A few weeks ago I visited an acquaintance in a southern German metropolis that has the reputation of being a “rich city”.

Downtown, I noticed a line winding around a large block, stretching a good 400 meters.

In the line, some were talking in what I thought was Ukrainian.

So I assumed that the people concerned were queuing at the Ukrainian consulate general for a visa.

I was right about the language I assumed, but completely wrong about the institution I assumed: It was a group of Ukrainians and local people in need who were waiting in front of the food bank of the Tafel eV to receive their weekly ration of food packed in a corona-friendly manner.

Such snakes are now almost commonplace in our rich and comparatively well-organized country.

But why doesn't that irritate us much more?

After all, it is surprising that the people in such queues get their need officially certified, because only then do they receive food almost free of charge - but not from government agencies, but from a private association, which is largely based on voluntary commitment, with many highly motivated people Helpers.

Furthermore, we should all be concerned about the enormous increase in the number of recipients of such aid.

According to the Tafel, more than 2 million people now use the offer.

What's going on there?

Why does the state rely on philanthropy instead of the effective distribution of tax revenues, which continue to flow despite the crisis?

Why does he informally recommend through local authorities that war refugees get their food directly from the Tafel?

In other words: How did a semi-official national soup kitchen, used by the state as a matter of course as a booster of strength, come from a private long-term institution offering charitable donations?

Feeding the poor has a long history.

In Rome, it was a popular tool among the Caesars, less for humanitarian than for political reasons, to secure the favor of the poorer sections of the population.

Mind you: This was a government fund and not philanthropy.

It has been different since the Reformation at the latest, when Martin Luther criticized the phenomenon of escalating begging in his praise of the Leisniger caste system (the first Protestant church and social system) around 1522 and praised a subsidiary form of public poor care practiced there, which was later used by social welfare organizations and Caritas was and still is organized in a Christian way.

But times have changed since 1989.

Anyone who has grown up in West or East Germany by then will remember the station mission, free school milk and the like.

However, long queues of the needy or homeless in the city mission were not a visible part of everyday life.

In a German society that has become richer and more socially divided over the past 30 years, this has changed significantly.

One indicator is the rapid growth of the association Tafel eV, founded in 1993, which has set itself the goal of distributing food to the needy shortly before its best-before date has expired.

Today there are no fewer than 960 panels in Germany.

And everyone who was interviewed for this article between Stendal and Baden-Baden had similar things to report: the number of Tafel users is constantly increasing, so that in many places a “Ukrainian Day” had to be set up once a week to attract groups of long-term users and newcomers to separate and thus to defuse increasing conflicts.