In the first half of 2021 alone, the police in Bavaria recorded a total of 262 antisemitic crimes in the criminal police reporting service as politically motivated crime. Four of these crimes are politically motivated violent crimes. The police assigned 243 of the cases to right-wing politically motivated crime, none to left-wing ones. The investigators saw “religious ideology” as the motive behind seven of the crimes, four were said to originate from “foreign ideology”, and they could not assign a further seven.
This emerges from the response of the Bavarian state government to a parliamentary question by SPD MP Florian Ritter (18/18735).
But these numbers should be treated with caution. Initially, only what was reported to the police is recorded. On the one hand, these are preliminary figures, which may still be reported later. On the other hand, the investigating police make the decision as to whether and in which category a criminal offense is to be reported or not. And that sometimes leads to irritating decisions. On May 21, 2021, a Jewish woman from Memmingen received a misogynistic private message threatening her with death. It says in English: “Fuck you. I want to cut off your head. Zionist state to hell. We will kill all Jews everywhere for the freedom of Palestine. Freedom for Palestine. Palestine for Arabs and Palestinians only. Freedom for Palestine. I want to cut off your head, sh*t. Go to hell.
With 54 offences, the local police headquarters recorded Munich as the front-runner for registered antisemitic crimes. This is followed by the presidencies of Upper Bavaria North (47), Upper Bavaria South (29) and Lower Franconia (24). 129 of the 243 antisemitic acts were committed using the internet as a means of crime. The police identified three victims of the four violent crimes recorded. Six of them are “religious”, one is “foreign ideology” and the police could not assign three. Two of those affected are said to have fallen victim to right-wing extremism and one to “religious ideology”. Two people were slightly injured, one was uninjured.
A comparison with the figures from previous years shows a steady increase in recorded antisemitic crimes in Bavaria. With 243 cases, it is already almost 30 percent above the value of the same period last year, with 191 crimes. In the first half of 2019 there were 157 crimes. In the second half of the year, the police reported slightly fewer antisemitic crimes than in the first. But the same trend can also be seen here: from 109 crimes in the first half of 2018, the number rose to 153 in 2019 and to 162 in 2020. While the Bavarian police did not record any violent crimes in 2018, the number has since been relatively stable between four and six per half year.
