soc.culture.german: Violence Update

Violence update - June 1993

Ich habe in den Jahren 1991-1994 für die Usenet-Forum soc.culture.german über viele Fälle von rechts-gerichteter Gewalt berichtet, die mit kleine Notizen in den Zeitungen erschienen sind. Ich habe einige wiedergefunden über Google, ich verlinke sie hier mit einer Überblick.

2. Juni 1993:
- The 16-year-old Solingen murder suspect implicated 4 Skinheads, but the BKA was forced to withdraw the wanted-posters as it became clear that the youth had lied. German television inserted a special show Tuesday evening about Solingen. They showed pictures of a city that quite resemble the pictures of Northern Ireland - windows boarded up, cars smashed and burned out, debris, rocks, burned sofas and such everywhere. There are interviews with the youth of the town - foreign and German. The foreign kids speak proper German in complete sentences. The German kids, you know, like, well, heh, I'm not... I have difficulty understanding what exactly they are saying. The pupils in the class of the murder suspect are asked about him. They say he was kind of crazy, always yelling "Foreigners out" and such, but no one paid any attention to him, he was a newcomer in the class anyway, had just been there three weeks. Kohl and Seiters threatened the rioting Turkish youth with deportations, that upped the tempers a notch higher. Turkish social workers said that they understand the frustrations, but plead with all the youth to remain calm.
  In the evening the streets are blocked again with sit-ins. One 16-year-old German girl is injured when a car driven by a drunk German plows into a crossing filled with protesters. The driver attempts to flee, but is brought back by the crowd and arrested.
- Saturday evening there was a fire in the Asylum hostel in Roesrath by Cologne. The asylum seekers were able to put out the fire themselves.
- There were protests and incidents all over Germany Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Peaceful demonstrations with thousands of participants were reported from Bielefeld, Muenster, Rheine, Duesseldorf, Dortmund, Fulda and Kassel. The Turkish community in Hamburg called for a general strike today - all Turks should not go to work or to school but to the mosque to pray. It is the "Opferfest", the sacrifice festival, in the Turkish calendar. A demonstration is scheduled there for noon.
- Lyon, France: The manufacturing company of a Turkish citizen here was destroyed by fire Monday night. Swastikas were found smeared on the walls. No one was injured.
- The EATA, European Association of Turkish Academics has encouraged the German government to declare Thursday, the day of the funeral in Germany, a federal day of mourning with flags at half mast; tey call on the unions to organize a 30-minute strike on that day; they ask the television and radio to interrupt their programs for 30 minutes; they request all stores to close from 19:00 until 19:30, and ask all drivers to honk for a minute at 17:00. Other groups have insisted that Kohl attend the funeral. Richard v. Weizaecker will give an oratory at the funeral.
3. Juni 1993:
- It indeed appears that there was only the one 16-year-old boy involved
  in the murders of Solingen. He had invented a story about 4 Skins he knew and their participation in the arson, but they all appear to have water-tight alibis. The media paint a picture of an only child, a right-wing wannabe who ran around shouting "Heil Hitler" and such, but was not taken seriously by either his environment or the right-wing youth groups to which he wanted to belong. Murder as "Mutprobe"?
  The private TV station VOX showed pictures of his apartment house - his parents have fled the city, along with other residents of the house who fear retaliation - in the same neighborhood as the house that was torched. They interviewed teenagers from the Hauptschule he attended, showed more pictures of devastation in Solingen, a picture of a truck bringing new windows into town, and then interviewed some others. A man who investigates right-wing terrorism was shown with his face electronically distorted in front of heis house, which has been smeared with saying like "Klaus, we're gonna get you!" The leader of one of the recently forbidden Neo-Nazi groups is interviewed full-face, and he sneers that his group is so well trained, they don't need an organization to "do political work". Just the same, he's started *another* organization to "save the country".
