In 2022, 58,916 politically-motivated criminal acts were recorded in Germany, up more than 7 percent from 2021, and the highest in the history of statistics kept since 2001, the German government reported.

“Politically motivated crime reflects the social conflicts in our country,” Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said back in early May.

“We see a significant increase in crime that cannot be assigned to the traditional categories of right-wing and left-wing extremism,” the minister stressed. More than 24,000 criminal acts fell into this group, much of it related to protests against restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate and energy policy or the rising cost of living, she added.

More than 11,500 acts were classified as “hate crimes” – their number increased by 10 percent from the previous year. However, anti-Semitic crime, for example, fell by 12.75 percent.

“There is a trend toward the radicalization of parts of society… These developments should be taken very seriously… the fight against politically-motivated crime remains a priority for the BKA and other security bodies,” Holger Münch, head of the German Federal Criminal Police Office, said.