Riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen

The Sunflower House on Mecklenburger Allee (2006)

The riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen between August 22 and 26, 1992 against the Central Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (ZAst) and a dormitory for former Vietnamese contract workers in the so-called Sunflower House in Rostock-Lichtenhagen were the most massive racially motivated attacks in Germany after the end of the second World war .

Several hundred rioters, some of them right-wing extremists, and up to 3,000 applauding spectators took part in the riots, who hindered the use of the police and fire department. After the reception center had been evacuated on Monday, August 24th, the adjoining dormitory, in which over 100 Vietnamese and a ZDF television team were still staying, was set on fire with Molotov cocktails . At the height of the conflict, the police withdrew completely at times, and those trapped in the burning house were left defenseless.

The attacks in Lichtenhagen are also known as the pogrom . They are related to the asylum debate at the beginning of the 1990s. Politicians and the media are accused of fueling the mood against foreigners through a partly populist campaign and thus preparing the ground for riots like those in Rostock-Lichtenhagen. Both the asylum debate and the number of violent attacks on asylum seekers and other immigrants peaked in 1991/92.

prehistory

Public debate on foreigners and asylum policy

→ Main article : Asylum debate

Successes of right-wing extremist parties 1989–1992
01/29/1989	Berlin	REP	7.5%
06/18/1989	European elections	REP	7.1%
09/29/1991	Bremen	DVU	6.2%
04/05/1992	Schleswig-Holstein	DVU	6.3%
04/05/1992	Baden-Württemberg	REP	10.9%

The number of asylum seekers in Germany peaked in 1992 at over 440,000. At the same time, the recognition rate was only 4.3 percent. Since the early 1980s, foreigners and especially asylum policy have been the dominant negative issues in political discourse. The CDU and CSU took up the emotionally charged topic and from 1986 carried out a campaign against “ asylum fraud ” and economic refugees . The right-wing extremist parties The Republicans and DVU benefited from the radicalization and emotionalisation of the topic from 1989 onwards, after attacks by neo-Nazis on foreigners had increased from 1986 onwards. They entered several state parliaments with xenophobic slogans. However, the SPD , FDP and Greens resisted restricting the basic right to political asylum. The Bavarian Interior Minister Edmund Stoiber (CSU) again threatened the “end of the unity of the Union ” in the event that the CDU swerved on the course of the FDP and the SPD on the asylum issue.

After reunification, the Union intensified the asylum campaign, and the debate, supported by the Bildzeitung and Welt am Sonntag , developed into one of the sharpest, most polemical and momentous disputes in post-war German history. The situation worsened when the number of refugees rose sharply due to the opening of the “ Iron Curtain ” and in particular because of the civil war in Yugoslavia. At the same time the economic and social problems of the association became visible and caused initial frustrations. While there was general euphoria towards the refugees from Eastern Europe in 1989/90, the mood changed in 1990/91. Surveys showed that at first the resettlers from the east, who outnumbered them, were perceived as a burden, but the Union parties re-channeled the aggression against the asylum seekers.

The media, especially the Bildzeitung, spread a panic-like mood. Between June 1991 and July 1993, surveys cited asylum and foreigners as the most pressing problems, well ahead of German unification and unemployment.

Increasing attacks on foreigners

→ Main article : Right-wing extremist violence in Germany  and fatalities from right-wing extremist violence in the Federal Republic of Germany

Since the fall of the Wall , especially since the summer of 1991, xenophobic motivated violence has reached a new dimension in Germany. The riots in Hoyerswerda in Saxony between September 17 and 23, 1991 play a key role . During the riots lasting several days, a dormitory for contract workers and a refugee dormitory were attacked with incendiary bottles, iron balls and other objects, sometimes by more than 500 people. Local residents took part in the attacks, violent neo-Nazi shouting slogans - skinheads were applauded by many bystanders. The police were overwhelmed and surrendered to the perpetrators by transporting the almost 300 contract workers away. The majority were deported directly .

Hoyerswerda marked the beginning of a series of acts of imitation. Mostly in East Germany, groups of up to 200 skinheads and right-wing youths attacked mainly asylum seekers' homes and also used firearms and incendiary devices in the clashes that sometimes lasted several days. There were also numerous attacks in West Germany, most of which, however, were carried out by small groups of perpetrators. An exception was the day-long attacks by a few hundred residents in Mannheim-Schönau in May 1992 on a refugee home.

