How Germany is handling the 2022 Ukraine refugee crisis

By Hannah Solloway

On 24th February 2022, the Russian government launched an aggressive and unprovoked invasion on the sovereign nation of Ukraine, escalating a war which they began in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea. Between late February and mid-October 2022, over a million refugees arrived in Germany, fleeing the violence and destruction in Ukraine. This makes it the third most popular country for refugees fleeing Ukraine, behind Russia and Poland respectively.

The German government was quick to assist Ukraine. Ministries and public offices scrambled to collect and translate a wealth of needed information into Ukrainian. Germany promptly began to supply Ukraine’s military with ammunition, weaponry and vehicles in regular shipments and has spent over one billion euros so far in 2022 to this effect.

In the first few weeks of the crisis, a special provision was passed to allow Ukrainians to enter Germany and other EU member states and remain there for 90 days without a formal visa. This can be extended by an additional 90 days, but refugees preferably need to register their intent to stay in Germany during this initial period. In March, an EU-wide directive was passed, granting temporary protection to Ukrainians and allowing them to bypass the regular asylum application process. This permit is generally valid for one year but can be extended to up to three years, and often includes permission to work.

Ukrainians who qualify are also able to apply for regular work or study permits. The government has passed an additional law to grant Hartz-IV basic income to Ukrainian refugees from 1st June 2022. This new legislation means that municipal job centres are now the main point of contact to help refugees find employment, language classes and childcare. The aim here is to put Ukrainians on equal footing with unemployed Germans, as well as to grant access to government subsidies like Kindergeld, Elterngeld or Bafög.

In addition to governmental protections, the outpouring of support for Ukraine by the German people during this crisis has been aweinspiring. An informal infrastructure of aid for incoming refugees sprang up overnight. This infrastructure was later solidified into a formal structure with governmental assistance and bureaucratic procedures, but the very first weeks of the crisis saw a huge grassroots mobilisation effort by ordinary citizens to help refugees.

The first waves of refugees who arrived in Germany were met at train stations by volunteer helpers, who offered them hot food and beverages and helped new arrivals figure out where to go next. Volunteers could and did simply turn up to their nearest Hauptbahnhof and help however they could, with those who had been there a bit longer holding informal training sessions, usually with a megaphone and a crate.

ollection points were set up for donations, which promptly pouredin. Interpreters and anyone who spoke Ukrainian or even Russian ---were highly sought after, with many calls to action from the public and private sector urging them to participate in these refugee resettlement efforts. Even those who couldn’t speak Ukrainian or Russian turned up wherever needed in large numbers and were quickly given basic ad hoc training and assigned shifts. The real desire Germans had to help their European neighbours in Ukraine at this time was palpable, and the level of mobilisation was truly impressive. Storefronts were transformed into collection and distribution centres overnight, providing clothes, food, hygiene products and more to arriving refugees, as well as being crucial points of information. Many people who owned vehicles, particularly those in southern Germany and Austria, collected donations from neighbours and then drove to the border at regular intervals to pass goods to those still in Ukraine.

Many in Germany with room to spare invited Ukrainian families into their homes free of charge, with 300,000 homes being offered by early March. Apps were set up to facilitate this, with new ones such as ‘unterkunft-ukraine.de’ and ‘host4ukraine.com’ springing up specifically to meet this need. Established websites such as Wunderflats, Airbnb and others also created new sections on their websites or ‘pay-itforward’ schemes to facilitate this.

Overall, the clear abundance of support for Ukrainians on both a governmental and societal level has been impressive. However, this is also bittersweet for many, especially for those whose parents or grandparents fled to Germany decades ago as refugees following the Yugoslavian war or were conscripted to rebuild the German economy as Gastarbeiter*innen after the Second World War. As one young woman, a descendant of Gastarbeiter*innen, put it: “Ukrainians get to start university without having finished secondary school – but our parents had to clean toilets when they came to Germany.” She clarified that she is very happy to see Ukrainians being treated so well but is sad and angry that this could not be done for her own parents and countless others who came before. Refugees from warzones like Syria, Afghanistan and Iran have not and most likely will not ever receive an outpouring of support on this scale.

I am thrilled to see how Germany, my adopted home of eight years, has mobilised to help the Ukrainian people who came to this country for safety, and I hope that this sets a precedent of care and compassion for people of any nationality who need refuge going forward.