Aschaffenburg: foreigners and Germans: Who is behind knife attacks?

After the fatal attack of an Afghan asylum seeker in Aschaffenburg, questions about knife violence in connection with migration. Some think that the majority of refugees were behind those attacks that are partly religiously motivated. Is that true or exaggerated? A classification:

BKA has recorded numbers since 2020

The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) defines knife attacks in its police crime statistics (PKS) as “acts in which the attack with a knife is directly threatened or executed”. The mere carrying of a knife, on the other hand, is not sufficient for recording, explains a BKA spokeswoman. In the case of knife attacks, the BKA does not differentiate between a migration background or according to German or non-German origin.

Knife attacks have been recorded in the PKS since the beginning of 2020. According to the BKA, the background to admission to the statistics is an increase in crimes using the knife. For 2023, the PKS mentions a total of 8,951 knife attacks in connection with dangerous and serious bodily harm. In 2022 there were 8,160 and 7,071 cases the previous year. In the case of predatory crimes, the police recorded 4,893 knife offenses in 2023, in 2022 there were 4,195 and 2021 a total of 3,060 cases.

Federal Police differentiates between nationality

In contrast to the BKA, the federal police, which is responsible for the German external borders as well as train stations and airports, have been capturing violent offenses in their incoming statistics since 2019, in which a knife has been used – and also calls the nationality of suspects.

According to this statistics, there were 777 offenses near the German borders in 2023, near the German borders, near train stations and airports, in which a knife was used. In 2022 there were 591. For 2023, the statistics call 180 German suspects and 218 people with unknown origin. There are also 216 non-German suspects. In 2022 there were 169 German suspects for comparison, as well as 169 people with unexplained and 174 with non-German origin.

According to the federal government, people from Syria (24 cases), Poland (17) and Turkey (16) dominated in 2023 in non-German nationalities. In 2022, these three nations were already in the first three places.

Like the BKA, the federal police also do not raise whether suspects have a migration background – i.e. people who themselves or in whom at least one parent were not born with German citizenship.

Numbers from the countries show more precise origin

However, there is a distinction between the origin of suspects in knife attacks. North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, split the almost 4,000 suspects in 2022 to 2,226 Germans (55.6 percent) and 1,765 foreigners without a German passport (44.2). Among the last group there are 660 immigrants (16.5). According to the State Criminal Police Office, these are asylum seekers, protection and asylum entitled, contingent refugees and tolerated.

In the federal states that grasp the nationality of the suspects in their crime statistics, between one third and half of them are of non-German origin. Examples are Thuringia and Lower Saxony with 41 percent or Hesse with around 50 percent. For comparison: At the end of 2023, more than 83 million people in Germany were almost 13.9 million foreigners.

What is clear: a gender dominates for knife attacks. According to the media service, the suspects are usually men (in almost 90 percent of cases) and mostly adults who are older than 21 years.

Extremist acts of violence from religious ideology comparatively low

Anyone looking for Islamist motives for acts of violence will at least partially find it in statistics on politically motivated crime (PMK) at the BKA. However, knife attacks are not explicitly shown. However, there are figures for “extremist crimes” that aim to “eliminate certain constitutional principles or to put it out of validity that are formative for our free democratic basic order”.

In this way, the PMK sub-area “religious ideology” is assigned to crimes, “in which there are indications that a religious ideology was decisive for the inspection and the religion was exploited to justify the crime”. There were a total of 72 extremist acts of violence in 2023. The year before, there were 43.

For comparison: In the PMK “right”, deeds are recorded if “there are indications that they are to be attributed to a” right “orientation after a clear view of a” right -wing “. 1,148 extremist acts of violence were counted in 2023 (2022: 1,016).