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4.2.3.2 Documentation on Hate Crimes Based Mainly on Media Surveys
Documentation such as chronologies of bias-motivated crimes compiled from press reports provide yet another valuable source of information. However, it must be taken into consideration that these types of documentation inevitably reflect fluctuations in the media and in public attention, thus they should only be regarded as a fragmentary and partial form of monitoring. Often dependent on the commitment of individual journalists and local NGOs, the quality of reporting, and even the mere coverage of right-wing incidents, also varies from region to region in Germany.
Examples for Monitoring on the National Level
At the date of its republication in 2003, the afore-mentioned special report in the Frankfurter Rundschau and Der Tagesspiegel documented 99 violent deaths due to biasmotivated murders from 1990-2003 and an additional 20 deadly crimes, of which the perpetrators’ motives were still in question (see Chapter 1.1). In the meantime, artist Rebecca Forner and a small research team have continued to document the number of brutal deaths in the form of an exhibition that has included hate crime murders through 2005: The number has now risen to 136. The authors included cases »when a political motive [was] beyond question, according to our own inquiries, police reports, indictments of the public prosecutors or court decisions.« (13)
For the same time period, Federal Criminal Police Office had published a much lower number of deaths and could not explain the large discrepancy. This started an extensive controversial public debate about flaws in the official registration system. Consequently, documentation in the early 2000s »served as a symbolic focal point [that for the first time] drew attention to the ‘problem’ of under-representing of right-wing murders« in Germany. (14)
Since 1992 information on anti-Semitic crimes and incidents has been systematically collected and documented by the Anti-Fascist Press Archive and Educational Center in Berlin (Antifaschistisches Pressearchiv und Bildungszentrum Berlin, Apabiz). (15) This NGO has been cooperating with various institutions and organizations, such as the Jewish online magazine haGalil , the victim support organization ReachOut, the educational association Straight Talk! (Yiddish: tacheles reden!) and the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies. The first two organizations are based in Berlin, and the latter in Potsdam. Since 2001 Apabiz has been covering anti-Semitic incidents throughout Germany in their annual chronicles, which are published on their website and in their newsletters. The content includes themes such as:
• desecrations of Jewish cemeteries
• acts of vandalism and arson attacks against Jewish sites such as Holocaust memorials or community buildings
• insults and cases of battery, anti-Semitic graffiti, incitements of the people
• other forms of harassment.
The latest documentation for the year 2007 — mainly based on media reports, press releases from the police and information from victim assistance organizations — lists 21 incidents of physical assaults on Jewish people, including 14 cases of bodily injuries. (16)
Table 12: Apabiz statistics of anti-Semitic incidents 200
| Category | Number of Offenses |
|---|---|
| Desecration of Jewish graveyards | 12 |
| Desecration and vandalism of Jewish memorials and community institutions | 32 |
| Acts of arson in total above | 3 |
| Attacks on individuals | 21 |
| Resulted in bodily injury in total above | 14 |
| Other: threats, incitement of the people, anti-Semitic graffiti | 35 |
| Total | 117 |
Source: Apabiz at http://www.apabiz.de/archiv/material/index.htm.
The Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin also publishes chronicles of anti-Semitic crimes and right-wing offenses on its website and internet platform Courage against Right-wing Violence (Mut gegen rechte Gewalt). (17) These are also mostly based on media and police reports, but they also include some data released by victim support organizations. (18) They do no provide any aggregated data and tend to include cases in which the political motivation behind the offense seems likely but remains unproven.
Even though violent deaths of homeless people are sometimes listed in the Frankfurter Rundschau’s and Der Tagesspiegl’s newspaper documentation of right-wing murders, not much effort has been made to provide concrete numbers for this particularly vulnerable victim group or to investigate the full-extent of hate crimes that affect them. The only national public report available, »The Dead of the Third Class« (Tote Dritter Klasse) by the journalist Christian Linde at the Berlin-based street newspaper motz, is outdated.
