Status: 08/25/2022 7:44 p.m
In Rostock, Federal President Steinmeier recalled the racist attacks in Lichtenhagen 30 years ago. It was a “disaster with an announcement” – that’s why it’s important to be vigilant today.
In Rostock, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier commemorated the racist pogrom in the Lichtenhagen district 30 years ago. He warned. to be vigilant even today. Because the riots from August 22 to 26, 1992 in Rostock were “a catastrophe with an announcement” that was able to thrive on the “ground of a debate that was already partially hateful,” he said.
Addressing people in the audience who were then in the attacked sunflower house, Steinmeier said: “We all remember the images of the flames, flames hitting the windows, cheered in a cruel way by thousands of hooting people in front of them – we know about it. But yours Fear of death, your feeling of being abandoned in those hours, we can all only guess.”
Many have ignited
There was a social climate in which right-wing extremist parties were on the rise. “The rhetoric of the parties in the democratic spectrum was loaded with resentment in the early 1990s,” he said. Words could be weapons – even today it is therefore important to “disarm verbally”, for example in the debates on social networks. Steinmeier said of the attackers in front of the house: “They attacked because they had talked themselves out of dealing with people.”
It is often said that the attacks were “unimaginable”. “But it’s wrong.” The idea of the unimaginable is a “fatal error in reasoning”. The question is much more: “How could it happen?”
That’s why we have to be careful today: “We all have to be vigilant for hairline cracks in our coexistence, defend ourselves against the enemies of this society and be peaceful in our dealings with one another, but above all show solidarity with those who are threatened,” said Steinmeier.
Heaviest racist attacks since 1945
In August 1992, residents, neo-Nazis and citizens attacked the central reception center for asylum seekers in the sunflower house and the dormitory for former Vietnamese contract workers in the neighboring stairwell for several days. They threw stones and Molotov cocktails and broke into the house. Thousands of bystanders cheered and applauded. Around 150 people were in the affected staircases at the time, they were in mortal danger. The police withdrew at that time. The occupants of the house were left to their own devices. Many people fled in fear of death over the roof. Miraculously there were no deaths.
Steinmeier described the attacks as “the worst racist attacks in Germany up to that point”. To this day, he is appalled that the rule of law, which had the duty to protect people, left those threatened alone. “What happened in Rostock was a disgrace to our country.”
During his visit to the district of Lichtenhagen, Steinmeier also spoke to students and local residents and visited a Buddhist-Vietnamese temple. At the time, it wasn’t just the attackers who were disgraceful, who attacked the people living in the house with Molotov cocktails and crowbars, he says. “It’s also disgraceful that many didn’t just watch this action, but applauded and encouraged it.”
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig called for people to stand up for democracy. Democracy needs social cohesion, solidarity, protection against crises and accidents. “No violence. No racism. No exclusion of people who look different, live differently or come from somewhere else,” warned the SPD politician.