BERLIN (AP) — German security officials say the number of anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner incidents rose in the country last year, despite an overall fall in politically motivated crimes.
Anti-Semitic incidents rose 19.6% to 1,799 — 89.1% of those involving far-right perpetrators. Xenophobic incidents rose 19.7% to 7,701 amid an overall uptick in hate crimes to 8,113 from 7,913.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Tuesday politically motivated crime overall was down 8.7% in 2018 to 36,062 incidents, praising the trend but saying the figures are still too high.
Right-wing crimes made up most of the incidents at 20,431, down 0.4%. Of those, 1,156 involved violence, up 2.3%.
Left-wing crime dropped 18.4% to 7,961 incidents. The fall in violent left-wing crime was even greater — down 31.9% to 1,340 incidents. More than half of the violent offenses were against police.