Over the past couple of years, Europe has faced surge in migration unlike any since the end of the second World War. Such large demographic shifts in populations pose important questions about a nation's economy, demography, and security. More specifically, there has been lots of debate on whether refugees cause violence and terrorism in their host countries, an idea that anti-immigration parties consistently emphasize as part of their policy. Germany, the leading European acceptor of foreign refugees, stands as the nation most involved with these issues. In this visualization, one can explore a more specificied slice of the overall issue: how, if at all, does the influx of refugees relate to terrorist incidents in the country? By using the time slider, the user can begin to understand the temporal and demographic scale of the migrant crisis, as well as how it has (or has not) subsequently effected terrorism incidents in Germany. The migrant crisis really starts to kick in for Germany towards the end of 2015, when there is a spike in refugee applications coming from the Arab world. Notice the demographics of the incoming migrants: a majority are young men between the ages of 18 and 35, which is the primary demographic known to commit crime and terrorist attacks irrespective of origin or ethnicity. The biggest terror attacks are clustered toward the end of 2016. To look at terrorist attacks specifically involving refugees and anti-refugee sentiment, we can use the filter under the time scale todo to remove other terrorist attacks. Doing this shows that very few terrorist attacks were carried out by refugees, despit the oft-made claim that open German borders allow refugee-terrorists to be allowed into the country.
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The width of the bubbles represents the number of casualties, whereas the color represent the category of perpetrator. Slide the timewindow to see all attacks. Darker states represent states with higher percentages of resettled refugees.