In 1992, a total of 207 right-wing extremist acts of violence were registered in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Among other things, an 18-year-old Romanian was killed in an attack in Saal (Western Pomerania) on March 15, 1992. In Rostock, too, violent attacks on foreigners were the order of the day. In Schmarl , another district in the north-west of Rostock, on October 1 and 3, 1991, 50 and 150 young people respectively attacked the asylum seekers' home there, and on October 5, around 30 young people attacked a dormitory for Romanian fitters.

Xenophobic raids in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from February 1991 to August 1992 (selection)
02/19/1991	Schwerin	Skinheads ambush Vietnamese with baseball bats and iron chains
03/11/1991	Schwerin	Skinheads seriously injure a Romanian refugee with a knife, knock down a Syrian and devastate the grounds of an asylum seekers' home
18.03., 27.03. and 04/10/1991	Schwerin	Vietnamese and a Cambodian are beaten up by skinheads
05/15/1991	at Ahlbeck	a 17-year-old Pole is seriously injured by ten skinheads with a knife
05/27 until May 29, 1991	Schwerin- Lankow	Skinheads terrorize a foreigners' hostel for three days. A foreigner is beaten up. The dormitory is evacuated
06/01/1991	Neubrandenburg	40 skinheads raid an occupied house and a residential accommodation for foreigners
06/26/1991	Gelbensande	Skinheads attack the asylum seekers' home and fire off shots
07/01/1991	Weitendorf	two people break into the asylum seekers home and shoot
07/12/1991	Wismar	Young people attack the asylum seekers home, six residents are injured
07/12/1991	Trollenhagen	20 hooded people attacked the asylum seekers home with baseball bats, one woman was beaten up
08/10/1991	Ueckermünde	40 hooded local and Berlin skinheads attack the asylum seekers' home and shoot with gas pistols. The house is uninhabitable after the attack
09/28/1991	Neubrandenburg	Foreigners are beaten up after the party congress and the Republican rally, skinheads march through the city with swastika flags, and 51 skins are provisionally arrested
09/28/1991	Schwerin	Attack on a home for asylum seekers with two incendiary devices, resulting in high property damage
09/29/1991	Stralsund	Attack by 15 to 20 rioters on an asylum seekers' home with rocks
30.09. and 01.10.1991	Schwerin	Attacks on a foreigners dormitory with Molotov cocktails
01.10. and 03.10.1991	Rostock- Schmarl	50 or 150 young people attack a home for asylum seekers
10/03/1991	Mountains on Rügen	two asylum seekers are injured in an arson attack
04/10/1991	Sassnitz	20 people attack the asylum seekers home with stones
04/10/1991	Greifswald	Arson attack on the asylum seekers home
04/10/1991	Guestrow	Right-wing extremists attack the asylum seekers' home
05/10/1991	Rostock	30 young people attack a dormitory for Romanian fitters
05/10/1991	Schwerin	Attack on an asylum seekers home with stones
10/12/1991	Greifswald	Arson attack on Siemens AG accommodation for foreigners inhabited by Vietnamese
10/17/1991	Schwerin	Bomb threat against a home for asylum seekers
17.10. and 10/20/1991	Pasewalk	Arson attacks on a home for asylum seekers
18.10. and 10/20/1991	Parchim	Assault and arson attack on accommodation for asylum seekers
11/03/1991	Greifswald	After a soccer game, 200 hooligans and skinheads attack a home for asylum seekers with bottles, stones and flares and riot for several hours. The asylum seekers flee to Neumünster
07.11., 09.11., 24.11. and 06.12.1991	Greifswald	Arson attacks on accommodation for asylum seekers
11/16/1991	Sassnitz	30 young people attack a home for asylum seekers
03/14/1992	Hall (Western Pomerania)	An 18-year-old Romanian is killed in an attack by 25 young people on a home for asylum seekers
05/24/1992	Guestrow	100 young people attack a home for asylum seekers, two people are injured
05/24/1992	Bahlen	Attack on a home for asylum seekers, 140 asylum seekers flee to Lauenburg on August 2nd, but are sent back
August 22-26, 1992	Rostock-Lichtenhagen	Riots against the ZAst and the dormitory of the Vietnamese

Foreigners in Rostock

Vietnamese seamstresses in Rostock (1990)

Excluding asylum seekers and members of the CIS armed forces, at the end of April 1992 there were 1,688 foreigners in Rostock, which at that time had over 240,000 inhabitants. A total of 346 foreigners lived in Lichtenhagen and Groß Klein .

Around half of the foreigners living in Rostock were Eastern Europeans . Since they came from similar cultures and also from socialist countries, this group was comparatively well integrated. A significant proportion was married to a German partner, others were students. 488 of the foreigners living in Rostock came from Asia and 105 from Africa. Turks , who made up by far the largest group of foreign citizens in the old federal states, were only nine in Rostock.

