Extremism in Germany is on its rails
We all knew German will get back to it. Especially after all the immigrants that flooded the country not so long ago.
In 2018 there were registered 48 extreme act of violence, committed by the right-wingers. Six of those acts were murder attempts based on a, guess what, …racial question. If to compare with the previous year, the picture comes up rather disturbing — 28 incidents took place in 2017. In the scale of the country populated by millions, not a great difference. In terms of the growth rate — well, frightening.
The data is from the annual report (https://www.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/inland/news-inland/verfassungsschutzbericht-so-gefaehrlich-sind-die-rechten-wirklich-62804918,view=conversionToLogin.bild.html) on the protection of Germany’s democratic constitution (gosh, what a pretentious name), which throws in some interesting things to think about. The data was collected by the intelligence services to keep an eye on anti-constitutional activities. So, that’s the first interesting point to consider.
Now, the numbers. The report suggests that in 2018 there lived 24100 right-wing extremists, which only a hundred more than in 2017. The authors of the report note that right-wingers stoke up anti-Semitic violence, which leads to an “increase in sedition with anti-Semitic motives.”
Another point of attention in the report is the “anti-state” groups, as they are called by the federal intelligence services. These are people who reject the legitimacy of Germany’s democratic order. At least, those who publicly declare it. Cos we all have thoughts like “it could have been better/different bla-bla”. So, there are two groups of such, who make everyone know they are out of this: Reichsbürger (or citizens of the Reich) and Selbstverwalter, those who “withdraw” from the Federal Republic. Altogether they make up to 19 thousand people in 2018. In 2017 there were sixteen and a half thousand.
According to the report with the pompous name, these groups are responsible for many offenses, starting from threat, document forgery and to resistance to law enforcement officials, and illegal possession of firearms.
The report notes that “the persistently high levels of verbal aggression and the intrinsic risk potential require intensive observation in the future.” It sure does and we’ll keep watching what is going on. Just in case.