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On September 7th 2021, Alice Weidel, member of the German parliament and part of the AfD, a right-winged populist party, claimed that only 11% of German citizens feel free in their everyday lives. She stated that the disoriented and excessive corona policy of the German federal government has played a considerable role in this. We rate this claim as mostly true. At a public debate on the federal election Alice Weidel described the situation in Germany as a wall full of corona measures while other neighboring countries are back to normal. According to the politican this explains that only 11% of the citizens feel free in their everyday lives. Since Weidel does not give a source or comparative figures, this statement should be checked. According to a study by the European Council on Foreign Relations, it is true that only 11% feel free in their everyday life. However, one must mention, 35% feel partly free and 5% don’t know. One shouldn’t leave the 35% out of consideration, it only leads to a distorted perception. The remaining 49% don’t feel free at all. Why we shouldn’t trust only one number To correctly interpret these numbers, it is important to take a look at the recent trends: How much has the feeling changed compared to the 2019 survey? The study shows that there has been a decline of the feeling of freedom in all European countries, not only in Germany. In Germany it has decreased from 68% to 11%. But in Austria, for example, 78% of respondents felt free in 2019. In 2021 it was only 15%. Portugal fell from 66% to 16% and the Netherlands from 79% to 19%. Therefore, Germany doesn’t have such an extreme decline on its own, which the graphic illustrates again. European countries from the greatest decline in the feeling of freedom to the smallest. Another important point which Alice Weidel doesn’t mention is that although Germany comes last when the question is how free do you feel?"
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