Migrants committed 208,344 crimes in 2015, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German newspaper, Bild. This figure represents an 80% increase over 2014 and works out to around 570 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 23 crimes each hour, between January and December 2015.

The actual number of migrant crimes is far higher, however, because the report, produced by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), includes only crimes that have been solved (aufgeklärten Straftaten). According to Statista, the German statistics agency, on average only around half of all crimes committed in Germany in any given year are solved (Aufklärungsquote). This implies that the actual number of crimes committed by migrants in 2015 may exceed 400,000.

Moreover, the report — “Crime in the Context of Immigration” (Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung) — includes data from only 13 of Germany’s 16 federal states.

The report does not include crime data from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany and also the state with the largest number of migrants. North Rhine-Westphalia’s biggest city is Cologne, where, on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of German women were sexually assaulted by migrants. It is not yet clear why those crimes were not included in the report.

The report also lacks crime data from Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, and Bremen, the second most populous city in Northern Germany.

Further, many crimes are simply not reported or are deliberately overlooked: political leaders across Germany have ordered police to turn a blind eye to crimes perpetrated by migrants, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

According to the report, most of the crimes were committed by migrants from: Syria (24%), Albania (17%), Kosovo (14%), Serbia (11%), Afghanistan (11%), Iraq (9%), Eritrea (4%), Macedonia (4%), Pakistan (4%) and Nigeria (2%).

Most of the migrant crimes involved theft (Diebstahl): 85,035 incidents in 2015, nearly twice as many as in 2014 (44,793). Those were followed by property and forgery crimes (Vermögens- und Fälschungsdelikte): 52,167 incidents in 2015.

In addition, in 2015, migrants were involved in 36,010 reported cases of assault, battery and robbery (Rohheitsdelikte: Körperverletzung, Raub, räuberische Erpressung), roughly twice as many as in 2014 (18,678). There were also, in 2015, 28,712 reported incidents of fare evasion on public transportation (Beförderungserschleichung).

There were 1,688 reported sexual assaults against women and children, including 458 rapes or acts of sexual coercion (Vergewaltigungen oder sexuelle Nötigungshandlungen).

According to the report, migrants were accused of 240 attempted murders (Totschlagsversuch), in 2015, compared to 127 in 2014. In two-thirds of the cases, the perpetrators and victims were of the same nationality. There were 28 actual murders: migrants killed 27 other migrants, as well as one German.

Finally, the report said that 266 individuals were suspected of being jihadists posing as migrants; 80 of these were determined not to be jihadists; 186 cases are still being investigated. The infiltration of jihadists into the country, according to the report, is “a growing trend.”

The report leaves far more questions than answers. It remains unclear, for example, how German police define the term “migrant” (Zuwanderer) when compiling crime statistics. Does this term refer only to those migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015, or to anyone with a migrant background?

If the report refers only to recently arrived migrants — Germany received just over one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East in 2015 — this would imply that at least 20% of the migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015 are criminals. But if the number of crimes committed by migrants is actually twice as high as the report states, then at least 40% of newly arrived migrants are criminals. Yet the report asserts: “The vast majority of asylum seekers are not involved in criminal activity.”

Also, for reasons that are not given, the report fails to include offenses committed by North Africans, long known to be responsible for an increase in crimes in cities and towns across Germany.

Police in Bremen, Germany are shown detaining four young North African criminals who have been terrorizing local shopkeepers. (Image source: ARD video screenshot)

In Hamburg, police say they are helpless to confront a spike in crimes committed by young North African migrants. Hamburg is now home to more than 1,000 so-called unaccompanied minor migrants (minderjährige unbegleitete Flüchtlinge, MUFL), most of whom live on the streets and apparently engage in all manner of criminal acts.

A confidential report, leaked to Die Welt, reveals that Hamburg police have effectively capitulated to the migrant youths, who outnumber and overwhelm them. The document states:

“Even the smallest issue can quickly lead to aggressive offensive and defensive behavior. The youths come together in groups to stand up for each other and also to fight each other…

“When dealing with others, the youths are often irreverent and show a lack of respect for local values ​​and norms. The youths congregate mainly in the downtown area, where they can be seen almost every day. During the daytime, they hang out mostly in the St. George district, but in the evenings they carry out their activities in the Binnenalster, Flora- and Sternschanzenpark and St. Pauli [all across central Hamburg]. They usually appear in groups; up to 30 youths have been observed on weekend nights in St. Pauli. The behavior of these highly delinquent youths towards police officers can be characterized as aggressive, disrespectful and condescending. They are signaling that they are indifferent to police measures…

“The youths quickly become conspicuous, mainly in the domains of pickpocketing or street robbery. They also break into homes and vehicles, but the crimes are often reported as trespassing or vandalism because the youths are just looking for a place to sleep. Shoplifting for obtaining food is commonplace. When they are arrested, they resist and assault [the police officers]. The youths have no respect for state institutions.”

