Cityscape perceptions in Germany

‘But of course we still have this problem in the cityscape, which is why the Federal Minister of the Interior is now working to enable and carry out repatriations on a very large scale.’ Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz on too many non-German looking people in German cities

The cityscape is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to feeding prejudices. Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen and a beautiful or unproblematic cityscape could be perceived by some people as a contradiction. Merz’s inappropriate and unchancellor-like statements were not necessary for this.

Merz did not speak of facts, he spoke of perceptions in the cityscape. People in Duisburg may perceive their city as beautiful. Others may not. Some perceive a deterioration in the security situation in German cities. Others do not. Women perceive intrusive men as a danger, men tend not to. Men will never have the same perception of (in)security as women. And Mr Merz, daughters do not care about the residence status or skin colour of the man they perceive as a threat.

Merz, like the media, blames the insecurity solely on evil foreigners, even though he later clarified that he only meant evil rejected asylum seekers who do not want to work. One could add that this is because they are not allowed to.

Merz declares foreigners loitering at train stations and marketplaces to be a security problem. Loitering neo-Nazis at train stations and marketplaces, neo-Nazis who murder and attack those who think differently, marauding football fans guarded by hundreds of police officers and paid for by taxpayers, schoolchildren and parents with Nazi attitudes who threaten teachers are not a security problem for Merz and a large part of the German population.

The evil and dangerous ones are those who belong to a different phenotype than Heiko and Maike and are therefore perceived as a threat by the majority of the German population. The evil Germans, on the other hand, are not perceived as dangerous by the majority of Germans, and this has always been the case.

Public places have always been places of potential threat, but perceptions can vary greatly. When I lived in Berlin’s Wedding district in the 1980s, it was always a test of courage to take the underground home at night. I had to get off at Nauener Platz station. At the next station – Osloer Straße – there was a skinhead hangout, and if I was unlucky, a few skins would get on the underground carriage with me on their way to their hangout. More than once, I got off before Nauener Platz.

My perception of my own vulnerability – as a long-haired hippie, as the skinheads would have called me – advised me to leave the underground. Once, a fat skinhead stood right in front of me and pointed both thumbs at the tattoo on his neck that read “Kill all hippies”. I got off there too, making sure they didn’t follow me, but instead laughed at me from the window of the departing underground train. Fifty-year-olds Erna and Egon, who may have been sitting with me in the underground carriage, certainly had a different perception of the security situation than I did. For them, the skinheads were not a threat.

In the early 1990s, I had to take the SS-Bahn to Strausberg for work for a while. If I did, it was only in trainers. It was harder to run in sandals or cowboy boots. Skins and neo-Nazis regularly terrorised the SS-Bahn to Strausberg. At some point, our employer paid for us to take a taxi because it was too dangerous to take the S-Bahn to Strausberg. The majority of the East German SS-Bahn passengers who travelled with us thought the skinheads and neo-Nazis on the train were great because they kept order with the ‘janzen Jesocks’ (all the scum). I didn’t perceive just one danger.

Just like back then, many native Germans today see no danger in neo-Nazis, because for them they are the good guys, since they only beat up or kill the others, whom Erna and Egon also dislike.

Just as the baseball bat years in the East only existed for those who experienced or suffered them and for those who beat up and killed others. The majority of society did not care.

So perceptions of the security situation can vary. Neo-Nazis, who were responsible for so many murders in Germany, are not and were not perceived by the majority of citizens as a threat to their security, as they do not see themselves as potential targets of their violent excesses and secretly or openly approve of the violence against the victims of the neo-Nazis.

Back to Merz, or rather what he says is the perception of many Germans, because he is hardly expressing his own perception. Chancellor Merz has addressed something that exists in the perception of many people. They perceive a change in the cities and a greater potential for aggression and danger around them, and a feeling of alienation.

This perception exists and should be taken seriously. (A-)social and traditional media have played their part in intensifying this perception. Responding to this perception with facts and figures is of little use. The facts and figures show that Germany has become increasingly safer in recent years.

But it’s not about facts and figures, it’s about the perception of safety, and perception is even easier to manipulate than statistics or sloppily conducted and presented ZDF surveys or articles in Weld.

My perception has also changed. When I wait for the U7 at Herrmannplatz in Berlin today, I sometimes feel like I don’t belong or that it could even be dangerous. One wrong look, one wrong move would be enough. It’s a feeling I used to only know when I was confronted with skinheads or neo-Nazis.

I never used to feel like I didn’t belong or that my safety was threatened in Kreuzberg or Neukölln. My perception was different back then. We were different, but I didn’t feel threatened by the others in Kreuzberg. The threats were the skinheads and neo-Nazis and the police at demonstrations.

From that perspective, my perception of safety in public places has changed. But has safety actually deteriorated, or has only my perception changed?

Merz was and is one-sided because he wants to show right-wingers and potential right-wing voters that he is supposedly concerned about a problem they perceive.

With his statements, however, he places everyone who does not conform to a narrowly defined external appearance, who ‘look like foreigners,’ under general suspicion of being dangerous and evil people. The core of all racism is to generalise and portray ‘others’ as a homogeneous mass in which there are no individuals.

Merz is clearly not concerned with solving problems, which would be the task of a chancellor. His statements were stupid and dangerous because they were made with a calculated, racist undertone. But it is just as stupid to dismiss the perception of many people that they no longer feel so safe as ridiculous or racist. Perceptions vary.

Has Merz ever spoken publicly about neo-Nazis posing a security problem in German society?