After several right-wing extremist cases in schools in Brandenburg, there is a first nationwide picture: A third of such acts by minors are found contrasts-Information held in the context of school.
At the end of April, teachers from Burg in Brandenburg sent a fire letter to draw attention to right-wing extremist events in the vicinity of their school. They reported, for example, of schoolchildren raising their arms in the Hitler salute, of racist slogans and of swastikas on cars. Now there are the first numbers that show: Such incidents in schools are apparently a nationwide problem.
In the period from 2018 to 2021, according to information from ARD political magazine Contrasts a third of right-wing crimes in which underage suspects were identified occurred in the vicinity of schools. This was the result of a special evaluation of the statistics on politically motivated crime (PMK) kept by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), as the federal government announced in response to a small request from the left-wing member of the Bundestag, Nicole Gohlke.
During the period under review, there were xenophobic, racist or anti-Semitic statements or insults and, in some cases, physical attacks. Showing the Hitler salute and shouting slogans such as “Sieg Heil” and “Heil Hitler” are mentioned as the most common offenses in the response. Furthermore, there had been graffiti, scribblings or carvings of relevant symbols and slogans. In addition, images and messages were sent particularly often via messenger services. The federal government does not give concrete figures in its answer.
manual special evaluation
According to the federal government, an automated evaluation that identifies crime scenes such as schools is not possible in the BKA’s PMK case numbers. At the request of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, contrasts stated that the special evaluation was carried out manually and created for internal police purposes. Since “certain uncertainties” exist, only approximate values can be given. Overall, crimes in the area of PMK law with “underage suspects” from 2018 to 2020 were in the “lower four-digit range”; specifically related to the school environment, the numbers in 2018 and 2019 were in the “mid three-digit range”, 2020 and 2021 in the “(low) mid three-digit range”.
After the allegations at the school in Burg, Brandenburg, became public at the end of April, there was a nationwide debate about how this could have happened. Other schools in Brandenburg are also affected, such as contrasts reported at the end of May. In this context, the responsible school authority in Cottbus named 15 right-wing extremist incidents in this school year alone – all of them criminally relevant.
The nationwide picture would make it clear that “young people made their first experiences with right-wing crimes, propaganda, threats and violence in schools and their environment,” said Anne Brügmann, project coordinator of the Victims Perspective Association in Potsdam contrasts. The school must put a clear stop to this and convey to the students that right-wing crimes are outlawed. According to Brügmann, the young people would take their school experiences with them into the rest of their lives.
Again and again, the offenses also involve class chats in which right-wing content is exchanged or shared, according to the Federal Government in its answer. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, crimes of this type increased sharply nationwide in 2019: Crimes in connection with “class chats” with at least one underage suspect were in the mid double-digit range in 2018, and in the lower three-digit range in 2019 and 2020. In the following years, however, the number decreased again, in 2021 it was in the high double-digit range. The Federal Government has no information on the reasons for the development in the number of cases.
federal government refers to prevention programs
“It is worrying that the federal government does not have a comprehensive picture of the situation,” said Nicole Gohlke, a member of the Left Party contrasts. According to the education policy spokeswoman for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, a valid data basis is urgently needed in order to be able to assess the dimension of this problem. She also criticizes that schools and teachers are often left alone at the moment. “The federal government, together with the federal states, must focus more on preventing and combating right-wing extremism,” said Gohlke. A situation like that in the 1990s must be avoided at all costs.
The Ministry of the Interior refers to various preventive funding options for young people, such as the federal program “Live Democracy!”. The objective is, among other things, to promote the pedagogical competence of teachers with right-wing extremist and anti-democratic convictions in the standard school structures. It is a core concern of the federal government to resolutely oppose all anti-constitutional efforts.