Spreewald
Right-wing extremism in schools – calls for help from teachers
The primary and high school in Burg (Spreewald). In an open letter, teachers have complained about right-wing extremist incidents at their school in the Spree-Neisse district. photo
© -/dpa
Right-wing extremism in schools? In a letter, teachers in Brandenburg describe a bleak picture and complain about a “wall of silence”. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns against attempts to exert influence.
Children are bustling about in the schoolyard, students are waiting for their bus after class. The spring sun invites you to take a trip to Burg in the Spreewald – a tourist region that primarily advertises idyllic nature. At first glance, there is no indication that teachers at the local elementary and high schools need help. In an open letter, teachers complain that they are confronted with right-wing extremist incidents on a daily basis.
It’s about swastikas on school furniture, right-wing extremist music that is heard in class, and anti-democratic slogans in school corridors – and it’s about looking the other way. One experiences a “wall of silence” and a lack of support from school management and offices as well as from politicians in combating anti-democratic structures – both among students and parents and among colleagues, according to the anonymous letter.
Burg, located about an hour and a half southeast of Berlin, is currently getting ready for the season. Every year, thousands of visitors come to the tourist stronghold in the Spreewald to take boat tours in the famous canals. Hotels, guesthouses and thermal baths invite you to linger, art events and the Spreewald Nights of Legends and the cultivation of Sorbian customs are firmly anchored.
Teachers and students fear for their safety
Behind the walls of the school building: teachers and students who act openly against right-wing students and parents, and at the same time fear for their safety, as they write. The letter alarmed politicians. Brandenburg’s designated Minister of Education Steffen Freiberg (SPD) announces thorough educational work and promises to support the teachers.
In 2020, the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior announced that it feared that a meeting place for supporters of the right-wing extremist scene would emerge in the Spreewald. According to this, entrepreneurs who have connections to the right-wing extremist mixed scene in the Cottbus area are said to have purchased a property for meetings, such as concerts, in Burg. The building had been visited by supporters of the scene, it said.
At the time, the security authorities had held briefings with local representatives. Burg’s office director, Tobias Hentschel, had expressed concern. According to a message, he now says about the teacher’s letter that he is shocked by the descriptions. “Xenophobia and racism, intolerance, hatred and violence not only contradict my view of life in a basic democratic order, but also endanger the social and economic development in our office.”
A feeling of powerlessness
The teachers at the school in the small town paint a bleak picture. “The few foreign and tolerant students at our school experience exclusion, bullying and threats of violence. There is a feeling of powerlessness and forced silence.” Does the well-known Spreewald town have a right-wing extremism problem? It is known that there is a grown right-wing scene in southern Brandenburg, the AfD has its strongholds there.
In any case, Brandenburg’s top constitutional protection officer, Jörg Müller, makes it clear how far attempts to exert influence go. “One danger that we see is that right-wing extremists will become active in the field of social work. We are aware of cases in which they have worked on projects with difficult young people,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (Friday). Müller warns against the normalization of right-wing extremist ideas. “If right-wing extremists have a permanent impact on society with events, but also with their language alone, that does something to the people around them.” He told the newspaper: “The spaces of what can be said are widening.”
The police have been investigating the incidents for days and have been conducting interrogations at the school, a spokesman said. A report of the incident was also received online.
Incidents are trivialized
From the point of view of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin, right-wing extremist incidents are still too often downplayed in schools. School administrations played it down and trivialized incidents as silly boy pranks, says the spokesman for the foundation, Lorenz Blumenthaler, the German Press Agency. Teachers who reported swastika graffiti and other cases often felt left alone.
This is also described by one of the teachers who wrote the letter. At his school there is a right-wing extremist “mainstream,” he tells the broadcaster RBB. But the majority of teachers remain silent. “That’s a big problem from my point of view.” The Amadeu Antonio Foundation now hopes that the letter will stimulate an open debate. “Right-wing incidents occur in many schools across Germany. But it rarely gets out.”