Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In the German town of Overath (North Rhine-Westphalia), this year’s Christmas market has been cancelled. The cost of protecting visitors from potential terrorist attacks exceeds the organizer’s budget. The city refuses to cover the expenses. A capitulation to Islamism.

It wasn’t long ago that Christmas markets were among the social highlights of the year. Whether in small towns or major cities – they were meeting points for friends and family, for mulled wine, sausages, and quiet conversations wrapped in winter’s cold and early darkness.

Places of Togetherness 

There was this special peaceful coziness. A place where community was celebrated – joyful, calm, and without fear. A tradition that brought people closer together.

What would urban life be without safe and regular gatherings in public spaces? A wasteland. A dystopia.

These moments – when people could pause, breathe, and let the soul drift for a moment – have become scarce in Germany’s public life. Since 2015, since Angela Merkel’s open-border decision, Europe has entered its own Michel Houellebecq moment.

The mass influx of young men from predominantly Islamic countries has deeply shattered the population’s sense of security.

The Loss of Carefreeness 

And in this increasingly tense atmosphere, just when Chancellor Friedrich Merz touched a sore point by speaking about the changing face of cities, a manufactured storm of outrage erupted against him.

Even after deadly Islamist attacks – Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz in 2016 with 12 victims, the Solingen festival stabbing in 2023 with three dead, or the bombing plot at the Magdeburg Christmas market last year – Germany still refuses to confront militant Islam pressing into Europe.

The aggressive rejection of any criticism within Islamic circles points to the core problem: Islam never passed through the crucible of Enlightenment like Christianity did. Christianity’s claws were cut – and what remained was woven into the psychological fabric of modernity.

The list of Islamist attacks in Germany and Europe is long and growing month by month. And it proves how intimidation of secular Western society has become successful – when even traditional festivals like Christmas markets are only possible behind heavy police presence and concrete barriers to stop jihadist vehicle attacks.

The feeling of carefree celebration is gone.

Another Christmas Market Falls 

The cancellation of this year’s Christmas market in Overath near Cologne fits perfectly into this picture. High security costs to protect visitors from terrorism make it impossible to open. The city refused to cover the organizer’s expenses.
The same now in Dresden – several smaller private Christmas markets cancelled because security costs exploded.

For one and a half years, the market association tried to negotiate with city officials, said Andreas Korschmann, head of the town marketing group.

Wouldn’t this be precisely the moment for the city to step up? Aren’t politicians always preaching about civic engagement and vibrant local life?

But there is no sign of courage, no standing up for a free, tolerant society. Just hollow political phrases for their own feel-good bubble.

In Overath, Islamists have managed – without any real resistance – to push aside a piece of tradition and communal life.

Outside knife-free zones and heavily policed city centers, a chilling silence spreads.

Winter Markets as Fig Leaf 

The pitiful renaming of Christmas markets into “Winter Markets” was already a bow to Islam. A needless kowtow to an increasingly irritable, alienated homegrown left-wing milieu.

Germany is trapped in an identity and cultural crisis.

It’s impossible to ignore: large parts of politics and society have thrown in the towel, surrendering to Islamist pressure and the obvious threat.

A real solution would begin at the border – with a completely new regime controlling who enters the country. But the political Left and its media complex successfully taboo such measures as nationalist extremism.

The policy of open borders – a one-way membrane into the welfare state – has inflicted deep wounds on German society over the last decade. This is not just a vague feeling of insecurity; it is statistically documented in black and white.

With endless migration waves and the lack of cultural immune defense, German traditions and public life are fading into a deafening silence.

Michel Houellebecq’s grim vision of Europe bowing before militant Islam is, year after year, turning into a bleak certainty.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

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