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| Thomas Haldenwang, President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution |
Before the publication of a situation report on antisemitism in Germany, President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Thomas Haldenwang speaks of a significant increase in antisemitic crimes in the past two years. Overall, the situation is “bad”.
The constitutional protection has recorded a significant increase in antisemitism in Germany in the past two years. The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, said the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”: “We have to state that there was an increase in right-wing extremist antisemitic crimes in 2018 by 71 percent and last year by another 17 percent.
In the everyday life of our Jewish citizens, this means: They are often exposed to insults, threats and attacks. “
The Federal Office wants to publish a more than 100-page report on antisemitism on Monday. Haldenwang said the situation was bad. “When Jewish citizens tell me that they are wondering when the time will come to leave Germany – that they have even reached this point: then the situation is bad.” There are also “forms of everyday antisemitism and antisemitism.” Resentments that lie outside of our official responsibility – sometimes even in middle-class circles ”.
“It is more likely to work with hints”
The President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution referred to a so-called New Right, in which antisemitism is more subtle and subtle. “It is worked more with hints. We are now seeing this in many cases in the Corona demonstrations, for example when there is talk of a world conspiracy that is supposedly controlled by “interests on the American east coast”.
Old antisemitic conspiracy narratives are thus “hidden behind codes. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous. “
Haldenwang named statements by the chairman of the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group, Björn Höcke, such as: George Soros was decomposing the peoples of Europe, a “typical, poorly veiled antisemitism of the New Right – not clearly stated, but clearly indicated”. That the American billionaire is Jewish is then no longer explicitly mentioned, but everyone knows what is meant.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung
