Every day from 8am to 7pm for the past four weeks, pensioner Frank Dittrich has been turning up at a Berlin refugee registration centre to distribute water to waiting migrants.
"It's a much better use of my time than sitting at home in front of the television," he told AFP.
"There are just too many people waiting to be registered and there is no way the government can cope. So people need to help," he said matter-of-factly.
Thousands of Germans like Dittrich have voluntarily joined the country's biggest post-war refugee relief as Europe's top economy gears up to welcome an expected 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, a record.
Some have travelled to railway stations to hand out teddy bears to weary children stumbling out of trains, others are giving German lessons, helping as interpreters or even opening up their homes.
Yet more have brought car loads of essentials from baby nappies to blankets to winter coats, with mass media joining in the mobilisation, which has been multiplied by online social networks.
"Every weekend or evening you see car after car arriving here stuffed full of things for the refugees," said Anderl Kammermeier, an artist whose home and studio is next to a temporary refugee shelter.
"It's probably something to do with our history, German memory. Almost every German has someone in their family who was once a refugee or a migrant," he said.
In an editorial titled "I was also a refugee", Nobel-winning writer Herta Mueller recalled how hundreds of thousands of Germans fled their country during Nazi rule and then how thousands more went on the run from the formerly communist eastern Europe and East Germany.
"I was also a refugee from Romania. In Romania people spoke of the refugee disease -- as more people were shot at the border while fleeing, ever more joined in the escape. For what reason? Doubt, fear of dying and hopelessness," she wrote in the editorial published by tabloid-style Bild.
"Everyone who fled into exile from the Nazis was saved... Germany must do what other countries did earlier for the Germans.
"We have responsibility, given the past. But beyond that, sympathy is an act of humanity. Those who no longer know that have the same brutal conception of 'homeland' that once drove Germans out of Germany," wrote Mueller.
- 'About being human' -
For historian Arnulf Baring, "whatever good we are doing today has to do with the crime we committed, above all during the Nazi era".
Any anti-migrant rhetoric has been met with a furious reaction on social networks, he noted.
At the gates of the registration centre, Joerg Bruhn was directing yet another driver who had brought donations to the drop-off point.
"People think of Germans as cold and rational people. But they are actually very emotional people. They can't stand to see people suffering like that," said Bruhn, who was on his second day as a volunteer at the centre.
One in five Germans have already helped the refugee relief cause in some way, a survey by YouGov commissioned by German press agency DPA found.
Asked why he brought essentials to the refugees, Patrick Szelag said: "Why not? This is what everyone should do, isn't it?"
Kammermeier pointed out that many people who have brought donations to the refugee shelter have themselves recently immigrated, or are from immigrant families.
At the shelter, a young man was having an intense conversation with the manager, trying to convince her to accept two refugees by their side.
The man, who declined to be named, later told AFP he was a volunteer who was interpreting for the refugees.
"I was born in Germany but my parents are from Iran," said the man, who is an engineer.
"We're doing well here, and I just feel we need to help," he said, adding that he comes after work daily to "give whatever help necessary, be it interpreting or just driving people back to their shelters".
"It is just about being human."
Every day from 8am to 7pm for the past four weeks, pensioner Frank Dittrich has been turning up at a Berlin refugee registration centre to distribute water to waiting migrants.
“It’s a much better use of my time than sitting at home in front of the television,” he told AFP.
“There are just too many people waiting to be registered and there is no way the government can cope. So people need to help,” he said matter-of-factly.
Thousands of Germans like Dittrich have voluntarily joined the country’s biggest post-war refugee relief as Europe’s top economy gears up to welcome an expected 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, a record.
Some have travelled to railway stations to hand out teddy bears to weary children stumbling out of trains, others are giving German lessons, helping as interpreters or even opening up their homes.
Yet more have brought car loads of essentials from baby nappies to blankets to winter coats, with mass media joining in the mobilisation, which has been multiplied by online social networks.
“Every weekend or evening you see car after car arriving here stuffed full of things for the refugees,” said Anderl Kammermeier, an artist whose home and studio is next to a temporary refugee shelter.
“It’s probably something to do with our history, German memory. Almost every German has someone in their family who was once a refugee or a migrant,” he said.
In an editorial titled “I was also a refugee”, Nobel-winning writer Herta Mueller recalled how hundreds of thousands of Germans fled their country during Nazi rule and then how thousands more went on the run from the formerly communist eastern Europe and East Germany.
“I was also a refugee from Romania. In Romania people spoke of the refugee disease — as more people were shot at the border while fleeing, ever more joined in the escape. For what reason? Doubt, fear of dying and hopelessness,” she wrote in the editorial published by tabloid-style Bild.
“Everyone who fled into exile from the Nazis was saved… Germany must do what other countries did earlier for the Germans.
“We have responsibility, given the past. But beyond that, sympathy is an act of humanity. Those who no longer know that have the same brutal conception of ‘homeland’ that once drove Germans out of Germany,” wrote Mueller.
– ‘About being human’ –
For historian Arnulf Baring, “whatever good we are doing today has to do with the crime we committed, above all during the Nazi era”.
Any anti-migrant rhetoric has been met with a furious reaction on social networks, he noted.
At the gates of the registration centre, Joerg Bruhn was directing yet another driver who had brought donations to the drop-off point.
“People think of Germans as cold and rational people. But they are actually very emotional people. They can’t stand to see people suffering like that,” said Bruhn, who was on his second day as a volunteer at the centre.
One in five Germans have already helped the refugee relief cause in some way, a survey by YouGov commissioned by German press agency DPA found.
Asked why he brought essentials to the refugees, Patrick Szelag said: “Why not? This is what everyone should do, isn’t it?”
Kammermeier pointed out that many people who have brought donations to the refugee shelter have themselves recently immigrated, or are from immigrant families.
At the shelter, a young man was having an intense conversation with the manager, trying to convince her to accept two refugees by their side.
The man, who declined to be named, later told AFP he was a volunteer who was interpreting for the refugees.
“I was born in Germany but my parents are from Iran,” said the man, who is an engineer.
“We’re doing well here, and I just feel we need to help,” he said, adding that he comes after work daily to “give whatever help necessary, be it interpreting or just driving people back to their shelters”.
“It is just about being human.”
