The other day on the border between Germany and Denmark:
First, German police forces checked us, claiming that my girlfriend had overstayed her visa. She is Russian.
She stayed cool, explaining the rules of the game to them. A bit of legal counselling.
After two hours, four German border policemen had to admit that she was right. Nice guys, basically. And next time, they will remember the rules of a Russian c-class visa.
Well and then, there was also a passport check on the Danish side.

Believe it or not, Denmark used to be a Schengen-no-passport-checks-state.
That is history now. Schengen lies in ruins on many national borders - and there is not much of a hope in sight.

We have already lost a lot of European endowments to a chaotic and socialdarwinist, pseudo-humanitarian policy, which followed the path of least resistance. A hypocrite policy which did not care a damn about humanitarian help in the countries of origin - until refugees were in Europe and on the media.

It is quite simple: If Europe can not protect its outer borders by whatever means, we loose it.
We are already loosing Schengen, the European parliament is gradually taken over by rightwingers and populist parties.
There is a price to every thing.
But no one wanted to know (let alone debate) last year, least of all Angela Merkel.

Some two years ago, German minister Schäuble dared coming up with an idea of establishing exterritorial camps on the African side, which are the only contact point for refugees seeking protection.
That could have saved some lives.
However, the left and the green shouted him down.
Now, they are shocked and surprised to see that AfD is likely to be in the Bundestag after next elections.
Ooops. Who would have thought that?

Well. In German politics, using our history as a point to make people shut up was a bit of a cheap trick. It worked though. And it was used far too often. For often neglectable reasons.
Now, decades of irresponsable historical desensititation have left their traces.
Who cares about the fire alarm, when some idiots keep setting it off every 5 minutes?

Some journalists and politicians now realize this. They even dare to write about it here and there.
But even they are far from inducing a reconciliation process in a politically torn society.
So, polarisation continues... loose-loose.

PS: and please remember that immigration policy was what made the Brexit happen in the UK. Ironically, most of it was not even EC-induced but a national decision in the 90ies.
So, paraphrasing Monty Python, they now have kind of a "ministry of silly votes"...