According to a survey by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”, more police, fire and rescue services were the target of attacks in all federal states in 2022. This also includes verbal attacks such as insults.
Last year, according to a media report, more emergency services nationwide were the target of physical or verbal attacks. This was reported by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” (RND), citing a survey carried out specifically among all federal states. Attacks on the police as well as on the fire brigade and other rescue workers are included in the balance sheet.
The result of the survey: The number of attacks is expected to have increased in all federal states in 2022. According to RND, a total of around 76,000 police officers, 1,000 firefighters and 2,100 other rescue workers were affected last year. In addition to bodily harm, the attacks recorded also include so-called acts of resistance, which do not injure the emergency services, or verbal attacks such as insults.
Most populous The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is statistically ahead
In a Germany-wide comparison, most emergency services were victims of such attacks in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia – according to the Ministry of the Interior there, these primarily included police officers, with more than 20,100 people affected. There were around 420 affected members of the fire department, plus almost 520 other emergency services who were the target of attacks.
Bavaria follows in the RND statistics: In the state, almost 19,000 emergency services were physically or verbally attacked last year. In 2022, around 34,200 police officers were employed in the Free State – in purely mathematical terms, more than half were the target of an attack. Berlin is in third place with around 9,000 people affected.
The lowest rate was reported from Saxony: around 580 emergency services were attacked here. However, in Saxony only attacks on members of the police and fire brigade are included in the statistics. Attacks on other rescue workers are not recorded in this balance sheet.
However, based on the population of the federal states, the most emergency services were attacked in Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saarland.
Hardly any figures for the current year
The interior ministries of the federal states have hardly any figures for the current year, according to the RND. Only Rhineland-Palatinate provided a balance sheet for the first half of 2023, according to which the numbers were roughly halved compared to the first half of 2022.
The number of emergency services affected cannot be equated with the number of attacks committed. According to the RND, some federal states differentiate between the number of victims and the number of crimes. A case can affect several victims. As an example, RND referred to the figures from Berlin – there were around 4,370 cases here last year, but they affected more than 9,000 emergency services.