How criminal is Germany? The situation in the morning

Love Readers,

a Man attacks celebrating in Bielefeldanother attacks people in Hallea 21-year-old lies dead in the Lausitzin Brandenburg steals a 120 tablets chocolate And even more coffee – these are only four cases from the past two days. We don’t want to panic here, but realistically, the events only depict a fraction of what else happens in Germany.

In any case, that’s not good news – not even for our new interior minister Alexander Dobrindt. Today he can present the statistics on politically motivated crime. There is probably nothing to gloss over either.

Among other things, the report summarizes crimes from the right and left-wing extremist milieu as well as religiously motivated crimes from the previous year. Dobrindt therefore presents data that relate to 2024.

The two reports in front of it already provided alarming results. The number of violent offenses increased in almost all areas. For the year 2023, the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Criminal Police Office reported: According to this, the politically motivated crime was “up to date since the introduction of the registration service in 2001”. Right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic offenses, political motivated homicides have even increased most than doubled.

Internationally, Germany is of course better than other countries, for example in Latin America. But it is also much better: here in South Korea, for example, it is and was around 3000 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021. In Germany there are more than twice as many.

It is only to be hoped that the new interior minister will not have to announce worse today – and will soon get the problem under control.

Five years ago, a virus had the world under control. Maybe you are like me, I remember the chaos from back then and a fever dream. Output blocks, too few masks, even fewer vaccines, which patients should be treated first? So many survival questions had to be answered within a very short time.

The chaos from back then should not repeat itself. That is why the members of the World Health Organization have negotiated a contract in no time (three years), which should ensure order in an emergency. For example, it is regulated in which criteria should be procured and distributed aid goods and vaccines. Countries also undertake to strengthen their health systems. Excavations of illness should be discovered quickly and contained as quickly as possible.

A few – admittedly very controversial – details have to be negotiated for at least a year. So it is when almost 200 parties are involved. But the basic structure is and should be adopted today. My colleague Frank Ochmann compiled more details for you:

High crime rates, possible pandemic, plus crazy heads of state: No wonder that Generation Z often looks pessimistic into the world and is noticeable with a new way of refusing to work. Critics complain – possibly rightly – that the work ethic of young people suffered massively. Why is it?

The trend study “Youth in Germany 2025”, which is presented today, provides answers to this. 2,027 people aged 14 to 29 took part in the representative survey. The longitudinal study has been repeated at a regular distance since 2020 and appears for the second time with generation comparison. You can read a small foretaste of what the youth drives:

If you don’t make it there either, you can also use the star-Sökokolumn. My colleague Marc Winkelmann wrote down how we get our laundry as resource -friendly as possible:

Have fun reading, washing and a pleasant Tuesday

Christine Leitner
(News editor)