The number of right-wing crimes rose by a sixth in 2024 – not including December. Government policy has failed, criticises the Left Group in the Bundestag.
In 2001, the German Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office) introduced the ‘Criminal Police Reporting Service in Cases of Politically Motivated Crime’ (PMK) in Germany. In the area of right-wing extremism, these statistics show a new high of almost 34,000 registered offences for the past year. This is according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s answer to a parliamentary question from the Left Party group in the Bundestag.
According to the answer, the police recorded 33,963 offences nationwide in the area of ‘PMK right-wing’ up to 30 November 2024. This is an increase of more than 17 per cent compared to the previous year. This figure will rise when the BKA presents the final statistics in the spring and includes offences from December as well as subsequent reports from the federal states.
Of the 2024 offences registered as ‘PMK right-wing’, 1136 were violent offences, including five attempted murders and 988 assaults, as well as 17 arsons and three explosives offences. Propaganda offences (21,311) and incitement to hatred (50,097) made up the largest proportion. A total of 1041 suspects were identified.
‘The figures prove what those affected, victim support centres and anti-fascist research have been saying for months: the baseball bat years are back with brutal street violence, concerted attacks on democrats and burning refugee shelters,’ the Left Party member of parliament commented to nd. ‘It is up to civil society to show the continuity and determination that politics lacks,’ says right-wing extremism expert Renner.
The ‘baseball bat years’ refer to a period in the 1990s during which there was a wave of right-wing extremist and racist violence in Germany, particularly in East Germany. The term was coined in 2019 by journalist Christian Bangel and refers to the frequent use of baseball bats as weapons in these acts of violence. This era was characterised by numerous attacks on migrants, foreigners and dissidents, with the perpetrators often being young neo-Nazis and skinheads.
Unusually, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (Social Democratic Party) also commented on the parliamentary question on Monday and expressed her concern about the high number of right-wing extremist offences. ‘The increase also shows that there are more investigations and more offences are being prosecuted,’ commented the minister in a statement. Like Renner, she believes that politics and society have a duty to take action against those ‘who blatantly fuel racism and hatred of humanity’. Although Faeser had presented a package of measures against right-wing extremist violence, this had never become a guideline for the authorities, criticised Renner.
By categorising a crime as a PMK, the authorities want to map the ‘ideological background and causes’ in the respective phenomenon area. The circumstances of the offence and the attitude of the perpetrators are assessed – provided that the police or secret services have evidence of this. In addition to the phenomenon areas ‘left-wing’, ‘right-wing’, ‘foreign ideology’ and ‘religious ideology’, there is also the classification ‘other or not categorised’.
The offences counted as ‘PMK other categorisation’ also increased in 2024. The Ministry of the Interior blames this on the ‘super election year’, with the theft of election posters causing an ‘outstanding increase’. The number of cases of damage to property, insults and propaganda offences rose slightly.
Right-wing extremists are also listed under ‘PMK other categorisation’; in addition to militant coronavirus deniers, for example, ‘Reichsbürger/Selbstverwalter’. These are groups and individuals in Germany who reject the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany and its legal system.
“Reichsbürger” and “Selbstverwalter” believe that the German Reich still exists in some form. For 2024, the statistics record 98 violent offences with 104 suspects in this category. Compared to 2023, however, this is a decrease of around a third.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Showing the flag has apparently not helped against the increase in right-wing offences. Nevertheless, Martina Renner appeals to civil society (Tobias Möritz, CC BY-SA 2.0.).
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