The Worthless German Passport: What Hamas Taught Us About Citizenship
16th October 2025
While the German press celebrated the October release of hostages held by Hamas, the truly damning questions were left largely to alternative media: Why were so many captives—dead or alive, up to the final moment—German nationals? And why did Germany prove so spectacularly impotent in securing their freedom?
Four freed hostages—Alon Ohel, Rom Braslavski, and brothers Gali and Ziv Bergman—held German citizenship. Three others whose remains families awaited were also German: Itay Chen, Tamir Nimrodi, and Tamir Ada.
The joy of release couldn’t mask a humiliating reality: Germany became the only Western nation whose citizens remained captive more than two years after October 7th.
“In the historical examination of the German-Israeli hostages, the German government, and above all Chancellor Friedrich Merz, failed miserably,” writes Julian Reichelt in Nius. He’s absolutely right.