According to German police, anti-Semitic crime affects Berlin more than any other German state, Tagesspiegel reported Tuesday. The police report is based on preliminary findings regarding 80 anti-Jewish crimes committed in Berlin in the first half of 2018, compared with Bavaria which is in second place with 43 anti-Semitic offenses. Four of the 80 offenses in Berlin were violent.
There were 401 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2018 in Germany. Berlin, which is both the capital city and a state, experienced 20% of these.
According to police, the Berlin numbers went up in the second quarter of this year. From January to March, police recorded 26 anti-Semitic offenses in the city, and from April to June there were 54, including the four acts of violence. Most offenses, 62 in total, were committed by right-wing anti-Semites. In eight cases, the suspects were identified with “foreign ideology.” This is, of course, code for Muslims. Another three cases fell under “religious ideology,” meaning there was no way to deny that the perpetrators were Islamists. Three offenses were by leftsts. Four cases were not assigned an ideological source.
A total of 23 suspects were apprehended.
The total number of anti-Jewish offenses is likely to increase in Berlin and the other states, police believe, based on the previous record from 2017. In the first half of 2017, police registered 67 anti-Semitic offenses in Berlin, 48 of which were committed in the second half of the year. Nation-wide, the total number for 2017 was 288 anti-Semitic offenses.
The German government provided these numbers in response to a query by Leftist lawmaker and Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau. Tagesspiegel suggested the actual number of anti-Semitic incidents is likely to be much bigger, since there are delays in police entering the data into the record.
On Tuesday, Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann warned that rightwing groups ran “militia-style patrols” in his state. Rightwing extremists were using intimidation of migrants, including attacks on women, according to Herrmann. Police reported at least 7,693 incidents of far-right crime nation-wide, both with and without an anti-Semitism connection, in the first six months of 2018. Authorities say 374 involved violence and at least 201 people were hurt.