This chapter investigates the power of fear to mobilize but also paralyze individuals and social groups in twentieth-century Germany. It shows the continuities and discontinuities of a strong emotion that is said to be a typical characteristic of Germans. The trajectories lead from an alleged German angst rooted in a trauma from 1922/23 hyperinflation, reflect concerns about and protests against nuclear power and fears about COVID-19. In all these respects, it also becomes clear how a profoundly personal feeling can become an engine in politics as business with fear: in today’s climate protests, for example, fear is seen as a factor that can line people up, persuade them to change their minds, alter their behaviour and halt the progress of climate change. In other contexts, it is precisely the fear of change that becomes the political agenda.