Berlin is struggling to recruit enough German-speaking police officers amid a surge in migrant applicants.
City Police President Barbara Slowik Meisel revealed that 40 percent of applicants failed a test of German language proficiency.
She said this had created a dilemma for her and the force as the city desperately needs new officers but cannot afford to lower standards.
Ms Slowik Meisel told local media: “We have applicants, but we also have high standards that we cannot lower.
‘[As police officers] We must explain our police actions day in and day out… and, if necessary, also record them in writing.’
She said that since 2025, about a quarter of the 1,200 entry-level positions have gone unfilled. “We are facing extremely stiff competition for qualified candidates, and the emphasis is on qualified.”
Figures show that of the 240 cadets who started their training in the spring of 2025, more than half required additional tutoring in German.
At 37%, Berlin has the highest percentage of officers with a migrant background of all the armed forces in Germany.
Berlin is struggling to recruit enough German-speaking police officers amid a wave of migrant applicants
Applicants must pass a computer writing test, as well as a dictation test and a test of their German grammatical skills.
They must also prove that they have a good understanding of Germany’s key legal principles and can explain them to the public.
The debate over migration and the role it plays in the country has become increasingly heated, especially in the run-up to key elections in the east next month.
Earlier this year, illegal immigration in Germany fell to its lowest level in more than a decade, barring the first year of the pandemic.
The record numbers came under the watch of the country’s conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who promised to tighten border controls when he came to power last May.
From January to November 2025, 106,298 first asylum applications were registered by the national migration agency Bamf, putting Germany on track for its smallest annual total since 2013.
In 2024 the number was more than double, namely 229,751.
Last year, the federal police, responsible for border control, registered 62,526 illegal entries, half as many as in 2023.
Meanwhile, nearly 75 percent of the 33,000 people who attempted to cross the border between May and December were turned away or, in 58 cases, physically returned to the other side.
Although the Merz government claims responsibility for the decline – which started happening two years ago – it is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the decline.
The number of migrants entering the European Union through Belarus, the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean has also fallen sharply for several reasons, including geopolitical shifts in the Middle East and Poland’s extensive police measures on its eastern border.
At the same time as the decline in immigration, a mild but prolonged recession has made the German economy less attractive than its neighbors.
