Elections, Gaza, polarization act on political crimes

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has a table that shows the development of anti -Semitic crime during a press conference for paying politically motivated crimes in Berlin, May 20, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner

A number of closely held ChooseThe war in Gaza, and deepen politically polarization helpful drive The number of politicallymotivated crimeS in Germany To a record high Last year with a particularly sharp growth of right -wing extremist violence.

The number of such crimes recordED from the police rose by 40.2 percent in 2024 to 84,172, as a report was published on Tuesday by the Interior Ministry, A, A record Because such data were collected in 2001. The number of violent tanes politically crimes rose by 15 percent to 4,107, the one who highEst Level since 2016.

“Last year we saw a massive expansion of politicallymotivated crime Conservative Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt came from the right, ”the conservative interior minister told a press conference on which the figures were announced.

“Fifty percent of the victims of politicallyThe motivated violence was violated by right -wing perpetrators, ”he said.

Last summer he gave the example of attacks on Gay Pride parades of organized groups of right -wing extremist young people.

Elsewhere, police recordEd increased the number of attacks on migrants, especially after a few high-Profile car ramming and stabbing attacks on public events by immigrants, some of them asylum seekers.

There was also an increase in politicallymotivated crimeS, from far left, although such crimes were far less violent, the data showed themselves.

Like other western countries, Germany was affected by tensions that were from the rise of populist distant right, economic uncertainty and the growing anger, especially among immigrant communities, to the support of the government for Israel in his war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The right -wing extremist alternative for Germany achieved its best results in five Choose – Three regional, a national and a European – in 2024, which require stricter immigration controls and even a departure from the European Union.

The nativistic party was officially classified as “right-right” at the beginning of this month Germany'S Security Services, in which cases of his politicians were listed, dismissed the urgent immigrants as a “pass German” and implied that immigrants from Muslim countries were more of criminals.

But Dobrindt said he saw no reason to ban the AfD, a step that some politicians approved. The AfD, now the second largest party in parliament, has contested the threat to democracy that it speaks against violence and has given a legal challenge against the characterization of the authorities as extremist.

“In order to ban a party, we have to have evidence of an attack on the rule of law and democracy,” said Dobrindt, “and the recent evaluation of the security services does not show sufficient.”