OSCE. Of the countries analyzed in this study and taking into account only official data provided by the OSCE or police sources, Germany ranks as the country with the highest number of hate crimes. The incidents amount to a total of 11,953 (37.09% of the total number of countries studied), of which 76.20% (9,108) correspond to crimes motivated by racism and xenophobia, standing as the main catalysts of hatred and with data always exceeding a thousand each year.
In 2019, the German Federal Government published “Protests and attacks on refugee accommodation in the fourth quarter of 2019”, a report that responded to the investigation initiated by several MPs. It stated that, as recorded as of January 31, 2020, 65 people were injured in crimes of violence committed in the third quarter of 2019, of whom 8 were minors.
Following racism and xenophobia, anti-Semitism represents the second most frequent motivation with a percentage of 7.67% (917), also presenting a worrying trend since the data have rebounded every year since 2016. Islamophobia also presents increasing data since it goes from 0 crimes during 2015 and 2016 to 268 and 241 during 2017 and 2018.

The rest of motivations present stable and even progressively improving data.

Other official data. However, the figures are clearly higher, because among those that do not pass the OSCE filter, other official data are known that greatly increase the figure. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) concludes that a total of 44,692 politically motivated crimes were committed in the country in 2020, 9% more than in the previous year. Of these, 23,604 were attributed to the extreme right, while 10,971 crimes were attributed to the extreme left. The remainder is divided between Islamism and unattributed ideologies.

Right-wing extremist crimes increased by almost 5.6% over the previous year and accounted for more than half of all politically motivated crimes, the highest level since 2001, when the statistics began.

According to data from civil society organizations surveyed by the OSCE, Germany records 994 hate crimes. Of these crimes, anti-Semitic crimes account for the highest number at 291 (29.28%). Homophobic crimes account for a similar percentage (291, 29.28%), which together account for almost 60% of all hate crimes. In third and fourth position and with very similar figures are anti-Christian crimes (172, 17.30%) and Islamophobic crimes (163, 16.40%).

The data for the remaining motivations show very low figures: political intolerance (12, 1.21%), COVID19 discrimination (5, 0.50%).

Beyond the official figures collected and presented annually by the German Ministry of the Interior in its report Politisch motivierte Kriminalität (Politically Motivated Criminality), there is no timely civil society-coordinated recording of hate crimes in general committed throughout Germany.

However, there is a consensus that the official figures are not consistent with the monitoring by various non-governmental organizations.

There is no independent observatory at the federal level that counts hate crimes against LGTBI people.

The Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD), consulted for this research, explains that the main difficulty they encounter in identifying these types of crimes and assaults lies in the fact that the police and the judicial authority are reluctant to recognise a homophobic or transphobic motive or possible motive in the crimes. As a result, they cannot be picked up by the media as such either.

The issue also falls under the responsibility of the individual federal states, which only report the figures to the Ministry of the Interior once a year and this makes national monitoring difficult.

The LSVD points out that the Berlin police itself informs them that the black figure for such crimes and assaults is 80 to 90 percent. Many cases are either not reported to the police or are not properly recorded as hate crimes but only as ordinary crimes.

In each of the 16 federal states there are non-governmental organizations that keep their own records, mostly based on the press, but there is no centralized entity.

A problem of racism and right-wing extremism that has filtered through to the country’s law enforcement agencies has been reported in Germany by civil society and the press.

Already during the presentation of the Politically Motivated Crime Report 2020, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer acknowledged that right-wing extremism has become the main threat to the country’s security. The concern has been made public after the emergence of several cases of radicalised officers working in the police, the German army and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Over the past three years, since 2018, media reports have revealed a number of cases in which members of German law enforcement agencies participated in chat rooms with Nazi propaganda and hate speech. In the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, more than 200 suspected cases were reported in December 2020. But there are documented scandals in practically all states: Hessen, Berlin, Bayern, etc.

JIHADIST-INSPIRED TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST A CHRISTMAS MARKET. Anis Amri, a Tunisian man influenced by the Islamic State, drove a HGV into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 55. The attack was claimed on 17 August 2017 by the terrorist group and Amri was killed three days later in Milan after being caught by police.

