Racist tones in public, and no one intervenes: The video from a bar on Sylt has caused a lot of outrage. But the incident is not an isolated case, as a survey shows.
More than one in ten Germans has personally experienced at least one incident like the racist outburst by partygoers in a bar on the island of Sylt that came to light in May. This is the result of a representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the German Press Agency.
In a video just a few seconds long, which is said to have been made at Pentecost, you can see and hear young people on Sylt shouting racist slogans to the tune of the old party hit “L’amour toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino. They sing “Germany for the Germans – foreigners out!” in an apparently completely unashamed and exuberant manner. One man makes a gesture reminiscent of the Hitler salute. None of the bystanders seem to be bothered by this. After the video from the upscale restaurant went viral, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said: “It’s clear: such slogans are disgusting, they are not acceptable.”
In the survey, twelve percent of respondents said they had already experienced a similar incident themselves. 78 percent of German citizens have never personally seen or heard of anything similar. Four percent of survey participants were unsure. Only six percent of respondents said they were not aware of the incident on Sylt. Men and citizens living in eastern Germany were slightly more likely to say they had already witnessed such an incident. Only people who take part in national elections, i.e. only people with German citizenship, were surveyed.
Investigations are not only being conducted into the incident on Sylt. The police are also investigating possible racist chants of the same song on the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn. According to the police, around 15 people are said to have sung “xenophobic slogans” at a dance event there on the night of May 5th.
Source: Stern
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