Thirty years of German polls on Russia, and almost none about Russians

The Institut fuer Demoskopie Allensbach puts a simple question to Germans about other peoples: "Einmal ganz allgemein gefragt: Moegen Sie eigentlich die Franzosen/Polen/Griechen, oder moegen Sie sie nicht besonders?" It has been asked about the French since 1977. In the published documentation it was not asked about Russians. The Russian state has dated readings back to 1996, though not unbroken ones: the 1996 anchor is Allensbach's "Ist Russland heute noch eine Weltmacht?", with readings for 1996, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, April and September 2008, April 2014 and March 2015; Pew did not ask Germans its opinion-of-Russia item in 2008, 2016 or 2021; no DeutschlandTrend value was located for 2009-2010, 2012 or January-October 2013, which is not proof the item was unasked, and the institute itself indicates the item was not asked between September 2019 and December 2021.

Four long-running series carry those dated readings. Allensbach runs face-to-face quota samples of roughly 1,000-1,600 residents aged 16+, documented in its Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung monthly reports and, since 2011, in the annual Sicherheitsreport for the Centrum fuer Strategie und Hoehere Fuehrung. ARD-DeutschlandTrend (infratest dimap) polls about 1,000 eligible voters aged 18+ by telephone, and telephone plus online since 2022. Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Survey polls about 1,000 Germans a year by telephone. ZDF-Politbarometer (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen) asks event-driven Russia questions rather than one fixed item; more than 300 monthly releases 2004-2026 were checked.

Through 2010 the readings were warm. In May 2004, 65% of Germans expected Russia and Germany to have a good relationship in the long run, 12% did not and 23% were undecided (Allensbach, IfD 7056); by September 2008 the same question stood at 45%, 25% and 30% (IfD 10025). In March 2005, 7% named Russia among the countries posing the greatest threat to world peace; in 2010, 9%. In August 2008, 63% called German-Russian relations good and 25% bad (Politbarometer, 12-14 Aug 2008, n=1,263). In 2007, 45% named Russia a country Germany should cooperate with as closely as possible; in 2009, 55%. In April 2010, 50% of Germans held a favorable opinion of Russia against 44% unfavorable (Pew, 15-30 April 2010, n=750).

The fall was under way before 2014. The share naming Russia a desired cooperation partner stood at 35% in July 2011 (2-15 July 2011, IfD 10075, behind France 55%, the USA 52%, Britain 36% and China 34%) and 38% in January 2013; opinion of Putin, good against not good, was 9/48 in 2011; Pew had 47% favorable against 48% unfavorable in 2011 and 33% favorable in 2012. In the Allensbach survey of 1-11 September 2014 (n=1,530, IfD 11029), 55% named Russia among the greatest threats to world peace; Iraq stood at 62%, Syria at 45%, Israel at 42% and the USA at 14%. The cooperation share went to 32% in April 2014 and 27% that September. In Allensbach's readings, Germans calling relations with Russia good went 55% in 2008, 15% in April 2014, 8% in March 2015; those calling them less good or not good went 33%, 76%, 88%. Pew recorded 19% favorable in 2014. Then the readings partly reversed: the Allensbach cooperation share came back to 50% in 2016, and its threat share fell to 28% in January 2018 (IfD 11081), standing at 36% in January 2020, 41% in December 2020 and 32% in January 2021 (10-20 January 2021, n=1,080), before rising again to 66% in January 2022. DeutschlandTrend trust in Russia as a partner ran 25% against 71% (4-5 April 2016, n=1,005), 21% against 74% (6-7 June 2017, n=1,000) and 35% against 61% (11-12 February 2019, n=1,003) -, and one the institute printed rather than one derived from a delta. Pew recorded 35% favorable in 2018.

Since 2022 the published figures are the lowest on record. In the DeutschlandTrend of 31 October-2 November 2022 (n=1,307), 10% called Russia a partner Germany can trust and 85% did not, and 86% called Russia a threat to world security. On 4-5 March 2025 (n=1,325) it was 10% against 83%, with France at 85%, Britain at 78% and the USA at 16%. Allensbach's cooperation question, asked 27 January-9 February 2023 (n=1,088, IfD 12067), put Russia at 13%, against France 73%, the USA 66% and Turkey 14%; the institute's report of 2 March 2026 (fieldwork 6-19 February 2026, n=1,052, IfD 13014) reprints that series for 2000-2026 for France, Britain, Poland and the USA only and publishes no Russia value. The Sicherheitsreport press releases put the share naming Russia a threat to world peace at 82% in January 2023, 75% in January 2024, 79% in January 2025 and 81% in January 2026. Opinion of Putin, good against not good, went from 12/33 in 2000 to 43/10 in 2001 and 6/81 in February 2023. Pew's favorability figure has run between 10% and 16% in each year 2022-2026. The verdict is not uniform. In Allensbach's survey of May 2022 (n=1,118, IfD 12054, Tabelle A 9), 36% said Germany should try to rebuild good relations with Russia as quickly as possible (West 31%, East 57%), 44% said no (West 48%, East 26%) and 20% were undecided. Pew put confidence in Putin among AfD supporters at 51% in 2018 and, in 2024, at 45% against 10% among non-supporters. In Politbarometer, 21% rejected the existing sanctions outright after the Navalny poisoning (14-16 September 2020, n=1,241), 14% wanted to keep importing Russian gas and oil (5-7 April 2022, n=1,230), and 46% expected the war to stay limited to Ukraine (20-22 May 2025, n=1,328), 74% among AfD supporters and 72% among BSW supporters.

About Russians themselves there is almost nothing. None of the four series carries a long-run item on Russians as a people. The only Allensbach people-level readings found are a March 2012 similarity question, in which 21% judged Russians "sehr/eher aehnlich" to Germans and 79% "eher/ganz anders", and one card in its Russlandbild sort, "Die Leute sind sehr gastfreundlich", which 50% applied to Russia in 2008, 48% in April 2014 and 53% in March 2015.

Pew did separate a people from its state for German respondents once, and about a different country: in 2007 it reported that "in Germany, for instance, 63% say they have a positive opinion of Americans compared with just 30% who rate the U.S. positively" (German fieldwork 16-30 April 2007, n=1,000). No parallel item about Russians was asked. No Pew topline with German data from 2001 to 2026 asks Germans about Russians or "the Russian people"; no ARD-DeutschlandTrend item about Russians, Russian citizens, Russlanddeutsche or Russian-speakers living in Germany was found in any edition checked; none of the roughly 300 Politbarometer releases contains one, and neither does any Berlin Pulse edition.

The surveys that do concern Russian-speakers in Germany are surveys of Russian speakers, not of majority attitudes toward them. The Boris Nemtsov Foundation and Ipsos Germany polled 606 Russian-speaking Germans in August-September 2016 on identity, integration, media use and views of Russia and the West, with no item on majority attitudes toward them; ZOiS Report 5/2024 contains no discrimination measure. The one population-level item found is a DeZIM.panel quick survey of 28 February-6 March 2022, on confronting people from Russia living in Germany with Putin's politics, and DeZIM itself warns that the item is ambiguous and does not measure resentment.