Neo-Nazi attacks on the rise in Germany

CNN: Neo-Nazi attacks on the rise in Germany
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Friday October 5, 2007
Source

There has been an upsurge in attacks on foreigners this year by skinheads and neo-Nazis in what was formerly East Germany. Although the chief targets are Africans and Indians, even visitors from other European nations are at risk.

According to the Israeli paper Haaretz, "Some 500 racist attacks were registered in Germany over the past year, a 33 percent increase from the previous year. ... At the same time, radical right-wing and neo-Nazi parties in east Germany have increased their power and entered local parliaments, while opinion polls are reflecting growing xenophobia."

CNN spoke to a student from Cameroon who said he hears racial slurs every day. In May, he was beaten by a group of several men, led, he says, by an off-duty police officer. CNN also showed a cellphone video from this August of fifty East Germans chasing and beating eight Indians.

A Jewish group has warned that certain parts of East Germany are so bad they may have to be declared "no-go" areas for Jews and foreigners. Political scientist Hajo Funke agreed, telling CNN, "People of different skin are in danger to go to special festivals in small towns or to special pubs in special hours in evening and night. It's deadly dangerous to go there, and they shouldn't."

CNN noted that "some political scientists speak of a mainstreaming of radical right-wing culture, fueled by hatred of foreigners," which the German government has blamed on high unemployment in former East Germany.

However, a political scientist quoted by Haaretz dismissed the unemployment issue and pointed instead to missteps by the West German government in introducing democracy after the end of authoritarian rule in the east. "In the first, formative years of the unification, the government's presence was hardly felt, the police did not exist and there were hardly any public services. This period led to the wave of attacks on foreigners. The people in the east felt immune to the implications of these attacks. We believe that people who were born between 1971 and 1979, who were youths in the 1990s, are involved to this day in attacks and neo-Nazi activity."