RACE AND RACISM IN BERLIN—PAST AND PRESENT

by Joachim J. Savelsberg, University of Minnesota,

for the Law and Society Association

Race, of course, was a central theme of the Nazi government in Berlin, during the 13-year duration of its “Thousand Year Empire.”  It was in this city where the Nazi government developed its plans to annihilate European Jewry as a racially defined group.  It was from here that the genocide was directed. 

More recently, after the end of the Communist era and German unification of 1990, the new states around Berlin gained notoriety for a frightening rate of anti-immigrant, xenophobic and racist violence—even if immigrants and minorities were much underrepresented there compared to the Western states.  That wave has ebbed, but even last April the New York Times and the Washington Post reported about a brutal attack on an Ethiopian immigrant in Potsdam, the former residence of enlightened Prussian monarchs, some 45 light rail minutes from Berlin’s Center. 

At the same time, Berlin addresses racist and totalitarian evil of its nation’s past more thoroughly than any other capital city in the world—and it celebrates multiculturalism in the present. 

This site addresses the immediate and pragmatic first: concerns expressed by colleagues of color about safety in Berlin.  Their attendance at the convention must be safe, and they should, like all others, have a fascinating experience, at the conference and in the city of Berlin.  This page subsequently directs the reader to some of the sites that memorialize Germany’s racist past.  It finally points out highlights of multiculturalism in today’s Berlin. 

Safety in Berlin

Post-communist Germany experienced a wave of racist and xenophobic violence in the early 1990s, a wave that still echoes into the present.  This is not the place to seek explanations.  Instead, this site provides statistical information that allows for a realistic assessment of the threat, and it quotes from a document for visitors of color to the 2006 World Soccer Championship.  Many of the soccer games were held in Germany’s eastern city of Leipzig and in Berlin itself, gratefully without any major cases of violence.

The record shows that Berlin’s rate of xenophobic violence of 1.42 per 100,000 population is considerably lower than that of the two surrounding Eastern states (around 4 per 100,000), lower also than in the other East German states (around 2 per 100,000), but slightly higher than in Germany’s Western states with an average rate of xenophobic violence lingering around 1. 

Berlin’s rate of xenophobic violence is comparable with the American rate of reported hate crimes directed at persons according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports.  Yet, hate crimes are vastly underreported, especially in some jurisdictions (King 2005), and international differences in the definition of such crimes make comparisons problematic.

How then does xenophobic violence in Germany and Berlin compare to, say, rates of homicide, hate motivated and otherwise, in the United States? Xenophobic violence (including all violent offenses) in Berlin shows about one fourth of the current American homicide rates and one twelfth of the homicide rate of a major city such as Chicago (homicides are, of course, only the tip of the iceberg of violent offenses).  Within Berlin, some of the eastern neighborhoods have been declared ‘No-go Areas’ by the Africa Council, the Umbrella Organization of African Associations and Initiatives, Berlin-Brandenburg.  These neighborhoods are Pankow, Lichtenberg, Marzahn, Hellersdorf and Koepenick.  Violence in these sections of Berlin is included in the city’s average rate of xenophobic violence.  Violence in the city’s center, where the conference will be held, and in the western districts, is thus likely not higher than in Germany’s West, at a rate of 1 per 100,000 population.  Three states surrounding Berlin have also been declared ‘No-go-Areas.’ These are Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. 

 Yet, safety is not guaranteed anywhere.  We thus direct the reader to a list of recommendations, contained in a document published by the Africa Council and the International League for Human Rights (for the full document see: www.prevent-racist-attack.org).

The Africa Council’s ‘No-go-Areas’ in the city of Berlin 

Racism has born some of its most bitter fruits in Germany, and much of that memory is retained in Berlin.  A long history of anti-Semitism dates back into the middle ages, with pogroms and expulsions of Jewish populations from many towns beginning in the 12^th century (Cohn-Sherbok 1992, pp. 40ff).  It is supplemented by resentment against Polish immigrant labor in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and against mostly Southern European and Turkish labor immigrants in the second half of the 20^th century (Thranhardt 1989).  All of this history was overshadowed by the hatred cultivated against Jews and other groups before and during the Nazi regime (Goldhagen 1996; for comparative analyses see Brustein 2004).  It culminated in the Holocaust with its industrialized murder machine and uncounted acts of individual cruelty that resulted in the killing of six million Jews and additional millions of victims, other minorities such as gypsies and homosexuals, nationalities such as Poles, and political opponents (Browning 2000; Hilberg 1985).

Today Germany generally, and Berlin specifically, have institutionalized the memory of evil and hate in memorial days and memorial sites, laws and government agencies (Savelsberg and King 2005).  The following is a list of memorial sites that those who wish to honor the victims and/or who seek to understand how a country copes with such horrors in its history may want to visit.  A quotation from each web site is followed by the web address. 

