Germany news: Politically-motivated crimes double in decade

Around 85,000 politically-motivated offenses were recorded in 2025Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture alliance

Politically motivated crime in Germany reached a new high in 2025, according to a newspaper report.

Welt am Sonntag reported that German states recorded at least 85,000 such crimes last year, up from 84,174 in 2024.

Over the past 10 years, the number of these crimes has more than doubled, the newspaper reported, citing its own research.

The data covered 15 of Germany’s federal states, with only the figures from Rhineland-Palatinate, in the southwest, missing.

WAS reported that the violent crimes labeled politically motivated were also on the rise, with more than 4,100 offenses recorded last year, including assault, arson and explosives offenses, as well as breach of the peace.

The newspaper said that police had attributed the rise over the past year to the polarized German elections last year, alongside the conflicts in the Middle East.

While more than half of all offenses were classified as right-wing extremism, there was a 35% rise in left-wing extremist crimes, which reached more than 13,000 cases.