our not so distant future can be extrapolated from german current events;

My grandparents and their families, faced with a choice between certain death if they stayed in Germany and possible life if they could get out, did the best they could to leave. I am one of the results of those efforts, but there were other effects. Some of my ancestors committed suicide when they realised what their beloved Germany had become; others never recovered from the feeling of non-belonging caused by the flight from their homeland.

Two Germanies lived on in my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ memories. Alongside the horror, evil and chaos there was the land of Beethoven, Hesse and Mann; of science, wealth and entrepreneurialism, of exacting industrial design and of order and civilisation.

Both those Germanies are now dead: the evil, genocidal one and the glorious land of order, culture and beauty.

What is left is one of Europe’s ropiest nations, bowed by decades of poor political decisions, bad management and artistic and industrial decline. Fans in Frankfurt for the Euros have found a city of drug-addled zombies, broken fountains and unbridled crime.

From Volkswagen, which never recovered from the emissions scandal of 2015, to Deutsche Bahn, which has some of the worst punctuality records in Europe (only 52 per cent of trains run on time) and a rolling stock whose problems make Britain’s railways seem advanced, Germany’s traditional once-great industrial prowess has been replaced by shambolic third-ratism.

The problems go deeper. Last week, German midfielder Toni Kroos, who moved to Spain to play for Real Madrid ten years ago, said he felt his seven-year-old daughter was safer in Spain than in his homeland because of “uncontrolled” migration.

These were not the bombastic Right-wing comments assumed by critics – Kroos stressed that he was “1000 per cent” in favour of welcoming migrants and that “I find that sensational, that people come to us from the outside and then are happy.”........more........