There were many demands to give him asylum. Here some German articles about this topic (if you want to know what happens in Germany you will not get around understanding articles that are written in German):
The reactions in Germany after the Snowden revelations:
> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Snowden&ol...
[TLDR: They were very positive towards Snowden]
Fears that Germany would extradict Snowden if he came to Germany
> http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/antrag-auf-asyl-warum-deu...
USA threatens Germany if they give asylum to Snowden:
> http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/snowden-asyl-usa-solle...
> https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Asyl-fuer-Snowden-US...
A very recent (22th of November 2016) article about whether Snowden could nevertheless get asylum in Germany
> https://www.vice.com/de/article/so-bekommt-edward-snowden-do...
Another article from 2rd of May 2016 on occasion of that there was a live link with Snowden on the re:public. This article [even its headline] nicely brings across the completely different opinion that the German government and many German citizen have in the whole Snowden question:
> http://www.rp-online.de/digitales/internet/edward-snowden-au...
I think Snowden is smart enough to know that the only place he's safe right now is Moscow, Russia. Even if Germany or any other country offers him asylum, the US machine does not care. They'll find a way to get him, either while enroute, or as soon as he lands.
So where's the public outcry to jail the traitor? Just live with it, Germany's mileage varies drastically from the US, and the main reason is experience with the Nazis and the GDR. We know something you absolutely do not, and the world us asking Germany to learn from it, instead of the other way around, at its own peril.
edit, just as a bonus, though I think the Spiegel isn't really that great: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/index-2013-45.html
This and variations of that exist aplenty.
In the US? All over the place. Fox News on pretty much a weekly basis. It was all over the campaign trail this last election as well.
> If the two prevailing mindsets were he's a hero and I don't care, then the he's a hero would be making a lot more noise, and the "I don't care" would probably give them half-hearted support just because they don't have a horse in the race and could therefore be easily convinced.
Then what are the prevailing mindsets in Germany? And how much more noise would people be making, what is a "lot"? Can you quantify it? Or are you just making up stuff that sounds reasonable to you, which has no connection with the truth on the ground here?
I outlined them above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13271448
> And how much more noise would people be making, what is a "lot"?
At the heyday of the Snowden revelations there was a large outcry. When talking about opinions in Germany one always has to distinguish between the opinion of the citizens and the opinion of the government (these are often very different). Of course the German government has a very USA-bootlicking opinion about the Snowden question.
The fact that in Germany there (mostly) is free speech does not imply that the government is interested in your opinion. Take a nasty English joke about lawyers and replace "lawyer" by "politician" and you get the whole mentality quite well.
I know, and it matches my experience. But the user tw04 seems to disagree with more than flimsy reasoning.
> Take a nasty English joke about lawyers and replace "lawyer" by "politician" and you get the whole mentality quite well.
I wish I could find it now, but Sebastian Haffner mentioned this in one of his books... the German tendency to consider politics as something dirty the private person better keep out of, while both despising and admiring those nasty politicians. I think that sarcasm is a form of cowardice. The way I see it, either you're a responsible citizen or you're not, politics is way too important to leave it to professional politicians. But that's neither here nor there.. one thing is sure, if I had a cent for every time an American or right-wing European tells me some nonsense about Germany, I could buy HN a pretty stylesheet.
The whole topic is a lot more complicated. It's rather hard to found a party: 2009 before the parliamentary elections I have been was sometimes at the regular meeting of the at that time new-founded Piratenpartei. Many attendees were paying for the election posters themselves (you can only get aids (Wahlkostenhilfe) when you already got many votes in a previous election - a chicken-and-egg problem) and were (in my opinion) working really hard alongside their regular job.
Also for most parliaments in Germany there is a so-called 5% barrier. That means that if you don't get at least 5% of the votes, you will get no seats in the parliament (except perhaps direct mandates - but for these you need a relative majority of votes in your district, which is even harder - nearly impossible for a new party). The 5% barrier means that you will need a program that attracts many voters.