The paper reports that German authorities are reluctant to deport the youths back to their countries of origin because they are minors. As a result, as more unaccompanied minors arrive in Hamburg each day, the crime problem not only persists, but continues to grow.

Meanwhile, in a bid to save the city’s tourism industry, Hamburg police have launched a crackdown on purse-snatchers. More than 20,000 purses — roughly 55 a day — are stolen in the city each year. According to Norman Großmann, the director of the federal police inspector’s office in Hamburg, 90% of the purses are stolen by males between the ages of 20 and 30 who come from North Africa or the Balkans.

In Stuttgart, police are fighting a losing battle against migrant gangs from North Africa who are dedicated to the fine art of pickpocketing.

In Dresden, migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia have effectively taken control over the iconic Wiener Platz, a large public square in front of the central train station. There they sell drugs and pickpocket passersby, usually with impunity. Police raids on the square have become a game of “whack-a-mole,” with a never-ending number of migrants replacing those who have been arrested.

German authorities have repeatedly been accused of underreporting the true scale of the crime problem in the country. For example, up to 90% of the sex crimes committed in Germany in 2014 do not appear in the official statistics, according to the head of the Association of Criminal Police (Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, BDK), André Schulz. He said:

“For years the policy has been to leave the [German] population in the dark about the actual crime situation… The citizens are being played for fools. Rather than tell the truth, they [government officials] are evading responsibility and passing blame onto the citizens and the police.”

In an apparent effort to defuse escalating political tensions, Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) on February 16 said it was expecting only 500,000 new migrants to arrive in the country in 2016. In December 2015, however, BAMF director Frank-Jürgen Weise told Bild that “this figure [500,000] is only being used for ‘resource planning’ because at this time we cannot say how many people will come in 2016.”

On January 1, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that 1.3 million asylum seekers would enter the European Union annually during 2016 and 2017.

In a January 9 interview with Bild, Development Minister Gerd Müller warned that the biggest refugee movements to Europe are still to come. He said that only 10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

Adding to the uncertainty: On February 18, senior security officials from Austria, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia — all countries along the so-called Balkan Route, which hundreds of thousands of migrants are using to enter the European Union — agreed to coordinate the joint transport of migrants from the Macedonia-Greece border all the way to Austria, from where they will be sent to Germany.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.

Who would have thought that there is still a law in Germany that makes “lèse majesté” (offending the dignity of a monarch) a punishable crime? And that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now benefiting from just that — and that it could plunge Germany into a (further) “national crisis.”

The terms “national crisis” and “governmental crisis” have been coming up again and again. In light of all the massive problems Germany has, this one is about a poem in which a cabaret performer and comedian, Jan Böhmermann, recently insulted the Turkish President. Erdogan has called for Böhmermann’s head and, as of last week, has Chancellor Merkel on his side.

The story began in March, when a German regional television station aired a music video during a satirical show, in which repression and human rights violations under Erdogan were pilloried in a humorous way. The Turkish government summoned the German ambassador and demanded that the video be removed from the internet and never be shown again. Germans thereby learned that the German ambassador is regularly summoned to Ankara — three times so far this year. According to reports, the Turkish government once complained about teaching material in Saxony’s schools that dealt with the Armenian genocide.

From the German satire video about Turkey’s President Erdogan.

The revelation that Erdogan is so easy to insult inspired some people to see if they could go the extra mile. Cabaret artist Jan Böhmermann broadcast an “Offensive Poem” (its actual title) on ZDF Neo, a tiny state-run entertainment TV channel with a market share of 1%. It contained speculations about the Turkish president’s digestive and sexual preferences. In the description of AFP, Böhmermann “accused Erdogan of having sex with goats and sheep while gleefully admitting he was flouting Germany’s legal limits on free speech.”

Böhmermann apparently mixed these unsubstantiated claims with (as an example) truthful statements on the oppression of minorities in Turkey (Erdogan wanted to “get Kurds, cut Christians,” he said).