“The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe lies at the heart of the capital, between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, within view of the Bundestag: the "Holocaust memorial" as it is popularly known. This is precisely where the Wall once ran – the edifice built by the GDR between East and West Berlin which stood from 1961 until 1989. During the Second World War, the bunker housing Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, was located here. Now, in the heart of the city, surrounded by history, a place has been created in remembrance of the six million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps.”  For more see: http://www.german-embassy.org.uk/holocaust_memorial_.html

 

“Between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions responsible for the repressive and criminal policies of National Socialism were located on the terrain of the Topography of Terror, situated between Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (today Niederkirchnerstrasse), Wilhelmstrasse and Anhalter Strasse. Here, in close proximity to the traditional government district, the Secret State Police, the SS leadership and the Reich Security Main Office set up their offices: the administrative headquarters of the Secret State Police and the notorious Gestapo "house prison" were located at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8; the neighbouring Hotel Prinz Albrecht housed the offices of the SS Reich leadership; and the Security Service (SD) of the SS Reich leadership was established at Wilhelmstrasse 102. As of 1939, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 was also the address of the newly founded Reich Security Main Office.

With the concentration of these institutions at one site, this area in effect became the government district of the National Socialist SS and Police State. This is where Himmler, Heydrich, Kaltenbrunner and their assistants had their desks. At this "site of the perpetrators", important decisions were made concerning the persecution of political opponents, the "Germanisation" of occupied territories in Poland and the Soviet Union, the murder of Soviet prisoners of war and the genocide of the European Jews. This is where the infamous Special Police Units (Einsatzgruppen) were assembled and where the "Wannsee Conference" was prepared. There is no other site where terror and murder were planned and organised on the same scale.”  For more see: http://www.topographie.de/user/press.php?ydatei=presse34.html

“The Plötzensee Memorial Center commemorating the victims of National Socialism is a site of quiet remembrance. From 1933 to 1945, nearly three thousand people unjustly sentenced to death by the National Socialist judiciary were executed here. Today, the execution chamber is a memorial. The exhibition in the room adjoining it documents the practice of the National Socialist judicial and penal system. This website displays the fourteen panels of the documents exhibition shown in the Plötzensee Memorial Center.”  For more see: http://www.gedenkstaette-ploetzensee.de/index_e.html

 

“The Jewish Museum's permanent historical exhibition extends over 3,000 square meters and invites visitors to journey through two thousand years of German-Jewish life. Temporary exhibitions, contemporary art installations, cabinet displays as well as various interactive multimedia shows in the Rafael Roth Learning Center complement its range of themes.”   For more see:

http://www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de/site/EN/homepage.php?meta=TRUE

 

“The Anne Frank Zentrum co-ordinates the German tour of the international exhibition 'Anne Frank, a history for today'. In and from Berlin the Zentrum has been active with educational activities since 1998 (www.annefrank.de).”  For more see:

http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=98&lid=2

 

“House of the Wannsee Conference: Memorial and Educational Site…As the decision to murder the European Jews had been made earlier the »Wannsee Conference« was concerned with the organisation (sic) and implementation of "The Final Solution", the decision to deport the Jews of Europe to the East and to murder them. The meeting has become known as the »Wannsee Conference«. In 1947 the minutes of the Conference recorded by Adolf Eichmann were found in the files of the German Foreign Office.”  For more see: http://www.ghwk.de/engl/kopfengl.htm

“Concentration camp Sachsenhausen was built in the summer of 1936 by prisoners from the Emsland concentration camps. It was the first camp to be built after 'Reichsführer SS' Heinrich Himmler was put in charge of the German police in July 1936. The new concentration camp was designed and planned by SS architects to be the ideal camp. It was to express the world view of the SS in its architecture and at the same time symbolically subdue the prisoners to the absolute power of the SS. Sachsenhausen concentration camp took on a special position in the system of NS concentration camps. This was highlighted by the move of the concentration camp inspectorate's administrative department from Berlin to Oranienburg. The inspectorate was responsible for all of the concentration camps within the German realm of power…. Between 1936 and 1945, more than 200,000 people were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. At first the prisoners were political opponents of the national socialist regime, then came the people declared by the national socialists to be racially or biologically inferior and from 1939 onwards, increasing numbers of citizens from occupied European countries were transported to the camp.”  For more see: http://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/en/index.htm 

Ethnic relations in contemporary Berlin cannot adequately be summarized in this space. Yet, Berlin is home to a diverse and international population, and it attracts millions of foreign visitors each year.  Some of its neighborhoods are home to large numbers of immigrants, at times seemingly engaging in a celebration of multiculturalism, for example the neighborhood of Kreuzberg.  Elsewhere underprivileged minorities have begun to dominate neighborhoods and their institutions such as schools, beginning to approximate ghetto conditions of American inner cities.   