According to nationality, the Vietnamese made up the largest group with 368 people. The Vietnamese in the GDR were mostly contract workers who had come to Rostock from 1981 and their number had risen to around 1,300 to 1,500 by September 1989. During the GDR era, the majority did auxiliary work in the port of Rostock , in the shipyards and in industrial plants. They were housed separately from the German population in the company's own dormitories, all of which were located in the Rostock development areas. The contract workers from the GDR, almost all of whom were fired in 1990, were considered the absolute losers of German unity.

Reception center for asylum seekers and residence for foreigners

The district of Lichtenhagen in Rostock

The Central Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (ZAst) for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was located in an eleven-storey, free-standing prefabricated building on Mecklenburger Allee in the large housing estate Rostock-Lichtenhagen built between 1972 and 1976 . Despite the decline in the number of inhabitants since the fall of the Wall, a good 18,000 people still lived in Lichtenhagen in 1992 on a residential area of ​​less than one square kilometer.

The house in question has seven staircases and is called the Sunflower House because of its facade design on the eastern end . The apartments at the eastern end in stairways No. 18 and 19 belonged to Seehafen Rostock GmbH , which was owned by the city of Rostock and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The rest of the building, staircases 13-17, belonged to the municipal housing company WIRO and were rented. Less than 100 meters away, the expressway towards Warnemünde leads past the sunflower house to the east. Another 100 meters to the east is the Lichtenhagen station, which is part of the Rostock – Warnemünde line of the Rostock S-Bahn . On the north side of the house, on Mecklenburger Allee, there is a parking lot and a large open space, on the south side there was a meadow and a low-rise department store.

The sunflower house seen from the S-Bahn bridge, in front of it a specialist market built after 1992 on a former green area, to the left of it the Güstrower Straße. (See also the maps accessible via the coordinates link above.)

Since 1977 the two stairways at the east end of the house, No. 18 and 19, have been used as dormitories for Cuban and Vietnamese contract workers. At the end of 1990, one of the two dormitories (No. 18) was converted into the only reception center for asylum seekers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the Vietnamese who had previously lived in Rostock remained in the other (No. 19).

The asylum seekers completed the application formalities of several days in the ZAst and were then distributed to residential accommodation throughout Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the duration of the asylum procedure, which lasted several months. In March 1992 there were around 300 asylum seekers living in Rostock who had already passed the admission procedure. About half of them came from Eastern European countries.

The capacity of the ZAst was 250 to 300 beds. In the months before the riots, 50 to 80 asylum seekers arrived every day. Since the admission did not take place quickly enough, up to 300 people, mostly Roma from Romania, camped in the green areas south of the ZAst. In order not to legalize these conditions, the city refused to take suitable precautions, such as installing mobile toilets.

In the summer of 1991 a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) visited the ZAst and found that the situation there was not tenable. In addition, on June 18, 1992, an employee of the health department warned in a letter to Mayor Kilimann of the impending dangers of infectious diseases . At the end of June, the city moved those camping out to emergency shelters. Many residents stayed outside during the day afterwards. The Ministry of the Interior responded to the overcrowding on July 16 and asked the districts and cities to admit asylum seekers to the ZAst without prior formalities.

The move of the ZAst to a long-standing empty barracks of the NVA in a forest in the Hinrichshagen district was planned for September 1, 1992 . While the then incumbent Interior Minister Georg Diederich (CDU) had announced the relocation for June 1 of the same year in January 1992, his successor Lothar Kupfer (CDU) repeatedly postponed the date.

Protests and announcements of actions

Located in the middle of a densely populated new development area, the relationship between residents and asylum seekers was strained from the start. Even months before the riots, complaints from residents about the conditions around the ZAst at the Rostock Senate were increasing, but these were ignored by the authorities. As early as July 1991, Mayor Kilimann warned in a letter to Interior Minister Georg Diederich about the social explosive that the situation in Lichtenhagen was causing. “The most serious assaults and even killings can no longer be ruled out,” says Kilimann. Rostock's Interior Senator Peter Magdanz (SPD) warned in July 1992 that “it might crash”.

A leaflet published by the later NPD member of the state parliament Michael Andrejewski and published by an initiative Rostock remains German ( Mecklenburg also remains ours ) with a circulation of 100,000 was distributed in Lichtenhagen and the surrounding area. DVU activists called for a public rally in front of the ZAst via a citizens' initiative in Lichtenhagen and demanded "to take the asylum problem into their own hands".

