{"id":427281,"date":"2025-05-20T19:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/20\/germania-violenza-politica-report-2024\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T20:18:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T18:18:02","slug":"political-violence-erupts-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/20\/political-violence-erupts-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Political violence erupts in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The numbers speak for themselves. And those provided today by German Interior Minister\u00a0Alexander Dobrindt<\/strong>\u00a0are anything but reassuring. According\u00a0to\u00a0statistics<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0published today<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(20 May) by the ministry, politically motivated crimes increased by more than 40 per cent in 2024 compared to the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n

In total,\u00a084,172 politically motivated crimes<\/strong>\u00a0were recorded last year, the highest number since records began in 2001. “We must oppose all anti-constitutional attempts<\/strong>\u00a0and all forms of violence, and\u00a0we will not accept criminals spreading fear and terror<\/strong>,” Dobrindt said when presenting the annual report to the Bundestag. For\u00a0Holger M\u00fcnch,<\/strong>\u00a0the head of the federal police who accompanied him in Parliament,\u00a0today’s figures “reflect a polarisation and radicalisation of society”<\/strong>\u00a0and show that “democracy is under pressure” in the EU’s most populous state.<\/p>\n

“A worrying development,” in the minister’s words, who highlights \u201cthe urgent need for a joint security offensive between the federal and state governments<\/strong>,\u201d hoping for “a\u00a0real turning point<\/strong>.” His solution:\u00a0expand the powers of law enforcement agencies<\/strong>\u00a0on the one hand and\u00a0increase minimum penalties<\/strong>\u00a0on the other (from three to six months in prison for assaults against public officials and from six months to one year for attacks with bladed weapons).<\/p>\n

Of the total crimes, 42,788 (almost 51 per cent<\/strong>) were related to\u00a0the far right.<\/strong>\u00a0“One far-right crime every 12 minutes,” said government anti-racism commissioner\u00a0Natalie Pawlik<\/strong>, citing examples such as\u00a0Hitler salutes and incitement to hatred<\/strong>, as well as\u00a0physical assaults<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Pawlik urged all levels of government to do more in terms of prevention and political education for the younger generation: “Everyone in this country has a duty\u00a0not to turn a blind eye to right-wing extremism and racism<\/strong>,” he warned, calling on his fellow citizens to “defend our peaceful coexistence in a diverse country<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

It is a hot topic in Berlin, where the internal security\u00a0services\u00a0recently labelled\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the\u00a0second largest national party,\u00a0Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/strong>\u00a0(AfD), an \u2018extremist right-wing organisation<\/strong>\u2019, only to backtrack after\u00a0AfD leaders filed a lawsuit<\/strong>. Both Dobrindt and Federal Chancellor\u00a0Friedrich Merz<\/strong>\u00a0are sceptical about\u00a0banning the party<\/strong>, but the minister reiterated that “without a doubt,\u00a0the greatest threat to democracy comes from right-wing extremism<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Dobrindt, who belongs to the\u00a0Bavarian CSU<\/strong>\u00a0(the sister party of the CDU, with which it forms the Christian Democratic Union), also pointed the finger at the\u00a0increase in anti-Semitic crimes<\/strong>: there were 6,236 in 2024, almost\u00a021 per cent more than in 2023<\/strong>. Of these, 48 per cent were perpetrated by far-right individuals and 31 per cent were motivated by some kind of \u2018foreign ideology<\/strong>\u2019, most likely linked to Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Political violence has increased significantly, again on an annual basis, also in relation to the various\u00a0elections held in the Federal Republic during 2024<\/strong>\u2014the European elections in June and the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September\u2014reaching a total of 11,788 cases (the latter figure is in line with those recorded in other years with multiple elections, the ministry points out). In proportion,\u00a0the political forces that suffered the most attacks<\/strong>, including a stabbing and a beating, were the\u00a0AfD<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Greens<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Statistics published by the Berlin government show a substantial increase in politically motivated crimes in 2024, especially in the area of right-wing extremism. The Minister of the Interior calls it \u2018a worrying development\u2019 that requires \u2018a security offensive.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":427260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[31273,31274,31256,27672],"class_list":["post-427281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-germany-en","tag-violence-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427281"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427312,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427281\/revisions\/427312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}