Every day, an average of nine people become victims of right-wing, racist or anti-Semitic violence in Germany. However, the Federal Criminal Police Office counts fewer cases. Independent advisory centres criticise this as a “serious underreporting”.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) counted a total of 60,028 different offences in the area of politically motivated crime (PMK) in 2023. This is according to the statistics presented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday for the previous year. Compared to 2022, this is an increase of around two per cent. Since the introduction of PMK statistics in 2001, the figure has risen continuously and has roughly doubled in the past ten years.
Almost half of the offences committed in 2023 (28,945 cases) fall into the PMK category “right-wing”. This is an increase of around a quarter. A further 16,678 offences belong to the “other” category, which includes self-proclaimed “Reich citizens” or conspiracy ideologues, for example. According to the BKA, incidents in this category have fallen by a third due to the insignificance of coronavirus protests.
7,777 offences are said to have been committed in the “left-wing” field, a large proportion of them at climate protests. According to the report, the number of offences in the domain of “foreign ideology” rose to 5,170, a significant increase of around a third. This includes incidents in connection with the Gaza or Ukraine wars or offences such as those that have been committed for years in connection with attacks on Kurdish areas. “Religiously motivated” offences are counted separately; in relation to “Islamism”, this figure has tripled to 1,458 incidents. Here too, however, conflicts in the Middle East may have been the trigger. In total, the BKA counted 4,369 offences with the value “Middle East conflict”, including 223 incidents involving violence.
At 5,164, the number of offences classified as anti-Semitic has roughly doubled compared to 2023, with most of them occurring after 7 October, according to the BKA. According to the statistics, more than half were committed in the “right-wing” sphere. However, anti-Muslim offences also increased after 7 October, almost tripling to 1,464 cases.
The report breaks down politically motivated offences into homicides, acts of violence and propaganda offences. Right-wing offences also top the list here. There were completed homicides in the area of “religious” and “foreign” ideology.
The “Association of Advisory Centres for Victims of Right-Wing, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence” (VBRG) also presented its observations for 2023 at a press conference on Tuesday. According to their report, the affiliated centres documented 2,589 acts of right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic violence, which also represents a significant increase. However, only cases from eleven federal states are counted here – despite this, the figure is higher than that of the BKA, which only counts 1,270 right-wing acts of violence. The advisory centres therefore accuse the authorities of “seriously underreporting right-wing violence”.
Neither the Federal Minister of the Interior nor the BKA mention specific cases of politically motivated acts of violence from the past year. However, these can be found in the VBRG statistics. In May, for example, a pregnant young woman in Hamburg survived a racially motivated murder attempt by a neighbour only through fortunate circumstances. In Reutlingen, a 37-year-old US-American was critically injured in June by an 18-year-old Nazi skinhead who stabbed him in the chest after an exchange of words about his political views in front of an alternative youth centre. In Regensburg, a 20-year-old Syrian man was suddenly pushed off a bridge by a racist offender while talking on the phone in October and suffered serious injuries. In Cottbus, also in October, a 12-year-old pupil was seriously injured by a teacher for racist reasons and had to be hospitalised. In December, a tourist in Munich wearing a kippah was subjected to anti-Semitic insults from a group of four, kicked to the ground and injured.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Montecruz Foto.
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