What if it were burnout?
Germany—stuck in its debates, uncertain about everything, pessimistic and almost resigned. Is there a way out of what looks very much like collective burnout?
Germany’s roundabout: a nation circling, unable to exit
I started writing this a month ago. It was meant to be a snapshot of Germany in autumn, a glimpse of the winter ahead. Then I stopped—not to reflect, but to write urgently elsewhere. Business journalism, lots of work, but not introspection.
This weekend, I returned to the draft. Barely sketched, still rough. And I realised something: I could pick up exactly where I’d left off. In five weeks, Germany has been discussing the same topics.Debating the same issues. Circling the same arguments without reaching any conclusions.
That’s when I understood. This is the story. Germany today is like a driver stuck in a roundabout. Two laps, three, five. Unable to choose an exit. Is the GPS missing? Or perhaps the petrol too?
An autumn of debates: a winter of discontent?
The endless circling began at the end of October. In an interview, Chancellor Merz claimed that despite progress on migration policy, there was still a problem with the Stadtbild—the “cityscape.” It set off an enormous, emotional debate. Politicians jumped in. So did the media, associations, municipalities, police unions, even linguists.
At first it sounded like clumsy shorthand for something specific: areas in cities that feel increasingly out of control, unsafe, neglected. Within hours, it became a debate about migrant Germany.
Then it expanded again. Suddenly Stadtbild included everything: the underfunded municipalities that can’t maintain their streets, the understaffed police forces, the people who feel at risk — and those who insist they don’t — women, LGBTQ people, Jews, the schools falling apart, the places everyone avoids after dark, and the slow erosion of public space. In one month, Stadtbild has turned into a symbol for all that doesn’t work in the country.
A month later, we’re still circling. No exit chosen.
Then military service entered the roundabout. Should it return? For everyone? Only men? Women too? Then came the summits—government meeting society. One after another, each attempting to diagnose the country’s grey mood and pull it from the shallows.
☞ Auto Summit in October. Structural change in the car industry, e-mobility, competitive pressure from China, EU trade policy, energy prices, infrastructure for charging and hydrogen networks. ☞ Steel Summit in November at the Chancellery. The future of German steel, high energy prices, Chinese competition, American tariffs, costs of transitioning to climate-neutral production. Securing sites and jobs. ☞ November 11: the annual report from the Council of Economic Experts—yes, the German name is a mouthful: Übergabe und Beratung des Jahresgutachtens des Sachverständigenrats mit Kanzler Merz—officially a routine handover at the Chancellery before year-end, but in practice a mini economic summit on growth, investment, the debt brake, bureaucracy and the labour market. ☞ What about pensions? As I finally close this never-ending post, we are still debating how to balance acceptable pensions for the current generation with the debt that future generations will have to repay—probably without anything comparable to today’s pensions. On this topic, for three weeks now, vultures have been circling, hoping to see the Merz government collapse under intergenerational conflict. ☞ Then bureaucracy. Too many Germans loved it for too long. Rules and regulations help you avoid responsibility. Until they discovered that under this mountain of papers and certificates, small and medium businesses can collapse. ☞ Finally, five days ago, what should have been a routine institutional appointment turned into an ordeal for both the chancellor and Bärbel Bas, the Minister of Labour. The former received cautious applause; the latter was met with mocking laughter. The Arbeitsgebertag—the employers’ day—became a platform for one demand, both simple and complex: growth, growth, growth. But Germany cannot deliver growth today.
All of this became debate material. In parliamentary committees, TV talk shows, podcasts, at Parteitagen—the party meetings. The latest ended last week. The youth wing of CDU-CSU—the under-35s of Germany’s moderate Catholic-Protestant centre—rebelled against Merz himself. The father figure they adopted a year ago, helping elect him Chancellor.
Facing this flood of words, problems, uncertain prospects—how do Germans react?
Surprisingly, not with Angst. You know the expression. German Angst. That potent mix of discouragement and hesitation, laced with fears about the future and an extreme need for security. It’s become essential to understanding modern Germany. Almost a synonym for the national spirit.
But while politics seems eager to evoke, echo, or even fuel those fears, 2025 tells a different story.
The insurance company R+V has surveyed German worries for 34 years. Thirty-four. This year, they reported a surprisingly low Anxiety Index. Yes, Germany has an index to measure anxiety like a fever. In 2025, the overall Anxiety Index fell sharply to 37 percent, down from 42 percent in 2024.
