Berlin, Dec 26: Surging neo-Nazi crime in Germany has broken all post-unification records this year and up to 10 people have been slain by rightists, according to reports. There were 11,752 reported right-wing extremist crimes in Germany during the first 10 months of this year, says the Federal Criminal Bureau already more than in any year since the 1990 unification.The number of anti-Semitic crimes almost doubled in the third quarter to 291, up from 157 in the second quarter, Crime Bureau figures show. There have been horrific rightist killings mainly in eastern Germany where a neo-Nazi youth culture continues to flourish. A 39-year-old Mozambique national was beaten to death by three skinheads last June in a park in the eastern city of Dessau. At the trial one of the skinheads said he kicked the man because he ‘‘hated him’’.
In the eastern Baltic Sea town of Ahlbeck, a 51-year homeless man was beaten to death by four neo-Nazis in July. The rightists told police they hated the homeless and wanted to expel such people. Western Germany also witnessed apparently rightist inspired killings. In June, three police officers in Dortmund were shot dead by man belonging to the extremist Republicans and the German People’s Union parties. The 31-year-old killer, who reportedly ‘‘hated’’ the police, committed suicide. ‘‘The nation is experiencing a wave of rightist violence,’’ says Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Since 1990, at least 94 people have been killed by rightists in Germany, according to media reports. But complicating the picture are three recent cases which raise troubling questions about automatically attributing violence in Germany to Nazis. A fire-bomb attack on a Duesseldorf synagogue in October widely assumed to be the work of Nazis was probably carried out by two men from Jordan and Morocco in reply to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Allegations earlier this month that an Iraqi-German boy was tortured and drowned in a racist killing at a swimming pool crumbled after the parents of the boy were found to have paid and coached witnesses. No arrests have been made in grenade attack which injured 10 people six of them Jewish immigrants from the former East Bloc at a Duesseldorf train station in July.
Although officials initially said the attack was probably the work of rightists, police now assert that a neo-Nazi motive is ‘‘very improbable’’. Official figures show the neo-Nazi problem is far worse in eastern Germany than in the west. Of the 732 violent attacks this year, 304 took place in the east even though the region has just 20 per cent of the German population. And of the 10 reported rightist killings this year, seven took place in eastern Germany.
Visitors to the former communist east swiftly notice shaved heads, military boots and bomber jackets are the fashion for many young men and some travel guides warn people who ‘‘look foreign’’ to avoid the region. But bad as street violence has been, the authorities are pondering even worse future scenarios. There are fears the violent far-right said to number 50,000 may shift to terrorism like that used by the far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) from the 1970s to early 1990s. The RAF killed numerous German industrialists, bankers and politicians during this period. Berlin police were alarmed after seizing sniper rifles and pipe bombs in October from neo-Nazi cells known as ‘‘Kameradschaften’’.
Weapons and explosives have been recovered by police from rightists on several occasions this year in different parts of the country. ‘‘There is a danger that terrorist structures could be formed,’’ warns Heinz Fromm, the head of Germany’s Verfassungsschutz, or domestic security agency.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
