Resentment against Muslims, Jews and sexual minorities has increased among the Berlin population. Right-wing authoritarian attitudes have also increased significantly since 2019. This emerges from the “Berlin Monitor 2023” presented on Monday. According to the representative survey, almost every second person (48 percent) firmly rejects Islam.
27 percent think the founding of Israel is a bad idea (2021: 12 percent). Around 19 percent of Berliners surveyed want a strong leader, up from 10 percent in 2021. 31 percent find homosexuality unnatural. 31 percent of those surveyed had an entrenched conspiracy mentality, compared to only 18 percent in 2019.
The Senator for Integration and Anti-Discrimination, Cansel Kiziltepe (SPD), explained that the numbers were causing her great concern: “I didn’t expect the impact that they were.” It is now important to expand prevention and integration projects and counteract the trends with an open discussion.
The “Berlin Monitor” has been produced as a representative long-term study every three years since 2019 on behalf of the Berlin Senate. In the period from the end of May to the end of July 2023, scientists from the University of Leipzig and the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, led by the sociologist of religion Gert Pickel, surveyed 2,048 Berliners aged 18 and over.
