Spyke

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europe

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66% of Germans oppose benefits for Ukrainian refugees

Let's add some context and some numbers!

Ukrainians are entitled to "Bürgergeld", the social security system for Germans. This means Ukrainians get a benefit, no other refugee gets. If you come from Afghanistan or Syria, you will get less money than Ukrainians. This includes payments for being single parent or pregnant. You get immediate health insurance and you are immediately entitled to look out for a job [1].

The amount of Ukrainian refugees currently working is about 300,000[2], this number has doubled since the beginning of the Russian invasion. The number of total Ukrainians is not clear, but it is about 1,100,000 [3]

We need to exclude children, disabled people etc., fortunately this article itself gives numbers:

701,000 Ukrainians were entitled to social assistance paid to jobseekers and low-income individuals. [...] Of these, 502,000 were able-bodied citizens aged 15-66.

Which means roughly 60% of Ukrainian refugees are working. Source [2] lists 211k unemployed, 98k doing integration courses, 29k doing work related language courses, 21k are doing some programs with the employment offices (usually this is sitting in front of a PC and learning MS Word).

Can we conclude Ukrainians are lazy? Absolutely not. Ukrainians are very likely to integrate into the job market. Personally I guess this has mainly to do with not fleeing because of economic reasons but war and to a lesser extent cultural reasons.

Are Germans right with being against supporting Ukrainians with social benefits? Well, that is not easy to answer. But keep in mind, Ukrainians have a special status among all refugee groups that enables them receiving much more support than a "regular refugee". This is kind of good will Germans proved especially in the beginning of the invasion, where military support was not nearly as strong as now.
The financial situation of Germans is difficult, as it is almost everywhere else. Every euro paid from the social security system is paid by someones taxes. Taxes and health costs etc. are at an all time high of roughly 50% 42% of your wage.

Lastly, a lot of Germans wonder what young men in the age of 20 or 30 are doing in Germany, why are they not fighting in Ukraine? If you ask me personally, I can absolutely understand not wanting to die for your country. But I guess it is a fair question.

I hope I could give you some context that helps you sort this out. Like always, it is a bit complicated. Slava Ukraini.

[1] https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/ukrainer-nrw-buergergeld-arbeit-100.html (20.06.2024)

[2] https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/presse/2025-07-knapp-300000-menschen-aus-der-ukraine-gehen-in-deutschland-einer-arbeit-nach (19.02.2025)

[3] https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Forschung/Kurzanalysen/kurzanalyse4-2025-ibs-bevoelkerungsstruktur-ukr-gefluechtete.html (07.05.2025)

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nostupidquestions

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During the lead up to the Holocaust did the N... regime just kidnap people who they even thought were Jews? Kind of like ICE is doing to citizens today?

As there are not many useful answers here yet, let me try.

From 1933 on, the N...-Regime* required a so called "Aryan certificate" (Ariernachweis) from employees in the public sector. Who and what is Aryan is a debate by itself so I will leave this out, but Jews were a group that were explicitly excluded from that group.

So how would you get this certificate? You needed to proof this with the birth and/or marriage certificates of your ancestors, specifically those of your parent and your grand parents. In special cases you needed even more (like applying for SS/NSDAP), but in general that was it.

Now, the authority issuing these certificates are the Standesämter (Civil registration offices), but they did only issue then from 1876 in the areas on the right of the river Rhine and from about 1807/1815 in the left of the Rhine. This has to do with Napoleon, but that's a story for another day. Now before the Standesamt, it was basically the protestant and catholic churches that recorded births/baptisms, marriages and deaths and they were required to do so by law. So the churches had to actively help with those certificates.

It was not always a clear line, as obviously, you cannot see if someone is a Jew (even if some very stupid people thought so back then). Also, if as a Jew, your great grand kids were baptized as Christians, they were officially of Aryan origin. So even if the Nazis talked a lot about race, it was more a decision based on religion.

But like I said, this was only required for people working in the public sector and education, but also doctors, lawyers, scientists etc. (which were a couple of millions as you can imagine).

From 1935, with the Nuremberg laws (also called Nuremberg Race laws), every German was required to get an Aryan certificate. However, in 1935 the life as a Jew In Germany was already very hard and complicated, these laws basically stripped them from their last rights that were left. The story is much, much longer and I really recommend you to read about it for example in Wikipedia, as it is excellently documented.

*or Nazi-Regime how I am calling it (because this is not some kind of Lord-Voldemort-Situation)

Edit: I forgot to answer your last question! No, not like ICE in the US. The circumstances are not comparable, and the Antisemitism In Germany was much more systematic and pseudoscientifically profound. Like there were whole disciplines of sciences researching why and which race was better than the other, which resulted from the race theories in the 19the century.

There are definitely parallels and I know Americans are suffering under the fascist regime that is developing at the moment. I am not an expert of US domestic politics, but if I see it correctly, the way ICE is conduction their hunt on humans is unlawful, while the German persecution of Jews was particularly promoted by the German judical system. However, I am not a historian and I guess there are others who are better able to compare these things. As a German, there is something what we call Uniqueness in the context of the Holocaust, which was always the total and absolute aim of the persecution of Jews.

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linux_gaming

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lutris-minus-ai

Worth keeping in mind that I'm not a programmer, I cannot write code yet but I can understand some of it when I read it and how it's structured. I've wanted to learn for a long time, so this could potentially be a way to start learning if I ever have time.

I am a programmer but I wouldn't trust myself I could invest enough time and knowledge into such a project. This is basically the announcement of someone making a fork. People make thousand forks a day, it is important what comes out it. Making a fork and saying maybe I will work on this project in the future after I learned how to code is not worthy of being news in my opinion.

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