German police routinely treat Arab migrants as likely to be hostile, fuelling tense confrontations and an atmosphere of mistrust between them, a fly-on-the-wall study into racism in the ranks has found.
Racial profiling researchers who joined patrols and crime scene investigations in northern Germany said migrant areas were policed as crime hotspots in what became a "self-fulfilling prophecy". Areas with mostly German residents received friendlier treatment, the research found.
The findings of a rising tide of racism across Germany and a clamour for stricter migration policies are pulling Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government in two directions. A far-right narrative blaming foreigners for violence and extremism fuelled the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to a historic election win nine days ago after a fatal knife attack by an alleged Syrian extremist.
Ministers were holding crisis talks on Tuesday amid demands to turn away Syrian asylum seekers. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has ordered checks at all of Germany's borders, a measure that invoked memories of the Berlin Wall for some but may not go far enough to appease critics.
An anti-discrimination tsar warned on Tuesday of a "brutalisation of public debate" as separate findings revealed more than one in five Germans have experienced racism, with anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hatred shooting up since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war.
Racial profiling
The racism study by a Lower Saxony police academy found that some groups were accused "on a blanket basis" of lacking respect for authorities. Fears have been raised that this kind of discrimination could lead to extremism.
People treated in this way were said to include left-wing activists and young men with an Arab or Turkish background, said sociologist Astrid Jacobsen. The effect can be that they are unwilling to call the police or communicate with them, the study says.
In one case police showed an "authoritarian" streak towards a young man with a migrant background, berating him during a search even when he approached with an ID card to show co-operation and demanding "absolute obedience".
This kind of discrimination "shows itself in a lower willingness to turn to the police and communicate with them", the study said. A display of toughness and authority means "these groups are also seen in society as threatening public security".
By contrast, police outside these migrant hotspots had a "more open, more relaxed demeanour" that was more appropriate to the situation, Prof Jacobsen said. Some offensive language was used even when police knew they were the subject of a racism study.
Police also treated Albanians as potential cocaine dealers, Russians as prone to violence and southern Europeans as "impulsive", according to the four-year study. "They only look in places where they expect a hit, and that hit in turn confirms their experience. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," Prof Jacobsen said.
Discrimination rife
Ferda Ataman, the government's anti-discrimination commissioner, said on Tuesday that Germany was in a "discrimination crisis". She described the far right's state election win in Germany's former East as a "new low point".
"The more successful right-wing extremists are in elections, the more people regard their views as legitimate," she said. "Many people are asking themselves 'am I safe here?' and 'what will Germany do to protect me and my family?'"
Examples in a three-yearly study by several German equalities offices included headscarf-wearing Muslim women who reported discrimination at workplaces, gyms and while hunting for a flat, with many feeling there was both a racial and religious dimension.
One report was of a Muslim kindergarten worker who was racially abused by neighbours because of her headscarf, then by police responding to the case. A survey of advice centres found 81 per cent of cases where discrimination was alleged against police had a racial, ethnic or anti-Semitic element.
A second case of anti-Muslim hatred involved a private school pupil who was asked by his head teacher to condemn Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel and state his position on the Middle East conflict. The report spoke of a "blanket suspicion". He was also asked to shave his beard to ease concerns of Jewish classmates.
In 2023 there was a 140 per cent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes and a 96 per cent rise in anti-Semitic offences, according to the report, with the Israel-Gaza war having had a "drastic effect". Reem Alabali-Radovan, Mr Scholz's integration commissioner, said 22 per cent of people in Germany had personal experience of racism.
Migration debate
Even as the discrimination findings were laid out on Tuesday, Mr Scholz's government was holding talks a short distance away with states and opposition parties on proposals for a stricter policy. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on "parties of the centre" to put rivalries aside to find answers.
European Commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said temporary checks must be "necessary and proportionate" under the Schengen rules. "These type of measures should remain strictly exceptional," she said.
The government is exploring its legal options to turn away more asylum seekers and resume deportations to Syria that have been suspended since 2012. A first deportation flight to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan took 28 convicted criminals to Kabul in late August.
The entry checks ordered by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will take effect next Monday at all nine of Germany's land borders. Patrols had already taken place since October at the borders with Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The announcement effectively suspends the open Schengen zone borders often portrayed as a historic European achievement. Michael Roth, an MP from Mr Scholz's Social Democratic Party, on Tuesday called it "very bitter" for the "1989 generation" who watched the Berlin Wall come down that year.
Allies of Mr Scholz say the checks do not amount to a new border policy and are an attempt to enforce existing rules. EU regulations call for asylum seekers to be returned to the first country they arrived in, but this often does not happen in practice.
The Syrian asylum seeker accused of stabbing three people to death in Solingen on August 23 should have been in Bulgaria under EU rules, but attempts to deport him failed. The opposition Christian Democrats are demanding that any new policy ensures asylum seekers are turned away.
Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder, a prominent conservative, has a target of fewer than 100,000 asylum seekers a year, a cut of more than two thirds from last year's figures. Mr Scholz's team played down the suggestion.
Ministers should also "reduce to a minimum" the "material incentives for mass abuse of asylum law", said Christian Democratic MP Erwin Rueddel. The AfD called the checks a "cheap election tactic" as it campaigns to win a second state in the east on September 22.
Mr Scholz's three-party coalition is deep underwater in national polls with the next general election just over a year away. The possibility of replacing him with his more popular Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has been floated but no serious move has been made so far.