Nearly half of Germans fear that refugees will “overwhelm the state.” True. But the greatest fear has nothing to do with war, extremism, Donald Trump, climate change, or even taxes. It’s the cost of living. Inflation. Surprised? Not if you know German history.
Beyond Angst: something darker
No, fear is no longer the lens. The population has simply “adapted to this state of perpetual uncertainty.” Germans have become “crisis-weary.” Constantly confronted by multiple crises—COVID-19, climate, inflation, wars—they feel powerless to influence any of them.
It’s a different mood. If possible, more frightening than fear. More angstful than the historical German Angst. A mixture of weariness and pessimism. An acceptance that the system no longer works. Have these Germans become a little more Italian?
And indeed, in Ipsos’s annual study on global worries, Germany sits a few places below Italy in the lower part of the optimism rankings. 77% of Germans think things are heading in the wrong direction. (73% of Italians think the same—a little Schadenfreude). 70% think the economy is doing badly and won’t improve.
Look at the political polls and pessimism turns into discontent. After six months of the Merz government—the government that promised firmness and fewer quarrels than the infamous traffic-light coalition—only 22 percent say they’re satisfied. The rest grumble. Or shrug. Or despair.
Unhappy, but also happy, and emotionally volatile: the 2025 German paradox
And yet, the University of Freiburg’s annual Glücksatlas 2025 (The Happiness Atlas)—because yes, Germany also measures happiness—tells a more nuanced story. The level of happiness has risen. Slightly, but risen. Back to pre-pandemic levels. And surprisingly, given the narrative of angry Easterners, it has risen especially in the East.
Be careful, though. Behind these indices, the same study warns of something else: emotionality in Germany continues to rise. More people are experiencing strong feelings. Both positive and negative. The polarisation of emotions.
🙂 In 2025, 57% of panel interviewees said they often feel happy (+12 points vs the same study in 2023). But: 😠 30% feel angry often or very often (+8 points since 2023); 😨 22% feel frequent fear (+8 points); 😔 28% feel frequent sadness (+7 points)
The new German condition
Less fearful. More pessimistic. Almost resigned. Politically dissatisfied. But individually happier, even while alternating this happiness with anger and sadness.
Yet they remain engaged—that famous 84% turnout at the last election is a sign of vitality... or of anger? They’re also more uncertain. Ask whether any government measure will work, and the answer is always: “I don’t think so.” Not apathetic, but pessimistic.
What’s happening to this country? Has German Angst become German depression? Or even German schizophrenia?
What if it were… collective burnout?
Dr Thomas Bergner, a physician and executive coach specialising in burnout prevention, explores this question in his short essay German Burnout. His brief essay appeared back in February, but it got squeezed. Between the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the 35th anniversary of reunification, too many other essays competed for attention.
Yet revisiting it now, at year’s end full of research, surveys, and reflections, perhaps Bergner has found the right key. To narrate Germany’s condition. To indicate a possible path to healing.
Bergner applies clinical criteria typically used for individual burnout to the entire German nation. He views it as a patient suffering from collective exhaustion. Rooted in unresolved historical trauma—it’s Germany, after all: traumatising and traumatised. Exacerbated by the contemporary crisis landscape. Using his clinical lens, Bergner sees Germany falling perfectly into the main symptoms of burnout.
Almost a textbook case.
He begins with the first classic symptom: emotional exhaustion. This manifests as a deep, pervasive collective negative mood. Widespread pessimism. We saw that earlier combined with feelings of overwhelm: Germans experience a “conglomeration of negative moods.” In individuals, these symptoms lead to physical manifestations. And indeed, Germany is among the European countries with high sick leave rates. Less than France, but high.
But Bergner doesn’t only see pessimism. He observes a dissociative disorder: detachment from identity. In the German case, this means Germans feel disconnected from their national identity. Still? Yes, still—despite the German flag now being everywhere. Yet nobody can answer, in 2025, the question: what does it mean to be German?
Another classic burnout sign is emerging: declining performance. Performance decline occurs when the balance between demands and personal resources is disturbed. On a national level, this translates to economic and administrative inefficiency. Public offices struggling. Political paralysis. No need for infographics, here. If you live or experience often Germany you know it. This is not an efficient country. This is not a competitive country.
It seems that German Dissatisfaction has replaced German Angst. Bergner describes it as a passive discontent that slides into a “victim position“—where people expect “the state” or someone else to fix their unhappiness. He identifies this as another symptom of German burnout.