The two Rostock daily newspapers Norddeutsche Latest Nachrichten (NNN) and Ostsee-Zeitung (OZ) reported for several days about calls and ultimatums from a Lichtenhagen interest group , in which it was threatened that "order" would be taken care of if the ZAst did not arrive by the weekend of 22./23. August was evacuated. The NNN quoted an anonymous caller on August 19: “In the night from Saturday to Sunday we are cleaning up in Lichtenhagen. It's going to be a hot night. ”The OZ ran an article on Friday, August 21st, in which three young people announced“ that the Romanian Roma should be 'gossiped' ”and predicted:“ The people who live here, will look out the windows and applaud ”. The Vietnamese in the foreigners' hostel were excluded from the threats: "We can live well with the Fitschis (Vietnamese in general)." Both newspapers printed the threats without comment.

Failure to prepare the state authorities

Based on the media reports, the chief of operations of the police, Jürgen Deckert, interior senator Peter Magdanz and the responsible department head for foreigner issues in the interior ministry, Winfried Rusch, conferred. A precautionary evacuation of the ZAst was considered, but not carried out.

Despite the announced riots and the heated atmosphere around the ZAst, almost all of the senior political and police personnel, which had been almost entirely occupied by West German officials from the partner countries Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Bremen after the fall of the Wall, drove to Friday as usual their families to West Germany. At the weekend of the riots, the State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Klaus Baltzer, the Head of Public Security, Olaf von Brevern, the Head of the Department for Foreign Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior and at that time also the State Government's Foreigners Commissioner, Winfried Rusch, the Head of the State Police Office, Hans-Heinrich Heinsen , the head of the Rostock police department, Siegfried Kordus, and the operations manager Jürgen Deckert were not present in Schwerin or Rostock. Deckert had handed over the leadership to Siegfried Trottnow, who was still in training.

Course of the riots

Saturday 22nd August

Up to 2000 people gathered in front of the ZAst early on Saturday evening. Around 8 p.m., concrete slabs were smashed and thrown at the building as projectiles by around 200 young people and adults. The window panes up to the sixth floor broke. At this point, a Molotov cocktail was already flying onto a balcony on the second floor. Hooded youths chanted “Germany the Germans, foreigners out!” And “ Sieg Heil! ". Again and again perpetrators could hide in the crowd. In the immediate vicinity of the ZAst, food and drink stands were set up during the riots, where violent criminals and spectators bought alcohol.

Shortly after the attacks began, 30 police officers wearing normal uniforms appeared. They were attacked by around 150 young people, and some were brutally beaten. A police minibus and car as well as a private car went up in flames, and another police car had to retreat with broken windows. In the hours that followed, no patrol cars from the Rostock police, which included more than 1,100 officers, were sent to reinforce them, the police were busy protecting themselves, so that the ZAst was largely left to its own devices.

Two water cannons from Schwerin did not arrive until around two in the morning . Since these approached the house from the south, they initially did not push the rioters away, but rather towards the sunflower house. At around 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, the attackers withdrew tiredly.

In the end, 160 police officers were on duty. 13 police officers were injured, one seriously. In a situation report written after the end of the violent clashes, the State Police Office put the number of violent troublemakers at 300 to 400, and the number of supporters at 1,000. Nine violent criminals were arrested but released the following day.

Sunday 23rd August

Around five in the morning Siegfried Trottnow called Jürgen Deckert to ask him to come back. Deckert then made his way from Brinkum near Bremen to Rostock, arrived at the police headquarters at around 8:45 a.m. and was commissioned by Siegfried Kordus two hours later to manage the operations in Lichtenhagen. Kordus officially remained the chief of operations.

Around noon on Sunday, around 100 people had already gathered in front of the ZAst. Right-wing extremists from all over Germany have now arrived in Rostock, including Bela Ewald Althans , Ingo Hasselbach , Stefan Niemann, Michael Büttner, Gerhard Endress, Gerhard Frey , Christian Malcoci , Arnulf Priem , Erik Rundquist, Norbert Weidner and Christian Worch . Of these, only Endress was arrested during the riot.

During the day an advanced BGS - train and later two squadrons of the Hamburg riot police at.

Around 5:30 p.m., around 200 young people attacked the back of the sunflower house, while others pelted the front with stones and bottles at the same time. A quarter of an hour later, the attackers stormed the Vietnamese dormitory for the first time, and at 6 p.m. the police stepped in and took out the attackers, who had already reached the sixth floor. Shortly after 8 p.m., three water cannons arrived again from Schwerin. The police were massively attacked with stones, Molotov cocktails, flares and signal ammunition . An officer had to defend himself with several warning shots and one aimed shot. Another police vehicle was set on fire.

