Sapere Aude

What a year we’ve had: The world shakes its head at Germany, powerful figures look down on us, and some even prophesy the downfall of civilization for all of Europe if things continue as they are with foreign infiltration, open borders, and economic recession in Germany.

To understand the reasons for this, let’s take a brief look at the past: In the 1960s, student leader Rudi Dutschke described the “long march through the institutions” as a left-socialist method by which an extra-parliamentary opposition gradually seizes control of the levers of power in the state, the economy, and universities, thereby gradually gaining control of the overall societal discourse.

In 2025, this project appears largely complete in Germany. The lack of resistance from a complacent, bourgeois majority has allowed a political system to operate for years that preaches moral stance as a substitute for a willingness to perform, grants victims to minorities, and exploits this victimhood as a source of power. While the political center of the country fell into a kind of slumber, the propaganda of public broadcasters and the active support of state-funded associations and organizations helped numerous ideologues into top government positions—as highly paid employees of the taxpayer, responsible for the world’s third-largest economy.

Without any professional experience or expertise in the matter, but brimming with moral rhetoric, they told us that we Germans were a rich country and once again involved in something truly momentous. This time, it was about saving the world, both climatically and socially. Meanwhile, the grand narrative of Germany’s successful energy transition, which other nations were supposedly adopting and which would bring us a new economic miracle, has long since been shattered by reality.

After a decade of energy and migration policies blind to reality, we have just experienced a fourth year of the “green economic miracle,” with new records for taxes, debt, and energy prices. Degrowth serves the purpose of decarbonization, but the social welfare system is flooded with people who can barely read or write, some of whom behave like conquerors. The exodus of those willing to work continues. Everything has been delivered, just as the voters ordered.

With a tolerance bordering on self-abandonment, the government was bound to fail in maintaining security and order in the country. We became silent, astonished witnesses to an antisemitic mob, daily stabbings, gang crime and neglect, drug addict hangouts, and perpetual roadworks. It is no wonder that the state, rendered almost immobile by its self-imposed shackles of overregulation, has so far been unable to create the necessary conditions for the construction of urgently needed housing.

“In embracing the whole world, Germany has forgotten its own people,” I heard recently, and for the first time since World War II, the promise that the next generation in Germany will be better off than the previous one may indeed not be fulfilled.

‘In embracing the whole world, Germany has forgotten its own people. And for the first time since World War II, the promise that the next generation in Germany will be better off than the previous one may well not be fulfilled.

: … So how much more decline, how much more humiliation will it take before we truly turn the tide? Apocalyptic visions in times of crisis can ignite the ambition to meet those who currently look down on us with a shake of the head. They can serve as the impetus for a genuine renaissance. This country has already risen from the ashes like a phoenix once before, so it has experience with this.

The next two weeks offer an opportunity for reflection, for contemplating our own values ​​and roots. Western, including Christian, values ​​have strengthened our cultural sphere after centuries of often bloody conflict because, in the end, they prioritized freedom, responsibility, and the individual over the collective. The West has always been open to those who share these principles. It attracts people worldwide; the Western model remains the longing of many who are denied it. “Anyone who prioritizes the individual over the collective has secured their ticket to civilization,” I recently read. A beautiful sentence, worth pondering.

We are not alone in this. “Sapere aude,” wrote the Roman poet Horace—“Dare to know,” became a guiding principle of the Enlightenment with Immanuel Kant. Let us take this thought with us into the time between Christmas and New Year’s.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Sincerely

Ernst-M. Ehrenkönig · CEO & Managing Partner