It covers the period 1994-2001 and lists 350 cases of violence experienced by the homeless in Germany, based primarily on media reports. The article divides the cases into incidents of manslaughter and battery, but also lists suicides and deaths resulting from hypothermia. (19)
Examples of Local Monitoring
The exact number of NGOs that monitor right-wing violence or related hate crimes for a particular region or town in one form or the another is very difficult to detect, since many of them only publish this data in local publications with a small circulation (brochures, newsletters and magazines) or on their website, hidden among a large amount of other information.
An internet search revealed various local groups and networks that provide some information on right-wing assaults. For East Germany these are the Mosquito Network Office (Netzwerkstelle Moskito) in Berlin-Pankow, the Research Group on Right-wing Extremism (Forschungsgruppe Rechtsextremismus) at the University of Potsdam and the Anti-Fascist Groups (Antifaschistische Gruppen) in Westhavelland. (20) These three groups have been registering and documenting right-wing related incidents since 1989. For West Germany, there are very few NGOs regularly monitoring and documenting right-wing violence or related forms of hate crimes. Exceptions include the Anti-Fascist Information, Documentation and Archive (Antifaschistische Informations-, Dokumentations- und Archivstelle, A.I.D.A.) in Munich and the Office of Right-wing Extremism and Violence (AruG) in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony. Most of their information comes from the victims themselves or from other sources such as individual witnesses or NGOs. A.I.D.A. publishes chronologies of far-right activities covering the years 1998-2008 in Bavaria on their website, with a focus on Munich, while ARuG does the same for the state of Lower Saxony. On the website of the latter organization, the information is broken down into towns and regions. (21) Both chronologies, however, do include hate crimes as well as other forms of right-wing activities such as demonstrations, gatherings or violent crashes with the police. Neither provides any aggregated data.
Most of the groups we contacted in West Germany discussed the need to improve the monitoring and documentation system, but they have difficulties securing funding and paying staff. While almost all groups recognized the lack of concrete information concerning right-wing violence and related crimes in the old federal states, the fact remains that they also lack the necessary resources for outreach activities and for more detailed investigations into known cases. Due to these restraints, low priority has been given to developing comprehensible data collection systems and to providing the means for assessing and documenting right-wing, racist and related hate crimes.
13. Der Tagesspiegel, 6 Mar 2003.
14. Bleich 2008. Quantifying Hate, p. 70.
15. Antifaschistisches Pressearchiv und Bildungszentrum Berlin, http://www.apabiz.de.
16. Antifaschistisches Pressearchiv und Bildungszentrum Berlin 2008. Chronologie antisemitischer Vorfälle 2007, Berlin.
17. Mut gegen rechte Gewalt, http://www.mut-gegen-rechte-gewalt.de/.
18. Mut gegen rechte Gewalt (n.d.). Chronik der Gewalt.
19. Linde, Christian 2002. Tote Dritter Klasse: Eine unvollständige Chronik der Gewalt gegen Obdachlose (CD-Rom), Berlin.
20. In 2005 Mosquito published its first chronlogy of 53 right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents, which occurred in the district of Pankow in the eastern part of Berlin. Besides physical attacks, the group also registered cases of hate speech, acts of vandalism and right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic posters and graffiti. The information on incidents is also passed on to other local NGOs such as Apabiz and ReachOut. The local monitoring activities in Berlin-Pankow were part of a local action plan, which provided for some funding and facilitated the cooperation between various local non-governmental and governmental actors, including the district council. See: Stiftung Pfefferwerk (n.d.). [mosquito] – Netzwerkstelle gegen Rechtsextremismus, für Demokratie und Vielfalt, Berlin. The Research Group on Right-wing Extremism presents an overview of extreme right-wing activities, including violent crimes and propaganda offenses on their website, researched and compiled by a students’ group. Forschungsgruppe Rechtsextremismus an der Universität Potsdam 2006. Rechtsextremismus in Potsdam 1992 bis 2005: Eine Chronologie, Potsdam. The Anti-Fascist Groups’ chronology can also be found online: Antifa Westhavelland (n.d.). Chronologie, Hemiksem.
21. Arbeitsstelle Rechtsextremismus und Gewalt, http://www.arug.de; Antifaschistische Informations-, Dokumentations- und Archivstelle München, http://www.aida-archiv.de.
(OPP)
