Germany: Targets of fascist attacks widen
01 January 1991
Germany: Targets of fascist attacks widen
artdoc June=1993
According to the Anti-Racist Initiative in Berlin, racial
violence against refugees and Turks continues. But an added
dimension to fascist attacks is that, more and more, they include
any one deemed different.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army in Germany has
warned all soldiers to be careful when leaving their garrisons.
He cites 44 physical attacks that have occurred in 1993. In the
latest incident, in Brandenburg, Russian soldiers and their
families visiting Germany were attacked on a bus with stones and
baseball bats (TAZ 27.3.93).
In east-Berlin, a 38-year-old British man was seriously injured
by a group of right wing youth who called him a `fucking
foreigner' and hit him with an iron bar (TAZ 24.3.93).
Left-wing targets
On 26 April, a 23-year-old German youth died after being brutally
beaten up two days earlier in Obhausen, eastern Germany, by a
group of 34 skinheads armed with baseball bats who launched a
commando style raid against a disco popular with anarchists. Six
skinheads have been placed in provisional detention and one has
been charged with murder. Further arrests are expected shortly.
(Liberation 28.4.93).
The left-wing youth club JAZ, where anti-fascists and groups of
physically handicapped people meet, and a women's cultural centre
in Rostock were attacked by a group of 50 skinheads. Nobody was
injured, but the police have been accused of watching the attack
without taking action TAZ 6.5.93).
In Worth, Bavaria, the office of a local newspaper was
firebombed by neo-nazis who painted swastikas on the office-door
and windows. The neo-nazis were arrested and told the police that
they were angry about the recent public campaign of German
newspapers in favour of foreigners and refugees (DT 22.3.93).
Attacks on refugees and `immigrants'
In March, two youths were arrested in Molln after throwing
molotov-cocktails at a refugee hostel (TAZ 19.3.93). In April,
neo-nazis set fire to a refugee hostel - housing mainly Romanians
- in Bramsche, northern Germany (Humanitaire 24.4.93). In west
Berlin, three skinheads stabbed an Angolan man in the back (TAZ
26.3.93). Following an arson attack on a Turkish restaurant in
Hohr-Grenzhausen, Rheinland-Pfalz, a Turkish woman required
hospital treatment (TAZ 17.3.93).
Meanwhile, a court in Stuttgard has jailed one neo-nazi for
life, having found him guilty of the murder of an Albanian asylum
seeker last July. Another five neo-nazis were jailed for between
2 and 7 years (Guardian 10.5.93).
Popular campaign against refugees
Villagers from Eichof, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern organised a
blockade to keep asylum seekers out of their community. When
three buses with 156 refugees arrived at a camp close to the
village a mob forced them back. But instead of punishing the
attackers, the regional ministry of the interior decided to
dispersal the refugees to other places (TAZ 26.3.93, 27.3.93).
Meanwhile, Dietmar Thieser, the SPD mayor of Hagen in Nord-Rhein-
Westfalen has said that the next bus of asylum seekers sent to
his locality would be sent back as the local authority could not
accept further costs and difficulties (TAZ 19.4.93)
IRR European Race Audit no 4 1993. Contact: Liz Fekete, Institute
of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS. Tel: ++ 071
837 0041
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