The population is in shock.

The war against Ukraine led to a collapse in optimism about the future unprecedented in the history of the Federal Republic.

Only 19 percent of the population is optimistic about the next twelve months, while the majority is deeply concerned.

Since 1949, the Institute for Demoscopy has been observing the mood of the population.

There were always shock waves that attacked optimism about the future: the Korean War, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the oil crises in the 1970s and 1980s, the recession in the early 1990s, the New York attacks, the financial market crisis and most recently the outbreak of the pandemic.

However, confidence in the future has never been so shaken as it is now.

The mood was subdued even before the outbreak of war.

But now there is too much to leave room for unbiased optimism for the near future: the never-ending pandemic, high inflation, now the war in Ukraine with its unforeseeable risks.

The war dominates the worries.

The fear of war, the fear of an immediate threat, is not the focus for the Germans, even if it has increased significantly under the impact of the events.

One in three thinks world war is realistic

Immediately before the war broke out, 19 percent of the population were convinced that a new world war was a realistic scenario; now one in three believes so.

Conversely, confidence that nobody will risk a major war again has fallen from 51 to 35 percent.

One in three feels personally threatened by the Russian actions in Ukraine, only a small minority hardly or not at all.

When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, they felt significantly less personally threatened, 40 percent not at all.

More than the acute danger of war, citizens fear the economic collateral damage and, in particular, supply bottlenecks in energy supplies.

Economic expectations have tilted.

In February, almost 60 percent were still expecting an upswing or at least a stable economy in the coming months.

Fear of energy shortages and downturn

Now 63 percent are assuming a downturn, only 15 percent are expecting a stable and a full 7 percent a positive development in the next six months.

Concerns about security of energy supply overshadow everything.

Politicians have never had this risk on their radar in recent years, nor has the population.

The vast majority considered the supply to be secure.

Only 6 percent are still convinced of this, but 86 percent fear supply bottlenecks.

When Crimea was annexed, 35 percent of the population were worried that this crisis could affect Germany's security of supply, now the figure is 86 percent.

Raising awareness of Germany's extreme dependence on Russian energy supplies is changing the public debate on energy policy.

The majority of the population now votes in favor of extending the service life of the nuclear power plants that are still in operation beyond 2022.

However, even before the war broke out, support for the energy turnaround was crumbling in its original form.