ODIHR’s insights

For 2024, ODIHR received reports of 305 hate incidents that took place in Germany in the following bias motivation categories: anti-Christian, anti-LGBTI, anti-Muslim, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, and racist and xenophobic hate incidents. Approximately 10 per cent of incidents involved multiple biases, such as anti-Muslim and gender-based, anti-Roma and disability, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim, and racist and xenophobic and anti-Muslim. 

ODIHR observes that a significant number of incidents in Germany targeting in particular the Christian, Muslim, Roma and LGBTI communities have been reported. The majority of anti-Christian incidents involved damage to property, including vandalism, desecration and several cases of arson attacks against churches. Most of the anti-LGBTI incidents reported involved physical assaults or threats and threatening behaviour, including several cases when victims were attacked after publicly showing affection for their partners, as well as incidents in which gay men were attacked after being tricked into meeting up via a dating app. Many of the anti-Muslim incidents reported targeted visibly Muslim women in incidents of threatening or harassing behaviour, and in some cases physical assaults, many of which took place in public spaces. Several anti-Muslim incidents also included a racist bias motivation. In relation to the anti-Roma incidents reported, many were physical attacks targeting minors in a school setting; several other anti-Roma incidents were perpetrated by neighbours of the victims. The anti-Semitic incidents reported most often involved damage to property, including anti-Semitic graffiti; however, some physical assaults involving anti-Semitic insults were also noted. Several racist and anti-Muslim incidents were observed following a car-ramming attack committed by a foreign-born Muslim man at a Christmas market. 

It should be noted that ODIHR did not receive any descriptive incidents on Germany relating to disability hate incidents and received a low level of reporting related to gender-based incidents. This indicates potential gaps in the information reported here.

In addition, three reporting organizations submitted 6,408 statistical incidents for which descriptions are not available in the tables below, including 3,898 anti-Semitic incidents, 1,757 racist and xenophobic incidents, 737 anti-LGBTI incidents, and 16 disability hate incidents.