, it is 32 percent.


Comment: Note that younger people tend to have more liberal views - which may align with the Western establishment's woke agenda - whereas older people tend to be more conservative, and therefore would be more likely to be critical of the propaganda narrative that politics and media deem acceptable.


Green academics convinced of freedom of expression

The most important factor is school education. While only 28 percent of respondents with secondary or lower secondary school and 35 percent with intermediary Mature, said that it was possible to speak freely, 51 percent of respondents were involved Abitur or study. People with lower educational qualifications therefore less likely dare to express their opinions.


Comment: And we've seen how even the top universities from the US to the UK are enforcing extreme trans and vegan ideologies.


Party membership also plays a role. It is more common AfD - (62 percent) or FDP voters (57 percent) who stated that one had to be covered be careful.


Comment: Note the AFD is one of the parties that has seen an increase in support from the people, alongside blatant attacks from the establishment:


But also supporters of the SPD (46 percent), the Left Party (45 percent) and the Union (43 percent) often see this so. Only Green voters are convinced that they can express their opinion freely in Germany: 75 percent said here one could talk freely. Among the green voters, only 19 percent stated that one must be careful with expressions of opinion - less than half as many as the supporters of all other parties.


Comment: It's telling that the Greens hold opinions most closely aligned with the government, and how they are at odds with the rest of the country.


Influence factor Media

Differences - even if only a few percentage points - are it also between East and West Germany. In the East 35 percent said, released in the West, however, 41 percent. 47 percent of respondents in the East are of the opinion that one has to be careful, in the West it is 44 percent.

The authors explain the study results are based on the media respondants consume. The media climate has a great influence on the perceived freedom of expression, according to the media research institute Media Tenor.

The main source of media use was the public service offers specified. 72 percent gave the public television, 60 percent radio. About private TV providers 40 percent of respondents are informed.