- Flags are being flown at half-mast around the country today. Different organizations have called for minutes of silence, etc. around noon. Rita Suessmuth will also attend the funeral, and Klaus Kinkel will attend the funeral in Turkey. Turkish groups keep calling for Kohl to attend, but it doesn't look like he wants to go. He'll be in Berlin on Sunday, though, to officially open the Berlin Cathedral that has been restored with sacks of DM.
- After a peaceful demonstration in Hamburg yesterday there were riots in the Schanzenviertel. Most Turkish shops were closed yesterday.
- Rioting broke out in Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein, on the Danish border) when a group of German and Turkish youth began breaking windows in the city center.
  Noises are being made to extend the federal Opferentschaedigungsgesetz, the victim reimbursment law, to cover all foreigners. Currently, only Germans or EG-citizens that are victims of violent crime can apply for money, tax-relief, etc. It has been suggested that the revision be retroactive to 1 Jan 1991 to include many of the foreigners who have been killed by right-wing violence in the past 2 1/2 years.
- Turkish groups are demanding citizenship and voting rights [remember "Taxation without Representation" all you Americans?] Politicians are thinking about easier citizenship for those that "want to make Germany their home", but are leery of the double citizenship that is wanted. Perhaps a 5 year period for renouncing the prior citizenship instead of a 2 year one [they just don't understand why we can't renounce our citizenship!]. Thoughts on a "Lex Turkei" for the children born here are being spoken. A numer of Truks who had applied for citizenship went to the offices yesterday to rescind their applications.
- The Moellner murder trial in Schleswig continued under the shadow of Solingen. The star lawyer Bossi is afraid that Solingen will keep his clients from having a fair trail. Upon Bossi's urging the boys have taken back their confessions.
- I don't have time to scan it in, but I urge all who read German to get the "Spiegel", 20/93 and read the article by Cordt Schnibben about the new "cold war" being waged in East Germany against the foreigners. He quite vividly describes the daily racism of eastern
  soceity - quite chilling.
- A correspondent for a Turkish newspaper, Dilek Zaptcioglu-Rogge writes in today's Tagespiegel: "Was hat der Staat diesen jungen Menschen gegeben, dass er heute von ihnen Ruhe und Besonnenheit verlangt?
6. Juni 1993
- Arson caused quite a lot of damage at the home of a Turkish family Friday/Saturday night. The mother, however, saw the attacker, and was able to take her 5 children to safety. The incident occured in Hattingen, a small town about 30 km from Solingen. No suspects have been arrested yet, despite the woman being able to give police a description.
- The same night a Turkish restaurant in Konstanz, in the far south of Germany, was burned completely out. No one was injured, as the restaurant had closed for the night.
- Also in Konstanz last night (Saturday/Sunday) there were two cases of arson in houses occupied by Germans and Turks. In one case, the inflammant was poured on the doormat of a German family that lives next door to a Turkish family. The police at first thought it was in connection with the fire the previous night, but are now considering it just a "private dispute".
- Yesterday saw demonstrations in many German cities, although attendance was much below the levels expected by the organizers. They were mostly peaceful, with some fighting towards the end. In Solingen, where 12000 gathered, there was a rather intensive fight with 15 injured police and 5 injured demonstrators.
- Fifteen Turkish youth armed with gas pistols and electric shockers made their way into the American Army officers club in Berlin-Zehlendorf last night. They began shooting and screaming at the people there. Two Germans and an American were hurt in the incident. The youth disappeared before police could be called to the scene.
- The three youth arrested in connection with the Solingen fire have been remanded into custody. Two have given confessions. After they were thrown out of the bar for fighting with two men they had believed were Turks, but which were foreigners of an unspecified nationality, they met up with the first youth arrested and plotted "revenge". According to the confessions, the two 16-year-olds set the fire while the 20 and 23-year old were lookouts.
- The NPD was forbidden to hold their congress near Passau on Saturday afternoon and Sunday by the upper courts, which overturned the decision of "Einstweiliger Anordnung"[whatever that is in English!] awarded to the NPD by a lower court. This decision came very late on Friday evening, and was greeted by the Bavarian minister of the interior.
15. Juni 1993