Preemptive Surrender

In a preemptive surrender, which many Germans view as the real scandal, ZDF immediately deleted the broadcast from its Internet archives — before Erdogan could even complain. “The parody that satirically addresses the Turkish President does not meet the quality requirements the ZDF has in place for satire shows,” the station explained of this step. “For this reason, the passage was removed from the program.” This, as ZDF program director Norbert Himmler said, occurred “in consultation with Jan Böhmermann.” The limits of irony and satire were exceeded in this case

ZDF editors now criticize this course of action, and are asking for the piece to be accessible in the archives once again.

Chancellor Merkel — who is not otherwise known to react quickly to crises — tried to appease Erdogan shortly after the broadcast of the program. In a telephone conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu, she called the poem “deliberately hurtful” and “unacceptable.” She probably hoped to settle things without having explicitly to apologize, which many Germans from across the political spectrum would resent. But Erdogan has no intention of settling down. He called for the criminal prosecution of Böhmermann. The public prosecutor’s office in Mainz is already investigating due to several complaints against Böhmermann and the managers of ZDF.

Laws from the German Empire

Laws, some of which date back to the German Empire, complicate the issue. Hardly any German has ever heard of them, but they have suddenly become relevant. In Germany, the term “abusive criticism” has primarily been familiar to lawyers; the fact that gross affronts are prohibited in Germany is probably obvious to many citizens. However, little known — and much less accepted — is a law from 1871, which makes the “slander of institutions and officials of foreign states” an offense carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison.

On April 14, Angela Merkel announced that she is granting the Turkish President’s demand for prosecution against Böhmermann — against the objections of her coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

In Germany, justice should decide such a case, not the government, says Merkel. But many commentators believe this justification to be hypocritical; after all, Erdogan supposedly already filed lawsuits as a private individual at the Court in Mainz. What Merkel will now enable is another court case for “lèse majesté.” The Berlin Tagesspiegel writes:

“The majority of Germans are against the fact that she [Merkel] is complying with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s majesty demands in this way. ‘Majesty’ is, therefore, the appropriate term, because penal code section 103 from the year 1871 is for lèse majesté. So it comes from a time when we were still driving carriages and had an emperor. And the Turks had a sultan.”

Many also consider Merkel’s decision to be particularly absurd because on the same day, the Chancellor announced that she wants to abolish the law on lèse majesté “by 2018.”

Through her decision, Merkel signaled that the Turkish President’s “honor” is more important than that of normal German citizens, who can only take ordinary legal action when they are slandered, and who do not enjoy the privilege of an extended “protection of honor” for “princes.”

Erdogan has managed to extend what he already practices in Turkey to Germany. A few months ago, when nobody in Turkey had even heard of Jan Böhmermann, Die Welt reported:

“Paragraph 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, which provides for imprisonment of up to four years for insulting the head of state, has become the most common political offense. As a CHP party inquiry revealed, 98 people were arrested for this reason in the first ten months of last year. 66 were indicted, and 15 were kept in custody. The number of preliminary proceedings is unknown; human rights activists estimate several hundred. ‘With these reactions, Erdogan shows how justified this criticism is,’ said CHP human rights politician Sezgin Tanrikulu of Die Welt. ‘A regime that responds to all criticism with criminal proceedings is moving toward a dictatorship.'”

The Turkish penal code — now in Germany?

“Crimes Against Humanity”

The Turkish government called the slander of Erdogan a “serious crime against humanity.” The choice of words is reminiscent of how Erdogan once acquitted Sudanese President Omar al Bashir of genocide allegations in Darfur: “Muslims cannot carry out genocide.” Erdogan at the time was expressing an attitude often widespread in the West: crimes are not crimes when Muslims commit them. This also seems to be the view of many German politicians and journalists; rarely is a Muslim despot or demagogue criticized in Germany, while at the same time, no one in Germany has any inhibitions about vilifying Christianity or the Church.

It is this double standard, among other things, that Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the major German publishing house, Axel Springer, denounced in an open letter to Böhmermann, which was published in the daily newspaper Die Welt. In it, Döpfner calls for “solidarity with Jan Böhmermann.” He also writes:

“First, I want to say: I think your poem succeeded. I laughed out loud. So it’s important to me to say that, because in the past few days, there hasn’t been a single article about your text — whether accusatory or taking your side — that didn’t first (and at the same time captatio benevolentiae) emphasize how tasteless and primitive and insulting your satire about Erdogan was.”