The following two quotations are from a government web site of the city of Berlin.  While they are thus unlikely to reflect too critical a perspective, they do present some facts regarding the city’s population that may be of interest.  For more information from the city’s official web site see: http://www.berlin.de/english/index.html

Residents from all over the world:

Berlin is an ideal place for a dialogue between cultures: more than 440,000 non-German citizens live here (the number of Berliners of non-German origin is of course much higher, since Berlin has led the nation for years now in naturalization numbers). They come from 185 different countries and ensure great cultural pluralism. Their decisive contribution to the city’s distinctive and cosmopolitan character is apparent not only during the annual Carnival of Cultures. The more than 125,000 Turkish Berliners form the largest group, some of whose members are third-generation Berliners. Berlin became a city of immigration earlier than other parts of Germany. Ethnic and cultural diversity enrich the city, but also require special skills and make new demands on society as a whole. The Senate Commissioner for Integration and Migration has been an indispensable source of information for many years for people seeking advice and assistance. It is also an important contact for issues related to integration and the work done on the state, federal, and EU level to combat discrimination.

Religious diversity:

Berlin’s population is also religiously diverse. Approximately 200,000 Muslims – 5.9% of the population – live in the city, while 23.4% belong to the main Protestant Church and 9.1% to the Catholic Church. The first Ecumenical Church Congress brought 200,000 visitors to Berlin in May 2003. Because of new immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union, the Jewish community has doubled over the last ten years; the Jewish Community of Berlin currently has more than 11,000 members. Hindu and Buddhist religious communities are also represented in the city.

Jewish life in Berlin today

In light of comments regarding the Jewish population of Berlin and the history of the Shoah, the following quotation from the web site of the Jewish community in Berlin may be of interest (web address: http://www.jg-berlin.org/site/01e_about/01_0start.htm).

The Jewish Community of Berlin is with more than 12,000 members the largest Jewish community in Germany. It provides a diversified infrastructure, which offers everything necessary for a Jewish life in Berlin. Information about events, reports about the work of the Community Board and Assembly of Representatives, as well as about general Jewish life in Berlin are published in the monthly community magazine “jüdisches berlin” (Jewish Berlin).

Shabbat services are held in six community synagogues of different style – from orthodox to liberal. The community rabbis enable all ritual aspects. The kosher Restaurant “Arche Noah” is opened daily in the community center (Fasanenstraße 79/80).

The Jewish Community offers a versatile cultural program. The Jüdische Volkshochschule (Center for Adult Education) organizes – also for a non-Jewish audience – courses and lectures, as well as every year in June the Jewish Film Festival. A special highlight are the Jüdische Kulturtage (Jewish Culture Festival), which take place every November. The library in the community center at Fasanenstraße 79/80 enjoys an international reputation.

One of the main tasks of the Jewish Community of Berlin is its social support for members in need, especially the integration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who today compose more than the half of the community members. A Jewish kindergarten, an elementary school, as well as a Jewish high school ensure the Jewish education of our children. Furthermore, activities for teenagers are offered in the Jugendzentrum (Center for Youth) and many other clubs.

A number of historical sites testify the history of the Jewish Community of Berlin. Special documents of Jewish life are the cemeteries in Weißensee and in Schönhauser Allee. The great “Neue Synagoge” in Oranienburger Straße 28–30, which used to be the symbol of Jews in Germany before the Shoah, is today a museum, named “Centrum Judaicum”, which tells the story of Berlin’s Jews. A Memorial Wall in the front court of the community center in Fasanenstraße 79/80 commemorates the victims of the Shoah.

References 

1. Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. 1997. The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

2. Browning, Christopher R.  2000.  Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. Brustein, William I.  2003.  Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe before the  Holocaust.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4. Goldhagen, Daniel J.  1996.  Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

5. Hilberg, Raul.  1985.  The Destruction of the European Jews.  New York: Holmes and Meier.

6. King, Ryan D.  2005.  When Law and Society Disagree: Group Threat, Legacies of the  Past and the Organizational Context of Hate Crime Law Enforcement.  Ph.D.  dissertation. University of Minnesota, Department of Sociology.

7. Savelsberg, Joachim J. and Ryan D. King.  2005.  “Institutionalizing Collective  Memories of Hate: Law and Law Enforcement in Germany and the United States.”  American Journal of Sociology 111:579-616.

8. Thranhardt, Dietrich. 1989. “Patterns of Organization among Different Ethnic Minorities.” New German Critique 46:10-26.