I wrote about crime and safety in Frankfurt not long ago as this is a hot topic given Frankfurt’s supposed reputation as a crime hotspot. The summary was simply that Frankfurt is on the highend by German standards, but similar to Berlin and not at all dangerous when you compare to other major European cities. There have been a spate of brutal attacks recently in Germany and in Frankfurt specifically though which really made me wonder if Germany is losing it safehaven status.

The terror attack in Solingen a few days ago and the knife attack in Mannheim earlier this year which killed a policeman both involved immigrants with islamist motives really puts a scary tone on the incidents and leads to a fear of exponential growth in attacks. The most worrying about Solingen was the nature of the attack – a concealed weapon taken into a crowd enjoying one of the country’s many small festivals and then a random selection of victims attacked.

The sad reality is that however safe Germany is normally, these crimes are eyecatching and scary. But they are also designed to shock and have the most psychological impact. And already, groups like the AfD are looking to subtly (and not so subtly) use the recent attacks to grow their anti-immigration agenda. But knife crime is definitely increasing, and it isn’t an immigration topic for the most part.

Knife crime increased steeply in Germany last year with a 10% increase in 2023 compared to 2022, and 2024 will increase further. Nearly 9000 crimes were reported where the victims were either threatened with or injured by a knife. This is still a long way off the stats from the UK for comparison. In 2023, England and Wales registered 50,500 knife crimes which was a 4% increase on the previous year but generally stable for the last 5 years.

Germany is still relatively safe, but this isn’t a good trend and Frankfurt will continue to be at the front of the problems given its existing crime rate. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix. The ease of access to knives compared to guns means that it is still the concealed weapon of choice and there really isn’t a good solution to policing this. Weapon free zones like the one at Hauptbahnof are still being discussed, but enforcement is near impossible, and you would hope that if the police saw someone with a concealed knife going into any crowded event, they would stop them.

This is going to be an ongoing political debate, I’m afraid, for what is a global trend with social root causes. Letting the AfD clamp down on asylum seekers might stop one or two the high profile stories but it won’t stop the trend.