Flüchtlingsrepublik Deutschland? “Mutter Merkel,” “Willkommenskultur” and Other Specificities of a New German Heimat

The phenomenon of Germanness/ German identity can hardly be understood without the concept of Heimat – a cultural, political, and social concept that has often been made synonymous with space of cultural and geographic nostalgia, place of psychological comfort and linguistic homecoming, cradle of certain traditions (folklore, food, festivities), a cornerstone of German sense of self in relation to other, as well as German sense of cultural belonging or symbolic homelessness. Traditional subjects of studying German-speaking culture often included historical conceptualizations of Heimat in various decades, rhetorical and visual constriction and negotiation of Heimat, Exile, and Diaspora, Heimat and Nazi era, Heimat and German Question, and, more recently – Heimat as a transnational, global/izing construction.

Traditional approaches to the study of Heimat, Exile, and Displacement significantly undermine the drastic changes Germany underwent recently. In 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that “German multiculturalism is dead.” In 2015, she was nicknamed “Mutter Merkel” after her famous statement “Wir schaffen es” (We will manage), referring to the biggest refuge migration to the “Europe’s engine.” In the framework of the traditional discussion about inclusion, integration, othering, and “passing,” new concepts such as “Willkommenskultur” and “Fluchtlingsrepublik Deutschland” are especially complex, problematic and understudied. They constitute the foci of this research project. Building upon recent work that addresses the theme of globalized Heimat, it attempts to for a more nuanced intercultural scholarship that addresses the challenging processes of cultural, rhetorical, political, and socio-economic construction and negotiation of new German homeplace and its role in Europe.