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New figures from Germany's domestic intelligence agency show that the number of far-right crimes in Germany increased by 16 percent in 2008. Officials warn of the rise of Black Bloc-style "anarchist"(*) neo-Nazis who actively seek violence at demonstrations. The German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel wrote yesterday following:

German Authorities Warn of Rise of 'Anarchist' Neo-Nazis

Authorities in Germany have warned of a worrying new tendency within the far-right scene -- the rise of violent 'anarchist' neo-Nazis.

* "National Anarchists"(NA) joining a Nazi demo in Berlin, summer 2001. As you can see it's not a new trent, but since some years the "Autonomous Nationalists" - not the NA - became a mass phenomenon.

Heinz Fromm, the president of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, warned Tuesday of a "new phenomenon" within the far-right scene. Presenting the agency's 2008 report in Berlin, he said that over the last two years a scene had emerged of 'anarchist' neo-Nazis who dress similarly to the so-called Black Bloc of far-left anarchists and who deliberately seek violence at demonstrations. He put the number of so-called "right-wing anarchists" at between 400 and 500 people.

The report also reveals there were 19,894 far-right crimes reported in Germany in 2008, an increase of almost 16 percent over the previous year. Of those, 1,042 were acts of politically motivated violence, an increase of 6.3 percent over 2007. Most of the other crimes were propaganda offenses.

The number of people with extreme far-right views in Germany is estimated by the agency to be around 30,000 in 2008, a slight decline over 2007, when it was around 31,000. Of that number, around 9,500 are thought to be prepared to use violence. However the number of active neo-Nazis in Germany increased significantly in 2008, from 4,400 to 4,800.

According to the report, membership of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) declined slightly last year, from 7,200 to around 7,000 members. However the role of neo-Nazis within the party has grown, said Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. "The neo-Nazi part of the spectrum is gaining greater influence within the NPD," he said. The NPD, which has seats in two state parliaments, officially rejects violence and avoids explicit Nazi references...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,625756,00.html

Related:
☞ Interview: "Neonazis vom Web 2.0" (taz, 5.20)

But also the "ordinary" daily racism in Germany and other EU countries is very alarming as the following example, published last week in The Guardian (UK), is showing:

Roma still face racism

Last month, the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency found that racism and discrimination across the EU is far more widespread than previously thought, with Europe's estimated 12 million Roma, or Gypsy, population particularly affected. Earlier this month it was reported that Roma in Hungary had taken to the streets in self-defence after a wave of attacks led to five of their community being murdered in 10 months. Here, Helene Weiss describes life as a Romany in Hamburg, where her family have lived for 600 years, but still suffer discrimination today:

My name is Helene Weiss. This is my name in Germany and it is the name which is written down in my passport. But my other name is Meuni, which is what my familiy and all my friends call me – family and friends who are Roma or Sinti like me. I grew up bilingually, but the Romany language is my first.

If somebody asked which place in the world I call my home, I would answer: Hamburg. I was born here and have lived here all my life. My ancestors came to this city more than 600 years ago.

Today, I work as an assistant for the Rom und Cinti Union, an organisation that stands up for the rights of the Sinti and Roma people. We advise and support our clients in every day questions, problems with integration and difficult tasks they must sort out with officials. Sometimes we talk to people who are afraid to be deported.

In contrast to this, my everyday life is quite average. In the morning I wake up and head off to my office. In the afternoon I meet my friends and my family. Three times a week I go to school to get my general secondary leaving certificate.

Still, sometimes I feel that people are suspicious of me because of my origins. Some weeks ago I went shopping in the city centre and I suddenly realised that one of the shop assistants had started following me. She observed every step I made. At one point, I turned around and said: 'Excuse me, I am not going to steal anything and I am going to leave your shop now and as fast as I can!' The woman didn’t react, but I could see that she was relieved when she saw me walking away. I have never stolen anything in my entire life and her suspicion still hurts me.

Maybe this is the reason why I don’t like to be called a 'zigan' or Gypsy, because people connect mostly negative stereotypes with this expression. Either 'gypsies' are considered rotten thieves roaming the city or people think about beautiful women, romantic music, adventurous movies and us travelling the country in our mobile homes. Well, yes, we do play great music and I did watch movies about so-called gypsies myself. But we are more than just this.

We are people, like everyone else who is living here, leading a normal live. And we definitely aren’t criminals that don’t care about their children. I don’t know anybody who lives in a mobile home. My friends all live in apartments.

There is one memory I still recall when it comes to discrimination. Four years ago, when my grandmother turned 90, she became very ill and we took her to hospital. She had to share her room with another old German lady. As we unpacked my grandmother’s things, this woman said: 'Hitler must have forgotten to put all of you up against a wall and shoot!' I was terrified. How could she say this? My father tried to talk to the doctor to make him move my grandmother to another room, but the only thing he said was: 'I don’t have time to discuss this right now.' So we took her home at once. A few days later she died.

I was close to tears when I heard what this woman said. I mean, during National Socialism the Nazis deported my grandmother and her whole family to a concentration camp. She was a young woman then. The Nazis abused her and my grandfather and even let their son, who suffered from an infection, die in front of her eyes. I grew up with her horrible memories of those days. I would find her sitting at home crying so many times. Even towards the end of her life, she knew she wouldn’t be able to die peacefully.

When I was about eight years old, I went to a new secondary school. It was a terrible experience. One morning, I entered the classroom and suddenly all the other children started shouting, calling me a 'dirty Gypsy'. I ran home and asked: 'Why do they call me a dirty Gypsy, daddy?' I never was a scruffy person – and I spoke German fluently. Maybe the children didn’t know how cruel they were being to me. I sometimes wonder whether they just repeated what they heard from their parents at home.

As I turned older, the situation got worse. I only had one friend in my class, an African-American girl. We did everything together, maybe because we suffered from a similar problem. We went to the canteen to have lunch and sometimes we would hang out together. My other classmates ignored us. Even the teacher didn’t do much to support me. One afternoon, my brother was beaten up after class. I simply didn’t want to go back to this place. Finally, we were moved to a special school – when I was fourteen.

Since then, I have somehow made it through life. I feel much more accepted now than I felt when I was a child. But I am grown up now and I know how to defend myself.

I don’t want to give the impression that I face racism every day. Neither am I afraid whenever I walk down the street. But the moments I have described, they make me wonder a lot whether I, as a Sinti woman, will ever be totally accepted. I hope that one day I will.

But then again, recently when we wanted to move office, we couldn't find anything. Everybody we called said: 'We will get back to you soon'. And, of course, they never called again. I started wondering: 'Are they not calling back because we are Sinti and Roma, because they don’t want us to rent their office?' To me, the answer is quite obvious.

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1073&catID=9