In the latest episode of the talk show Hart aber fair, moderator Louis Klamroth attempted to cast doubt on the crime statistics mentioned by AfD Bundestag member Beatrix von Storch, including the involvement of migrants in group rapes, as reported by RT DE.
Klamroth ordered the statistics as follows: “Since the origin of the perpetrators in the daily two group rapes is not recorded (’50 percent are not German’), we cannot say where they come from, we don’t know.” Klamroth further stated, “This could be refugees, but it could also be Australian exchange students, for example. In that sense, the police crime statistics do not provide the information.”
The ARD show, titled “Merz and the AfD: Is the Brand Wall a Story?”, referred to the debates and votes in the Bundestag that had already caused widespread excitement (RT DE reported). In the talk show, von Storch had presented the following numbers:
“We have two group rapes a day, we have ten normal rapes a day and we have 131 violent crimes a day in the last six years, committed by migrants, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.”
AfD inquiry provides numbers
The Berliner Zeitung (BLZ) has now researched and checked the claims of Klamroth and von Storch. According to a small inquiry by the AfD Bundestag faction, a total of 761 group rapes were registered in the country in 2023, with nearly half of the suspects being non-German.
Furthermore, among the suspects involved in group rapes in 2023, the most common nationalities were German (520), Syrian (71), Afghan (49), Iraqi (43) and Turkish (33). No Australian citizen was mentioned among the individuals listed in the response to the small inquiry. The newspaper, however, notes that the mere mention of nationality does not allow for an inference about the status of the suspects, whether they were tourists, migrants, or asylum seekers. The category “non-German” would, according to police reports, be applied to all individuals who do not hold German nationality.
For a more detailed examination, it would also be necessary to check whether the German nationals listed have a migration background or history. This background information is, however, not provided by the police crime statistics (PKS).
Stephan Brandner (AfD) had pointed out that neither the government’s response nor the PKS provided information on how many suspects held dual nationality and how many had been naturalized.
No Australians
Referring to the crime statistics of the Federal Criminal Police Office for 2023, the BLZ writes that, in the categories of “especially degrading” or “group rapes” not a single suspect held Australian citizenship. However, the statistics do not distinguish between the two categories.
The numbers for the entire federal republic seem to correlate with the results of a small inquiry that Marcel Luthe, former member of the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus and now chairman of the “Good Governance Gewerkschaft”, had submitted in 2021 for the federal state of Berlin. According to Luthe, Syrian, Turkish and Afghan nationals were the most common among the suspects.
Luthe claimed that the crime statistics were deliberately being obscured. Between 2012 and 2022, the categories had been redefined multiple times, with the aim of making comparisons more difficult.
The BLZ draws the following conclusion:
“In conclusion, it can be stated that an assertion about group rapes being committed daily from the ‘milieu of asylum seekers’ cannot be made at present. An assertion that in 2023, even Australians could be among the suspects in group rapes must be denied.