Once you feel like a victim, a new vicious cycle emerges: the need for simple answers to complex problems, scapegoats, enemies, and someone to restore order. That someone cannot be you—weak, dissatisfied, incapable of acting, overwhelmed. Someone else has to solve it. Today, AfD. Yesterday, Adenauer, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel—anyone who does the job society feels unable to do.
The diagnosis: what caused this?
Symptoms are just symptoms. Once a diagnosis is made, the clinician must investigate their causes to prescribe the cure. According to Bergner, the causes all lie in contemporary German history—a history of traumas, one after another. Some unexpected.
It all starts with the unresolved aftermath of World War II and the Nazi regime: the terrible Nazi crimes, the occupation, the war casualties, the lost territories and refugees, the division into two states. It’s a lot. Often unprocessed. The shame over Nazi-era crimes was largely suppressed, Bergner reminds us. But shame, once repressed, has prevented a healthy national self-concept to this day. This trauma remains largely unconscious, operating “like an underground resistance fighter.”
To cope with the unbearable weight of shame, the system transformed it into the more manageable emotion of guilt. Guilt is less burdensome. It’s connected to actions that can be addressed through remorse and making amends. Compensatory actions started soon after World War II. Today, Germany remains the second-largest bilateral donor worldwide after the US. It paid €35.1 billion in development contributions in 2023—partially explained as an attempt to compensate for moral guilt.
The collapse of the GDR represents another profound systemic trauma. For years, we have seen this re-emerging in books, research, and the political landscape.
We often overlook that people in former East Germany had to experience, survive, and process two consecutive dictatorships. Reunification felt like external control. The reconstruction of the East was thoughtlessly designed as a replica of the West. Western ideas were imposed without sensitivity. This process had deeply humiliating effects.
This imposition triggered a sense of powerlessness that has solidified over time. The struggle to overcome these historical grievances has fostered a victim mentality amongst many East Germans. It expresses itself today as dissatisfaction and anger regarding the institutional and elite transfers from the West.
Finally, the Merkel era. Is it a trauma? Really?
Here Bergner makes a radical claim, bordering on provocation: Angela Merkel’s sixteen years as Chancellor created the conditions for burnout by encouraging passivity. Merkel’s style implicitly sent a message: “I am without alternative”… “but the good thing is, with me you don’t need to do anything—I’ll handle everything.” This acted as an effective tranquilliser, pacifying the populace and discouraging civic engagement.
What happens when the tranquilliser disappears? Germans felt left alone with their problems. They discovered that life without Mutti is hard. They developed anger and critique. Everything that doesn’t work now, for many, has its roots in the Merkel era. For others who long to be tranquillised, everything that no longer works is because Merkel is no longer there to solve everything.
The deep calm in which Mrs Merkel lulled Germany—first during the 2007–2008 financial crisis, then through other crises—was abruptly shattered. First by the Corona pandemic. Then by Russia’s resumption of war against Ukraine. Faced with these crises, Germans found themselves alone and unable to cope.
Uncertain, exhausted, almost paralysed. And there’s the feeling—precisely the feeling of these days—where we keep debating the same themes, going round in circles with no way out. What is to be done?
The path to recovery
Healing is impossible without recognising the illness and understanding its causes. Of all the discussions about German memory culture and the processing of its past, perhaps what was missing is this admission: such a past is a burden from which one cannot escape through donations or by buying the benevolence of others.
Instead, little has been said—except in rather rhetorical ways—about the results this country has achieved despite everything. The German media do not help: permanent catastrophism, an almost genetic trait of German media, always describes the advent of the next apocalypse.
What if the country made peace with itself? It could accept the collective and individual historical responsibilities of Nazism whilst also stopping constantly pouring them onto new generations. It could accept that the GDR was not a pause in history and cannot be dismissed as an unjust state or deviation, but that those 40 years are an integral part of German identity today.
In short, it could give meaning to that mountain of books on East and West that have transformed into a new wall between two Germanies, instead of a bridge to understand each other better—perhaps having more Western readers engage with those pages, instead of developing two types of non-fiction and fiction: one for Westerners who struggle to understand the East, and one from the East that exudes a desire for redemption, recognition, and anger against the West.
