As a psychologist, I see the German way of dealing with the pandemic with its tendency to inaction and hesitant indecision as a failure. Failures are an expression of unconscious resistance. When analyzing hundreds of in-depth interviews that we have conducted with people in Germany over the past few weeks, I increasingly encounter internal contradictions, crude thought traps and latent hopes of salvation. These emotional factors are partly responsible for the fact that Germany has gambled away its pioneering role in fighting pandemics since the summer.