The racist attack in Hanau on 19 February 2020 has left Germany with the question of whether the problem of radical right terrorism has been wrongly addressed so far. After the murder of Walter Lübcke in June 2019 and the anti-Semitic attack in Halle in October the same year, the Hanau attack was the third fatal crime in just nine months. The series of attacks seems to be an expression of a radicalised right-wing terrorist milieu that inspires perpetrators like the attacker of Hanau to their deeds.
Some observations
The assaults were very targeted and aimed to hit a specific target or victim group: A politician known for his pro refugee policy, such as Lübcke, the planned attack at the synagogue in Halle, and against shisha bars in Hanau, which are publicly identified as immigrant places. These targets are highly symbolic and are directed against very specific population groups. Thus, in most cases, right-wing terrorist attacks are by no means directed “against everyone” or committed randomly, but correspond to the specific radical right logic of the perpetrators. In all three cases there is no doubt about the mindset of the suspected perpetrators, which was, among others: racist, nationalist, anti-Semitic or misogynous.
The perpetrators in Halle and Hanau were obviously inspired by attacks in other countries. The use of social media, the writing of a legitimizing manifesto, and the modus operandi – to commit the act by shooting the victims in public – has been a recurrent practice over the last ten years, for example in Breivik’s murders in Norway (2011) or the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand (2019).
However, there have also been acts of radical right terrorism in German history that have great similarities with the crime in Hanau: In June 1982, for example, the neo-Nazi Helmut Oxner entered a Nuremberg discotheque, which was known for that many African-Americans and other immigrants were regular guests. He shot two African Americans in the disco and then another Egyptian in the street. Three other people were injured. Similar to the killings in the shisha bars, Oxner specifically sought out a place where he knew his victims were attending.
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Barbara Manthe | Radio Free (2020-02-21T11:21:18+00:00) Germany’s terrorist attack: migrant communities have lost trust. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/02/21/germanys-terrorist-attack-migrant-communities-have-lost-trust/
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