According to Döpfner, it’s “as if you were to accuse a Formula 1 car manufacturer of having fast cars.” Being offensive is certainly the goal, and has a useful consequence: “It is very revealing what reactions your satire triggered. A focal point and a turning point.” Döpfner evokes various works by German artists, comedians, and cartoonists that are solely about mocking Christians and their faith. “When it comes to the provocation of religious or, more precisely, Christian feelings, anything goes in Germany,” says Döpfner. However, if someone offends Erdogan, that leads to “a kind of national crisis.”

Döpfner remembers how in Turkey, Erdogan proceeded against freedom of speech, minorities, and equality for women by force, and mentions the “excessive and reckless violence of the Turkish army” against the Kurds. Why, of all things, does insulting Erdogan cause such turbulence in Germany? Döpfner writes:

“For the small compensation of three billion euros, Erdogan regulates the streams of refugees so that conditions do not get out of control in Germany. You have to understand, Mr. Böhmermann, that the German government apologized to the Turkish government for your insensitive remarks. In the current situation, they are simply ‘not helpful’ — artistic freedom or not. You could easily call it kowtowing. Or as Michel Houellebecq phrased it in the title of his masterpiece on the self-abandonment of the democratic Western world: submission.”

Kowtowing to Turkey

Erdogan, who also campaigned in Germany during Turkish elections, appears to consider Germany an appendage of his Great Ottoman Empire. He calls out to Turks in Germany: “Assimilation is a crime against humanity.” He has great power in Germany. This is not only based on German organizations like the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), which is controlled by the Turkish government, but above all on his ability to provoke upheaval in Germany if he wants. That Chancellor Merkel has delegated even more power to Erdogan in this situation, by imploring him to prevent hundreds of thousands of migrants in Turkey from heading for Europe, has made the situation even worse — particularly because she has explained over and over that this is the only solution to the migrant crisis.

Merkel considers it indecent when Europeans secure their own country’s borders based on current laws, but she gives Erdogan full reign to proceed with migrants at his discretion.

The signal that the German federal government has repeatedly sent to Turkey in the past is: We are totally dependent on and cannot live without Turkey. Is it really a surprise that Erdogan’s megalomania is increasing?

Someone needs to say: No, we do not need Turkey that badly. But regrettably, this response is not in sight. Instead, Germany and Europe will submit again to the sultan.

Böhmermann’s television appearances were canceled; he fears for his life and is under police protection.

The Fear in the West

The German journalist and writer Henryk M. Broder has long criticized the capitulation of the West in the face of dictators and Muslim rioters. In 2006, he published the book, Hurray, We Surrender! On the Desire to Buckle. Asked by Gatestone Institute for his thoughts on current events, Broder wrote:

“Appeasement is an English word, but part of German political culture. It is founded on the saying: the wise give in. Indeed, it is not the wise who give in, but the weak, who dispense their inferiority as wisdom. If the Pope is offended by tasteless caricatures, he writes a letter to the editor, or he says nothing. But he does not threaten violence; he certainly doesn’t have any suicide bombers he could send out.

“The ‘cultural sensitivity’ practiced in liberal societies has nothing to do with sensitivity or thoughtfulness. It arises from the fear of violence. The threat scenario built up over years is not without effect. No artist wants to live as Salman Rushdie does, under a fatwa, or to be made a prisoner in his own home, like Kurt Westergaard.

“What you classify as ‘tasteless’ is a matter of risk assessment. You can explain the current situation with an old Jewish joke: Two Jews are taken to a concentration camp. They see an SS man. ‘Moshe,’ says one of the Jews, ‘ask what they’re planning to do with us.’ ‘Don’t be stupid, Shlomo.’ answered the other. ‘We shouldn’t provoke them; the Germans might get angry.'”

Stefan Frank, based in Germany, is an independent journalist and writer.

Muslim migrants in Germany who feel discriminated against should be given the right to change their legal names to Christian-sounding ones, according to a senior German politician.

The latest innovation in German multiculturalism is being championed by Ruprecht Polenz, a former secretary general of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He believes the German law which regulates name changes (Namensrecht) should be amended to make it easier for men named Mohammed to become Martin and women named Aisha to become Andrea.

German law generally does not allow foreigners to change their names to German ones, and German courts rarely approve such petitions. By custom and practice, German names are only for Germans.

