How Secure Do the Germans Feel?
There is war in Europe, rearmament is under way worldwide and international alliances are crumbling – right now, the threats to security seem greater than at any time since World War II. Are these developments reflected in the Germans’ personal perceptions of security? A survey by ZOiS provides new insights.
Translated from the German by Hillary Crowe.
The discourse about ‘combat readiness’, the erosion of trust in the US as the guarantor of European security, Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine: Germany is undoubtedly facing major domestic and foreign policy challenges. Answers that are appropriate for this new era are desperately being sought at both the national and the European level; however, due to divergent national interests and veto rights within the EU, these efforts have yet to solidify into a coherent policy. At present, we still don’t know enough about what the German public thinks about security and insecurity in these turbulent times. This question was addressed in a study conducted at ZOiS in November/December 2025 within the framework of the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence. It consisted of a nationwide survey whose findings were then explored in more depth in focus groups and individual interviews. Preliminary analyses reveal that many Germans’ feelings about security differ from what we might assume based on the political and media debates on this issue.
The representative survey was carried out in late November 2025 in collaboration with Ipsos and involved 1095 respondents. It primarily consisted of questions about general perceptions of security and individual priorities around this issue.
A generally positive sense of security
In response to the question ‘How secure or insecure do you currently feel?’, a clear majority (61.5 per cent) said that they felt ‘very secure’ or ‘relatively secure’ (13.4 per cent and 48.1 per cent, respectively). 24.5 per cent were undecided: they felt ‘neither secure nor insecure’. By contrast, just 14 per cent said they felt ‘relatively insecure’ or ‘very insecure’ (10.9 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively). Although this question was phrased in general terms and may therefore have elicited a wide variety of associations, it is notable that the spontaneous reaction from respondents reveals an overwhelmingly positive feeling of security. Nevertheless, a good one-third – by no means a negligible share – took a different view or were undecided.
From a comprehensive list of sociodemographic factors that may potentially have influenced the result, only two – gender and income – correlate with the statements on the general feeling of security. Men tended to feel more secure than women, likewise people on comparatively high incomes. An affinity for the far-right nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), measured in terms of stated voting preferences, was particularly clearly associated with a feeling of general insecurity.[1]
Personal aspects in the foreground
A further question was intended to elicit information about participants’ individual priorities relating to the topic of security. First, respondents were asked to choose three issues they most associated with security. The list of 11 possible options included the end of the war in Ukraine, a strong Bundeswehr, and NATO. They were then asked to choose the one that was most important to them. The following picture emerged: ‘personal security in the public space’ was the most frequent choice (chosen by 29.1 per cent), followed by ‘family and friends’ (24.9 per cent) and ‘personal financial security’ (19.5 per cent). These three responses, all of which focus on the private sphere and daily life, clearly outranked all the other options. They were followed – at some distance – by ‘the end of the war in Ukraine’ (just 6.1 per cent), ‘a strong government in Germany’ (5.4 per cent), ‘NATO’ (4.2 per cent) and economic growth (3.1 per cent). Options such as ‘a strong Bundeswehr’, ‘the EU’ or ‘close cooperation with the US’ trailed behind with scores between just 2.2 per cent and 1.2 per cent. A higher income is associated with a stronger emphasis on personal safety, while individuals with higher educational attainment are more likely to choose financial security. Statistically, the choice of ‘family and friends’ is not particularly influenced by any of the sociodemographic factors.
The majority feels that the war in Ukraine is close
On the additional question to what extent the war in Ukraine concerned Germany, around a two-thirds majority (64.8 per cent) stated that they felt that the war was close (with 36.1 per cent answering ‘yes, very’ and 28.7 per cent replying ‘somewhat’). In total, 31.2 per cent felt that the war was distant: 14.3 per cent said that the war concerned Germany ‘hardly at all’ and 16.9 per cent were of the opinion that the war did not concern Germany ‘at all’. Only 4 per cent did not know how to answer this question. What is interesting is the ambivalence that emerges in the overall picture: a majority of the respondents feels secure, while a majority simultaneously perceives the war to be ‘close’ and a further majority thinks mainly in terms of their own personal security day-to-day, not foreign and security policy.
There are significant contradictions, then, in the conceptions of security and insecurity revealed in this new survey. As the focus group discussions and individual interviews confirmed, ambivalence is firmly embedded in respondents’ perceptions. A focus on the private sphere, including personal security, is not an uncommon response to complex domestic and foreign policy developments and may even be a conscious attempt to block them out. Looking at the current political and social debates, what is striking is the extent to which the public has already accepted the shift away from the US as a guarantor of security, but also how little presence, relevance or credibility is attributed to the discussions about strengthening the Bundeswehr, boosting Germany’s ‘combat readiness’ or reinforcing NATO’s status as an anchor of security.
Various party affinities were evident in this context: respondents who stated that they intended to vote for the AfD or Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) at the next Bundestag election disagreed with the statement that the war concerned Germany in any way. Those who did not intend to vote were also more likely to say that the war was of no concern. By contrast, an affinity for Alliance 90/The Greens was associated with perceived closeness of the war in Ukraine.
Policy implications
For German policy-makers, the study underlines simultaneous challenges: they must address people’s sense of (in)security in the personal sphere while also formulating coherent responses to the war in Ukraine – perceived to be ‘close’ by a majority – and explicitly linking these heterogeneous perceptions. Otherwise, the parties of the far right and far left will be the main beneficiaries of this ambivalence, which can be instrumentalised politically.
[1] The study used affinity for the conservative ruling party, the CDU/CSU, as a baseline for the statistical analysis; this means that the results for each party are analysed in comparison to the declared intention to vote CDU/CSU.
This study was conducted at ZOiS in cooperation with Ipsos and was facilitated by the DFG-funded SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence (Contestations of the Liberal Script, EXC 2055, Project No. 390715649).
Gwendolyn Sasse is the Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) and Einstein Professor for the Comparative Study of Democracy and Authoritarianism at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.