Historian Heinrich August Winkler has spoken out in favor of abolishing the individual asylum right in Germany.
It cannot be denied that illegal immigrants who enter the country are only able to claim asylum in order to secure a temporary, often open-ended, right to stay in the Federal Republic, even if they do not claim political asylum, Winkler writes in a guest article for the “Spiegel”. Anyone who wants to effectively end the de facto transformation of German asylum law into a right of immigration must replace the subjective right with the institutional asylum right.
According to Winkler, the institutional asylum right allows the state to determine who it will grant protection to and there is no individual right of appeal. Turning back refugees at the border to a democratic neighboring state is permissible, Winkler writes and this is in line with the intention of the fathers of the Basic Law.
The draft of a “Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz” (stream control law) presented by the Union’s chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, aims to prevent unauthorised entries and asylum migration. “There are some arguments in favor of an asylum policy that would take the wind out of the sails of the AfD” Winkler writes. However, it was a mistake to seek a preliminary ruling in the old Bundestag. The resulting increased polarization does not do good for the political culture of German democracy.
Winkler is one of Germany’s most prominent historians, having taught at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His book “Der lange Weg nach Westen” (The Long Road to the West) about German history in the 19th and 20th centuries is considered a standard work.