Germans Increasingly Worried About Risk of Terror Attacks, Only Israelis Feel More Threatened

The fear of a terrorist attack is soaring among Germans, a pollster finds, a worry rising in parallel with concern about crime and extremism.

Germans are some of the most fearful of the potential for terror attacks in the world, pollster Ipsos Mori find in their periodic barometer of global sentiment on concern for key issues. Terrorism fear has increased from four to 20 per cent in just one year, the pollster states.

Only one country in the world of the 29 major states polled by the company outstrips Germany in such sentiment, Israel. Given the very real daily threat of repeated terror attacks experienced by Israel, the fact that just 50 per cent in the country responded to the pollster to say they were worried about the issue suggests a very real sense of stoicism at play in the nation.

Both nations are well ahead of the global average for terrorism sentiment, which according to September figures by the pollster, puts the worldwide figure at just nine per cent.

Other worries detected by Ipsos, reports national newspaper of record Die Welt, for Germans included a rapid increase for “the rise of extremism”, going from 14 per cent to 20 per cent in a year, and immigration at 33 per cent. The greatest single issue picked out by Germans, however, is crime at 37 per cent, up a staggering 13 per cent.

These figures represent a major shift for Germany, it is stated, given financial questions like worry about inflation and social inequality have dominated its rankings for years. Nevertheless Germany’s shifting attitudes, even if they are more pronounced than the global average, do reflect the worldwide trend of falling concern with financial matters and rising for crime and violence, which is now the global top worry.

“Crime & violence” was the most-mentioned worry worldwide in September at 31 per cent on average, pushing out inflation which had previously been the top-scorer. While crime is also the top worry for Germans this month, it is well behind some nations where public perceptions are absolutely hard set, like Chile and Sweden where crime figured large in the minds of 65 per cent of citizens.

Curiously, concern about crime was lowest in the European nations which have so far foregone the prevailing zeitgeist for transformation into migration societies. Just seven per cent of Hungarians are worried about crime and violence, while the figure is 11 per cent in Poland. Reflecting that trend in Asia, similarly monocultural Japan is third-lowest, with just 12 per cent worried about crime.