The leaked report quoted Sinan Selen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence services, who stated that Islamists, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, are focussed on a long-term strategy aimed at ‘gradually transforming social and political decision-making processes’.

It is difficult to know what’s worse: the threat posed by Islamists itself, or the fact the German state wanted to keep this threat secret? By refusing to make these insights public, the government implies that citizens cannot be trusted with them.

The reason for the secrecy is obvious. These warnings from the domestic intelligence agency do not fit the ‘official’ narrative that Muslim immigration is, on the whole, a success story. They certainly embarrass a significant number of politicians who have not merely ignored the problems it raises, but deliberately looked away – the better to portray themselves as especially virtuous, enlightened defenders of a minority group they have chosen as uniquely worthy of protection.

Examples of this attitude abound. On 15 March, Berlin hosted a ‘Day Against Islamophobia’ (other minority groups – say, Hindus or Buddhists – are afforded no equivalent day). The occasion, to be commemorated annually, was promoted as one meant to strengthen ‘diversity and social cohesion’.

One justification offered by the city’s elites is that Muslims are disproportionately targeted by racism. In a television interview, Cansel Kiziltepe, Berlin’s diversity and anti-discrimination minister, claimed that ‘60 per cent of Berliners harbour anti-Muslim prejudices’. She said that ‘anti-Muslim racism is a bitter reality for many people’, and that it was ‘high time for [the Berlin mayor and the senate] to demonstrate its appreciation for the 400,000 Muslims in the city’.

These sweeping claims – portraying the city as a hotbed of anti-Muslim ‘racism’ – rested on a single source: a poll by the Berlin Monitor, which is funded in large part by Berlin’s mayor and senate. The poll, based on a survey that mostly offered citizens a binary ‘yes / no’ choice, found that 58 per cent of Berliners agreed that ‘Islam is misogynistic in all its forms’, while 61 per cent rejected the claim that ‘Muslims advocate for an open society’. Forty-two per cent believed the number of Muslims in Germany was too high, and 36 per cent affirmed that ‘Muslims plan to Islamise the West step by step’.

There is, of course, much to be said about the problems with such generalisations – clearly not all Muslims want to Islamise the West. But if the domestic intelligence warning is worth anything, it shows that these citizens’ concerns are at the very least partly justified. If anything, these Germans are less naïve and reckless than large parts of their own government.

In truth, the Islamists’ march through German institutions has been underway for years – and warnings about ‘Islamophobia’ have only aided that process. Rather than risk criticism, many in positions of authority have preferred to look away, even as it became increasingly clear that the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamist organisations had spent years building relationships with German state officials and NGOs – a process of reciprocity, in which the German state has been just as willing to strengthen and embrace these ties.

One example is Islamic religious instruction in state schools. Tens of thousands of children take part in these classes every year – 60,000 in 2020 alone. Despite repeated concerns, some education departments continue to cooperate closely with DITIB, the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs. DITIB is Germany’s largest Islamic umbrella organisation, controlling around 900 mosques. It operates under the direct authority of Turkey’s state religious body, Diyanet. Then there are the hundreds of NGOs that receive state funding and work closely with the government.

The scale of the problem was illustrated a few weeks ago, when Germany’s Federal Court of Auditors sharply criticised the government for funding an organisation called Islamic Relief Germany. Domestic intelligence agencies had been drawing attention confidentially to the organisation’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood for several years, yet the Foreign Ministry continued to channel money to it. The Foreign Ministry, like the German state in general, refused to reveal the funding arrangement, citing supposed security interests. The arrangement only came to light after journalists for Focus filed a lawsuit, which led to reports being released revealing payments totaling €15million to the organisation.

The Syrian-born German political scientist Bassam Tibi has long noted Germany’s problem with Islam. In a 2024 interview, Tibi criticised the German government’s inability to demand integration from its immigrants. Organised Islam in Germany, he argued, is strictly orthodox, and the major mosque associations belong to the sphere of political Islam. Although these associations represent only a minority of Muslims, they ‘make vociferous demands, and the political establishment treats them as key points of contact’ – thereby elevating and emboldening them.

The deeper problem, according to Tibi, is that representatives of political Islam encounter a political class that either has little to offer in opposition or actively courts them. Asked what he thought of Frankfurt and Cologne illuminating and decorating their streets for Ramadan, Tibi called it yet another example of politicians pandering to Islam – something that sends the wrong signal when it comes to integration. Germany has been making this mistake for years.

The warning from Germany’s own intelligence services needs to be heeded. It is time for Germans to speak freely about the threat of Islamism.

Sabine Beppler-Spahl is spiked’s Germany correspondent.

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