Despite numerous educational campaigns, the number of anti-Semitic crimes in Bavaria rose sharply again last year. While the number of anti-Jewish acts recorded by the police in 2020 was 353 – and thus already at a high – it climbed by more than 44 percent to 510 within a year , which is available to the German Press Agency in Munich. The number of anti-Semitic crimes in Bavaria has been rising sharply for years. In 2019 it was 307, in 2018 it was 219. According to the Interior Ministry, 472 of the 510 crimes last year were motivated by right-wing extremists. This corresponds to a share of more than 92 percent.
Almost all acts are motivated by right-wing extremists
“I cannot say that I was shocked by the sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic crimes in 2021,” said Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish Community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, the German Press Agency. Breaking political taboos, verbal and physical assaults against Jewish people are now sadly normal, emphasized Knobloch. “It fits the picture that the overwhelming majority of crimes come from the right-wing spectrum: These groups have received a massive boost in recent years with the rise of the far-right AfD.” All of these trends are being reinforced by the pandemic, which has transported wild conspiracy theories with anti-Jewish content to mainstream society via online messengers and social media. For Knobloch, the state is therefore also required as a security guarantor for its Jewish citizens.
As in previous years, Rinderspacher therefore called for consistent criminal prosecution of anti-Jewish crimes and the strengthening of prevention and political education: “Almost all crimes are motivated by right-wing extremists. Hate and hate speech and the high number of anti-Semitic crimes in Bavaria are alarming,” he emphasized. Anti-Jewish criminals should not get away with it, but must be quickly and consistently identified and punished.
In the evaluation of the Ministry of the Interior, 198 criminal offenses are also located on the Internet, the number of unreported cases is likely to be far higher here as well.