According to Polenz, who served as a member of parliament for nearly two decades, the law in its current form is “ignorant” and should be changed:

“An ignorant law: the United States is full of anglicized German names, from Smith to Steinway, from Miller to Schwartz. The reason: integration was made easier. It no longer appeared as though a family was not from the USA. I think that German citizens of foreign origin should also have this possibility.”

Polenz elaborated:

“The desire to adopt a German name is solid evidence that you feel German and would like to be seen as a German. In the context of integration this is entirely desirable. It simply does not make sense to prohibit this….

“In everyday life we ​​unfortunately often see that naturalization or possessing a German passport is not enough to be regarded as a German.”

Muslims with foreign-sounding names often find it difficult to find a job, Polenz said, and the possibility of a name change might prevent discrimination and promote integration.

Indeed, academic studies (here and here) have found that immigrants with Arab or Turkish last names are less likely to be invited to job interviews than equally qualified migrants with non-Muslim sounding names.

Ruprecht Polenz, a former secretary general of Germany’s CDU party, believes the German law which regulates name changes should be amended to make it easier for Muslim migrants to change their legal names to Christian-sounding ones. (Image source: stephan-roehl.de/Flicker)

The former president of the Constitutional Court in North Rhine-Westphalia, Michael Bertram, has called for German courts to allow a name change if “a foreign-sounding name makes it difficult to integrate into the economic and social life in this country.”

He was referring to a case in which a court in Braunschweig rejected a petition by a German-Turkish family to change their surname. The parents had complained that in school their German-born children were being treated as “educationally disadvantaged migrants” and that teachers were addressing them in Turkish, a language they did not understand because they only speak German at home.

The court insisted on the principle of “name continuity” (Namenskontinuität) because there is “a public interest in maintaining the traditional name to enable social orientation and identification for security purposes.”

In a precedent-setting case in May 2012, a court in Göttingen ruled that neither the fear of discrimination, nor the desire for integration, are sufficient legal grounds for migrants to change their names to German ones.

The case involved a family of asylum seekers from Azerbaijan who wanted to adopt German first and last names to prevent possible discrimination and to avoid being linked to a particular ethnic or religious group.

The court ruled that although discrimination due to a foreign-sounding name was always a possibility, it is not within the purview of the law that regulates names to “counteract a social aberration” (gesellschaftlichen Fehlentwicklungen), i.e., discrimination.

The court added that the plaintiff’s names were not any more or less unusual than those of the majority of other migrants living in Germany. Moreover, although the children had Muslim-sounding names, it would not pose a big problem because others would not necessarily associate them with active religious practice.

Even if the existing German law were changed, it is unlikely that many Muslim migrants would adopt Christian names. Muslims who have children in Germany are already free to give them German first names, but they rarely do.

According to the Center for Onomatology (the study of the origin of names) at the University of Leipzig, Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants differ substantially in the way they choose names for their German-born children.

Non-Muslim immigrants generally choose traditional German names for their children to facilitate their integration into German society. By contrast, Muslim immigrants almost invariably choose traditional Arabic or Turkish names, presumably to prevent their integration into German society.

While non-Muslim immigrants name their children Sophie or Stefan, Muslim immigrants — including those whose families have been living in Germany for two, three or four generations — overwhelmingly give their children Muslim names such as Mohammed, Mehmet or Aisha.

A 2006 study produced by the University of Berlin found that more than 90% of Turkish parents give their German-born children Turkish first names; fewer than 3% give them German names.

A 2012 study found that 95% of ethnic Turks living in Germany believe it is absolutely necessary for them to preserve their Turkish identity. Nearly half (46%) agreed with the statement, “I hope that in the future there will be more Muslims than Christians living in Germany.” Only 15% consider Germany to be their home.

A 2016 study found that 32% of ethnic Turks in Germany agree that “Muslims should strive to return to a societal order such as that in the time of Mohammed.” More than one-third (36%) believe that “only Islam is able to solve the problems of our times.” One-fifth (20%) agree that “the threat which the West poses to Islam justifies violence.” One-quarter (23%) believe that “Muslims should not shake the hand of a member of the opposite sex.”

Some politicians believe that giving Muslim migrants the right to adopt Christian-sounding names will ease their integration into German society. But empirical evidence shows that most Muslims in Germany do not want German names and many have no desire to integrate into German society.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.