East German Anti-semitism Rising, but Some Reports Are Fabrications

Anti-Semitism and racist attacks on foreigners are being reported with increased frequency in East Germany, where until recently they were treated like state secrets.

In some instances, it has become hard to distinguish between actual occurrences and neo-Nazi incidents fabricated by Stasi, the repressive state security service, to prove that it is still needed. The agency is under heavy pressure to shut down now that the Communist Party no longer dominates the German Democratic Republic.

Fabrications notwithstanding, the situation appears to be serious.

While the Communist Party newspaper Neues Deutschland said Tuesday that it could not confirm the rumored murders of two foreigners in East Berlin, the newspaper acknowledged several recent incidents of violence against foreigners.

High school students attacked three blacks in an East Berlin discotheque in October, shouting, “Jewish pigs” and “Dirty Negroes.”

And last May, East German youths seriously injured two blacks in a train in Sachsen. There were many witnesses, but no one intervened.

Such incidents may only seem to be on the rise because they are being reported for the first time in the official press.

But the presence of some 16,000 foreigners in East Germany, including many blacks from the Third World, clearly has aroused racist sentiments.

In the past, the party line was that racism and anti-Semitism were products of corrupt capitalism and could not exist in a socialist state.

Stasi’s efforts to stay alive reflect the profound changes that have taken place. Now neo-Nazi incidents are being manufactured.

Michael Trostoff, the Stasi chief in the Gera district, is an example. He reported that several youths in the town of Bernburg were tortured and burned by a neo-Nazi gang. An investigation by local police established that the youngsters burned themselves playing with flaming bottles.