In the end, accepting oneself for what one is: a country that destroyed Europe but also contributed to rebuilding it. A country that still has two faces, which are perhaps its wealth. A country that has also given and obtained much of which it can be proud: Germany has achieved remarkable successes that deserve recognition.
The development of mRNA vaccines stands as a testament to German scientific excellence. The country welcomed 1.2 million Ukrainian war refugees almost seamlessly—not a problem, but an achievement to celebrate. Germany’s high culture is reflected in its ranking as third worldwide in Nobel Prize winners, with most awards going to German chemists and physicists. The infrastructure, particularly a health system that many countries still envy, remains strong. This is complemented by innovative strength, far above-average technical knowledge and skills, and world-renowned industrial companies and brands—not all have been bought by the Chinese; there is still plenty of “Germany made in Germany”.
The next step in the healing process focuses on actively transforming the German system from paralysed exhaustion into one capable of self-directed action. This transformation requires, above all, honest and emotionally competent communication from the political system.
Clear Communication with Emotional Intelligence. Political leaders must explain changes clearly, but not only with dry, rational arguments. Germany has been missing a crucial quality in recent years: emotional competence. The Scholz government struggled with the emotional distance of its Chancellor. While the current government may differ in style, it hasn’t fully bridged this gap either. Despite any clinical assessment of Angela Merkel’s policies, there’s a reason many Germans still miss her: she was perceived as genuinely human—hyper-rational, yet also super-empathic.
Reframing Debates as Acts of Trust. Some debates need to be reframed entirely. For example, removing bureaucracy can become a powerful motivator when narrated as an act of trust in citizens—acknowledging that they can self-regulate and make decisions without thousands of prescriptions and hundreds of pages to fulfil. As we know in business, giving trust produces positive benefits in most cases.
De-catastrophising. This step involves realistically defining the worst-case scenario and then assessing the probability that the situation will actually lead to that outcome. This is essential because many social media contributions gain traction only by predicting or fearing one disaster after another, feeding into the burnout cycle.
Building Active Optimism. Promote the belief that solutions are possible. This belief motivates individuals to become politically and constructively active, strengthening their sense of self-efficacy.
Talk about the future
In the end, the analysis becomes a political plea: for a state that stops claiming it can solve all issues at once (an outcome nobody believes). Instead, a state that communicates a roadmap—one that chooses a few key goals, three at most. These goals should be formulated positively and in the present tense, as if already fulfilled, with transparent measures for tracking their achievement.
Even more importantly, the state must reject escapism: that desire to press a “reset button” or return to a perceived better past—essentially what AfD’s political messaging attempts with the mass remigration debate, the notion that the euro and European institutions can be dismantled, and the fantasy that energy costs can return to pre-war levels. Instead of resetting, offer perspective.
Closing the last page of this short essay, I raise my gaze to the TV screen showing yet another debate on pensions, public spending, and sustainable levels. All very technical. Perfect for instilling fear of the future.
And I realise what is missing in the country where I live: someone who speaks about the future.
Not the Trumpian “golden age” of America, which seems above all a golden age for his family’s business and his friends’ interests. No, a desirable future doesn’t need to be golden. But it needs to feel benevolent. This—truly—can bring the Germans out of the shell they’ve built for themselves, constructed from low expectations and the conviction that nothing can change. The future. Tell it. Make it visible. Difficult, in days like these. But necessary.
And if you ask whether Germany’s emotional state has anything to do with you, whether it makes sense to care, the answer is simple: what Europe can still exist if, at its centre, instead of a beating heart, there is a black hole? From this burnout we must emerge. All of us. Together.
Post-scriptum
While working on this post, a survey by Civey for the Funke Media Group newspapers revealed that 25% of Germans feel nostalgic for Angela Merkel.
Who are these 25%? One in three people aged 18–29 miss the former Chancellor, compared to just 19% of those over 65. Yes, Merkel may have contributed to Germany’s current challenges. Yet she possesses the empathy, moral compass, and ability to communicate positively and deliver results—agreements, trade deals, negotiations—that are desperately needed today. I don’t believe those 25% want to return to the “tranquillising” Merkel. They simply miss leadership that is both pragmatic and human. Merkel’s own party has dismissed the survey as irrelevant, partly because the nostalgia comes mainly from the progressive centre and the Greens. Still, in terms of political style and intelligence, nobody could replace “Mutti”.
The book: Thomas Bergner, German Burnout: Where our exhaustion and dissatisfaction come from and how we can get rid of them, 2025, Klett-Cotta, German