The frequency of knife assaults has markedly risen.
A man from Afghanistan stabbed people in Mannheim, causing the death of a police officer. This incident has sparked outrage among politicians. The statistics reveal that stabbing attacks have become more frequent. While religiously motivated violence is also on the rise, it remains at a low level.
The Afghan man who stabbed the police officer in Mannheim has not yet been interrogated. Therefore, we cannot determine his motives. The fact that his attack targeted an Islam-critical activist suggests an Islamist mindset. The video of his brutal behavior quickly spread online, causing shock and dismay.
The question of how dangerous it has become in Germany arises. Are such incidents becoming commonplace? While this is clearly false, there has been a significant increase in the number of stabbing attacks. Since 2021, these have been recorded separately in the police crime statistics (PKS). There were 10,131 such cases in 2021, which increased to 13,844 in 2023.
However, the percentage of knife attacks in total violent crimes has remained relatively stable. Between 5% and 6% of serious and dangerous bodily harm and between 10% and 11% of robberies involved a knife. Since knife attacks have only been recorded separately for three years, it is difficult to determine a trend. The overall level of violent crime is increasing, which also means an increase in the number of cases in absolute terms.
All knife attacks are included in the total, from gas station robberies to drug deals or politically-religiously motivated perpetrators. However, the Federal Interior Ministry publishes separate figures for politically motivated crimes (PMK). These indicate that right-wing extremists are responsible for the majority of PMK. In 2023, there were around 60,000 crimes in this category. Around 29,000 were committed by right-wing extremists. Perpetrators with a "religious ideology" rank fourth, after PMK left and PMK foreign ideology.
A significant portion of these crimes involve propaganda, hate speech on the internet, or property damage. In 2023, 3561 politically motivated violent crimes were recorded, of which one-third were committed by right-wing extremists. The "religious ideology" was attributed to 90 crimes. This represented a drastic increase compared to 51 in the previous year. The numbers from the past three years have remained at a low level. The situation is largely dominated by "right" and "left" ideologies, with the "cannot be assigned" category making up a significant portion. Many of these crimes are related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reported a decrease in the number of Islamist threats, according to a statistic. After a peak of almost 800 observed individuals in 2018, the number is now around 500. Since 2000, there have been eleven completed Islamist-motivated attacks or attempted attacks in Germany. There were twenty-five cases that were prevented, and five that failed technologically. The most serious incident occurred at Berlin Breitscheidplatz, where thirteen people died when the attacker Anis Amri drove a truck into the Christmas market on December 19, 2016. Amri was known to the authorities.
Afghanistan expert Ellinor Zeino of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation told ntv.de in March that it is impossible to fully control whether potential attackers come to Germany. "Many are already in Germany and Europe. We cannot know what their intentions are. The potential is there. Eventually, some of them will manage to strike here," she explained.
Despite this, it is also true that the vast majority of the Afghan population in Germany is law-abiding. Young men from Afghanistan and Syria are underrepresented in the crime statistics, as BKA President Holger Münch noted during the presentation of the police crime statistics in April. However, many men from North Africa are disproportionately represented. The PKS and PMK statistics have their limitations. They record suspicions rather than convictions.
In the ntv morning news, CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann called for criminals to be deported to Afghanistan. However, this is currently legally impossible because Afghanistan is not a safe country of origin. The same applies to other countries like Syria.
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The events in Mannheim have raised concerns about the presence of an Islamist mindset in trauma-inducing terrorist attacks. The increase in religiously motivated violence, including the brutal stabbing in Mannheim, has fueled discussions among politicians and the public.
