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CRIME

‘Germany is one of the safest countries in the world’

Crime is at its lowest level in Germany in nearly 30 years but many people still feel unsafe.

Published: 2 April 2019 16:39 CEST
'Germany is one of the safest countries in the world'
Photo: DPA
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Tuesday said Germany is “one of the safest countries in the world” as he unveiled the latest police statistics that show crime is at its lowest level since records began in the early 90s, shortly after reunification.
 
But a study, also presented by the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU)'s Seehofer, showed that many people in Germany still feel unsafe. 
 
As The Local reported, nationwide there was a total of 5.55 million criminal offences recorded in 2018, a decrease of around 3.6 percent compared to the previous year, reported Welt.

The new figures show recorded crime dropped in all states last year apart from one.

SEE ALSO: Crime in Germany at lowest level since reunification

However, authorities warn that statistics do not tell the whole story as many offences go unreported.

Horst Seehofer in Berlin on Tuesday. Photo: DPA

'Lowest figures for decades'

Seehofer said less than one percent of the population is affected by serious crime in Germany. “Every crime is of course one too many. But objectively this is the lowest figure for decades,” he said. However Seehofer was wary of calling it a success, saying that would only be the case if “this trend was also sustainable”.

The number of violent crimes decreased by 1.9 percent compared to the previous year, and theft decreased by 7.5 percent, reported Welt.

Bavaria is the only state in Germany to record an increase in crime last year (0.9 percent) compared to the previous year. 

Meanwhile, sexual child abuse and child pornography reports have increased. Compared to the previous year, the number of recorded cases of abuse rose by 6.7 percent from 11,547 to 12,321, and the number of suspects nabbed by officers increased by 5.4 percent to 9,357.

How safe do people feel?

At the press conference, Seehofer also discussed the findings of a report about how safe people feel in Germany.

In 2017, a total of 22 percent of people who responded to a survey said they felt unsafe at night in their own home – that's five percentage points more than five years earlier.
 
The study by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (MPI) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) also found that women, middle-aged people and residents of medium-sized cities, as well as eastern Germans, are the people who feel most unsafe.
 
Almost nine percent of people consider it quite or very likely that they will become a victim of a terrorist attack.
 
The results also show that people in Germany have a high confidence in the police and courts, said Holger Münch, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office.

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CRIME

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

German authorities said Friday they had arrested a 27-year-old Syrian man who allegedly planned an Islamist attack on army soldiers using two machetes in Bavaria.

Published: 13 September 2024 11:17 CEST
Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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