There have been 2 arrests, a 20-year-old in the Konstanz fire and a 27-year-old in the Wuelfrath fire case.
Steinfeld (Hessen, I believe): A fire bomb was thrown at an asylum hostel here, no injuries reported.
Bergish-Gladbach: 17 foreigners narrowly escaped being burned to death in their house here. Fire broke ut in the early morning, a neighbor saw the flames, called the fire dept., got a ladder and some friends and helped the neighbors escape. One boy was injured, who broke his leg when he jumped from a window.
Eger (Hungary) 18 Jewish graves here were defaced with swastika.
Oberhausen-Rheinhessen: A Turkish restaurant run by a Turkish man, his German wife and their daughter was set ablaze, all three managed to escape without harm.
Oberhausen-Rheinhessen : Four young men stopped a 16 year-old Turkish girl who was riding her bicycle. They demanded to know who had sprayed "Nazis raus", Nazis out on the church wall. When she said she didn't know they beat her up, threatened to set her house on fire, and disappeared. Police have tightened patrols in this town not far from Solingen.
Spiegel has an article about the copy-cat crimes this week. There is an interesting statistic plotting the number of anti-foreigner incidents against time, with the "major" crimes marked. The peaks which follow such crimes are quite disturbing. They also have some pictures that make you want to cry: the Libanese girl whose legs were burned in the fire in Huenxe - her legs look like 2 charred pieces of wood; and the 3-year-old who has still survived the Solingen fire - her face black except for her mouth and eyes, either she or someone covered them up, her hands, leg, feet in bandages that are probably as bad as her face. She must be in a lot of pain.

24. Juni 1993

The "Entschädigungsgesetz", the law determining who may receive victim compensation, passed the Bundestag yesterday. Up until now only Germans and EEC-foreigners could obtain money from the fund. Now all foreigners, retroactive to 1.1.91, can apply. This means that the survivors of Moelln, Huenxe, Solingen and others can receive some form of compensation from the German government.
Hotteln (Lower Saxony): Two molotow cocktails were thrown through a broken window in a Turkish restaurant here, no one was injured.
The authorities in Mainz have cut the telephone line called the "Nationale-Info-Telephone". Callers to the number could normally hear a carefully worded tirade against foreigners or leftists, including license plate numbers or other information about "Zecken", ticks [in the Nazi-Jargon, underirable people were often termed "Ungeziefer", pests. Strauss used the term "Ratten und Schmeissfliegen", rats and these big flies often found near cow dung.] After the police obtained an injunction forbidding the "Sonnenwende"-festivities at the house of the person offering this service, a recording containing wording that was found to be illegal was put on the line. This enable the police to get a court order capping the line.
Some numbers about the deported persons were released: 12000 persons were deported from Brandenburg in the first quarter of 1993. In 1992 29900 persons who had not applied for asylum were deported, 3111 persons requesting asylum left "voluntarily" [quotes by me -dww]. In the first quarter of 93 there were 383 applicants for asylum who were deported from Brandenburg, 276 of which were from Romania. The total of persons deported to Romania since the decision to do so was made in Nov. 92 is given as 6356 persons.

28. Juni 1993
- Dresden : A number of youth were arrested here over the weekend as they were throwing stones and fire bombs at a house in which leftists live.
- Parchim (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, I believe): An asylum shelter here was firebombed, no injuries.
- Munich : Almost a dozen persons were injured in the attack and hostage taking conducted by Kurds at the Turkish Embassy here last week. Violent actions by Kurds against Turkish shops, banks and embassies were reported throughout Europe.
- [Turns out the German woman killed in Florida was a victim of a hit-and-run driver, not a tourist attack. I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read in the newspapers. I wish, though, that the discussion of whether violence motivated by rascist motives, violence motivated by greed, and random violence just for the heck of it are the same or different could be conducted on-line. So how about it: are there degrees of violence, or is it just plain to be abhorred? -- dww]