The attack took place in a context in which the Islamic State was in a position of strength in Syrian-Iraqi territory, with a full-fledged propaganda apparatus and without suffering excessive external pressure that could diminish its ability to radicalise. The story of Anis Amri’s radicalisation is not unlike that of many other terrorists. The young man had come to Europe illegally from Tunisia. After committing numerous crimes, including setting fire to the reception centre where he lived, as well as theft, threats and assault, he was convicted and served four years in a prison in Palermo. It was in prison that police sources say Amri came into contact with individuals who held radical Islamist beliefs and who influenced him in his own trial.

The Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, citing a report by the Department for Penitentiary Institutions, reported an incident in which Amri threatened to kill another inmate with Catholic beliefs, claiming that he was going to cut his head off. Anis Amri did not belong to a large cell and did not elaborate a complex attack, but with the jihadist hate speech assimilated and internalised he was able to leave a trail of death and terror in his wake.

The wanted poster for Anis Amri. BKA.de / German police

Breitscheidplatz, Berlín

Fuente: Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, BBC News
Abdesslam / France-Presse

Amri’s case is an example of the gradual radicalisation of a boy who had no interest in religion and a long criminal record, turning him into someone willing to carry out violent acts in the name of a fanatical and rigorist vision of Islam. The Italian anti-terrorist services noted that he was a dangerous subject, with a threatening behaviour towards prison officers and that he acted as a leader of other Islamists.
The process Amri underwent was reinforced during his stay in Germany. Living with individuals who professed a radical ideology and frequenting other environments and mosques where Salafist speeches were made, underpinned the jihadist ideological consolidation. Among the factors that promote radicalisation at the micro level, the factors of identity and belonging to a group are a powerful cognitive cohesive element that reinforces the belief embraced by the individual. In Amri’s case this is further reinforced by a network of contacts and friendships that further accelerate the process. Amri attended the Dortmund madrasa, a Koranic school run by Boban Simeonovic, who was a member of Abu Walaa’s German cell. A German police informant who was undercover in the cell confirmed that Boban went on to mentor Amri and that although they discussed in the group the possibility of committing an attack, Amri’s desire was to join Islamic State in Syria.

Radicalisation processes can present a blind spot of uncertainty, as human beings are complex and do not respond in the same way to similar stimuli and conditioning factors. The same enablers that may lead to radicalisation for one subject may not be sufficient for another. However, the presence of one or more radicalising agents can act as a catalyst. In this way, hate speech is progressively reasoned, justified and legitimised with a series of emotional, religious and other arguments that gradually take hold in the subject. In addition, this mentor-mentee relationship tends to be reinforced by the emergence of a friendship, whether natural or artificial (on the part of the mentor).

Atentados yihadista contra un mercado navideño en Berlín en 2016, en el que doce personas fueron asesinadas y unas setenta resultaron heridas

Amri had found a sense of belonging, a vital purpose and was willing to die and kill for an ideology. In the video he left behind in which he pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Amri made all his tenets clear. The rhetoric employed shows total radicalisation, dehumanisation of the enemy justifying his elimination, a sense of grievance, victimisation of the Islamic community and a proselytising call for his “brothers” to carry out more attacks.

“To those infidels who bomb Muslims every day, I swear we will hunt them down and kill them like pigs for what they do to these Muslims… And I call on my Muslim brothers and sisters all over the world to participate in jihad, and fight for the dominance of this religion, as much as each of you can…. And if you live in Europe, then fight those pigs, each with your own skills,” he said.

RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST-INSPIRED ATTACK IN HANAH KILLS TEN PEOPLE IN MARCH 2020. The double attack that shook the country was committed by a right-wing extremist individual who targeted premises frequented especially by the Kurdish community. The attacker first shot up a shisha bar and then moved on to a different location in a different part of the city. The two attacks resulted in 10 mortal victims and 5 wounded. The terrorist was found dead in his home next to the body of his mother, whom he allegedly shot before committing suicide.

The ideology of Tobias R. – 43 years old – was set out in a manifesto that he left written before committing the attack. The 24-page manifesto reflects his fixation on conspiracy theories and his deep hatred of foreigners and non-Caucasians. His writing was a call for supremacism: he spoke of the superiority of certain races and the need to exterminate countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.