Forbidden Nazi symbols, jokes about Jews, racist insults: security authorities and advice centers are observing an increase in right-wing extremist incidents in schools, according to research by Report Mainz resulted.
Mara* is seven and an elementary school student, the only black girl in the class, she says. Her classmates repeatedly made her feel that she looked different – especially with racist insults. But the school principal told her that the N-word was not a swear word.
Mara and her mother feel abandoned by the school, which doesn’t want to see any of this: they’re told it’s not a racist school. But Mara’s mother reports attacks and threats. The girl is afraid of being put in a headlock again, that children will pull her hair again. The family now wants to move away so that Mara can start over.
High number of unreported cases
Has descriptions of right-wing extremist and racist incidents Report Mainz heard from numerous school administrators, teachers and students nationwide during the research. They talk about Hitler salutes and right-wing symbols that are shown openly or in chat groups. Teachers report insults against Jews, blacks and transgender young people.
A social worker tells of a strong interest in Hitler and the Third Reich as early as the 5th grade. Something has changed in terms of quality, says Simone Fleischmann, President of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association, in an interview Report Mainz. “You used to see a swastika. And now they are expressions and signals that you hear more often and that are sometimes used very unreflectively.”
The federal states do not record right-wing extremist incidents in schools uniformly. Some collect the numbers per year, others per school year, others not at all. According to the state government, there were 73 reported racist or right-wing extremist incidents in Saxony in 2019. Four years later there were twice as many, namely 149. Saxony-Anhalt, Hesse and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also reported an increase in cases over similar periods, albeit at a low level. But the number of unreported cases seems to be high.
In a previously unpublished survey by the Thuringian Teachers’ Association, 38 percent of the members surveyed reported that since the beginning of the school year they had noticed that colleagues or students had become victims of right-wing extremist-motivated mental or physical violence. In most cases this came from students.
Racist statements already in Primary school age
Lena Lehmann from the Miteinander advisory center. V. in Halle an der Saale helps teachers with right-wing extremist incidents. Some of the teachers are overwhelmed and the requests are through the roof, she says Report Mainz: “What is absolutely new for us is that there are incidents of elementary school students who make racist comments, but who also use swastikas as symbols.” Lehmann sees a connection with social media: Young people have access to images and content that they would otherwise not have access to.
Security authorities are also observing a change. The Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution shared Report Mainz He said he had become aware of “an increasing number of incidents with right-wing extremist references in the recent past.” The authority writes about online channels “in which teenagers and young adults are specifically lured with supposedly harmless content.”
An example are Tiktok videos that ostensibly call for the protection of the forest, but are actually about protecting the “German homeland”, a ethnic ideal. In a quickly edited video by Junge Alternative accompanied by music, “deportation” and “remigration” are called for at a demonstration. A Telegram channel that, according to the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, specifically targets students, links pages where stickers can be purchased with inscriptions such as “Youth without a migration background” or “Healthy families instead of LGBT propaganda”.
Insecurity among teachers
Matthias Busch from the University of Trier is a professor of didactics in the social sciences and leads the project “ADiLA – Active for Democracy Education in Teaching.” Recently, he has felt a sense of uncertainty in schools about how to deal with conflicts such as the war in Ukraine or in Israel: “This leads to systematically politically controversial topics not being addressed by some of the teachers. Or that one believes in having to be neutral, even against statements that are hostile to the constitution, racist, and inhumane.”
In interviews with Report Mainz Teachers also report attempts at intimidation, for example from parents. “What do I want to do when my father comes with the Reichsbürger hat? You don’t dare talk to parents like that anymore,” says a teacher who didn’t want to be named. Many interlocutors show up in the conversation Report Mainz unsettled, should not or are not allowed to take a clear stand against right-wing extremism in front of the class.
Democracy education as the key to enlightenment
A recommendation from the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in 2018 states that teachers are not allowed to impose their political opinions on students and that what is controversially discussed in society must also be treated controversially in class. But that doesn’t mean that every position has to be accepted. Matthias Busch concludes: “Teachers are not only allowed to commit to democracy, but they must commit to democracy.”
However, the topic of democracy education has so far been neglected in teaching. Only five federal states – namely Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony – responded to a request from Report Mainz It is clear that democracy education is a compulsory learning module in their teacher training courses.
Busch believes it is urgently necessary for democracy education to be firmly anchored in the curriculum as a clear module in all teacher training courses. Teachers need to be strengthened in order to be able to react appropriately in cases like that of seven-year-old Mara.
*Name changed by the editors