In the night from Sunday to Monday, 74 officers were injured and a patrol car burned out. Usually around 350 police officers were on duty, the total number of police officers deployed was around 800. There were 800 to 1000 violent criminals and up to 2000 onlookers, some of whom supported the violent criminals. 130 people were provisionally arrested or taken into custody. More than 60 of those arrested were left-wing youths who wanted to hold a solidarity demonstration for the threatened foreigners. In an evaluation by the BKA it was therefore said that two right-wing extremists and 27 left-wing extremists had been arrested in Lichtenhagen.

Monday, August 24th

On Monday, a hot August day, there was a festival atmosphere on the square in front of the Sunflower House. People had been gathering in front of the ZAst since the morning. While the Rostock police director Siegfried Kordus, who was now on site, described the situation as calm during the daytime, the leaders of the Hamburg riot police noticed a high and growing aggressiveness after discussions with residents and young people. They learned that the riots should start again in the early evening.

The ZAst was evacuated by 3 p.m. At various press conferences, the politicians assumed that further unrest was no longer to be expected. The evacuation of the adjoining dormitory, in which there were still 115 Vietnamese, did not take place. The more than 100 people in the dormitory, including children, babies and two heavily pregnant women, also included a ZDF television team , the Rostock foreigners commissioner Wolfgang Richter, his colleague Astrid Behlich and some security guards.

Klaus Springborn, one of the Hamburg Hundertschaft leaders, told Jürgen Deckert, according to his own statement, that his strength was overwhelmed and that he wanted to withdraw it. Around 5:30 p.m., a request from Deckert for support from two hundred groups was rejected by Siegfried Kordus. He still did not inform him of the official Hamburg request, which he had also received by telex at 14:31. State police director Heinsen reacted to simultaneous pressure from the Hamburg interior administration and finally gave Deckert at around 6 p.m. direct instructions to detach both Hamburg teams. An offer from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to deploy further units of the Federal Border Police (BGS) had previously been rejected in Schwerin . The Rostock police director Kordus said he had already requested departments of the BGS on Sunday morning from the state police office.

At 7:25 pm, the “Arkona 150” of the Schwerin riot police arrived as partial replacements. According to Klaus Springborn, the "aggressiveness, at least towards deployed officers [...] had increased considerably", but until then there had been mainly verbal arguments and no attacks on ZAst and the dormitory had taken place until around 9:25 pm. In a briefing, Klaus Springborn, among others, advised a reduction in police measures in order not to provoke further. Deckert initially decided to replace the Hamburg forces with “Arkona 150”, but around 8 p.m. Springborn received “the notice that all measures at the central reception point must be stopped.” A BGS unit under Springborn was attacked while boarding their vehicles. Other units, including the second Hamburger Hundertschaft, which was no longer on site, and “Arkona 150”, came to the rescue and tried to clear Güstrower Strasse as far as the B 103 intersection. The violence escalated in the entire area from the ZAst to the S-Bahn station, with stones being thrown and Molotov cocktails against the police, water cannons and club use and individual arrests. There was even a "gun attack" on a police vehicle and no one was injured. BGS officers also used firearms in self-defense. 34 officers were injured during this time.

There were again calls like “Germany the Germans, foreigners out!” The police drove the young people directly towards the sunflower house instead of away from it.

The order to withdraw, now also to protect the police, to take care of the injured and to reorganize, was repeated several times against "Arkona 150". At around 9:25 p.m., the sunflower house was no longer protected by the police. Accompanied by applause and cheers, stones and Molotov cocktails were thrown into the Vietnamese dormitory. The entrance area was stormed, doors kicked and windows smashed, with shouts like "We'll get you all!" And "In a moment you will be roasted!"

The Rostock police department learned at 21:25 that incendiary bottles had been thrown at the ZAst; At 9:35 p.m. she received an emergency call about the fire in a ground floor apartment in the dormitory. However, the fire brigade was not informed immediately by the police, but only at 21:38 by a call from a local resident that the two lower floors were burning. The fire brigade was soon on site, but could not intervene because the attackers and bystanders blocked their way. The police department was asked several times via a dedicated line to send officers for protection. On site, the fire brigade contacted several units of a total of 100 police officers who were waiting in Mecklenburger Allee behind the apartment blocks. In view of the lack of connection to the operations center, they showed themselves to be incapable of action and also withdrew around 10:15 p.m. By 10:25 p.m. at the latest, the fire brigade knew that Vietnamese were still in the house and warned that there might be deaths. At 10:32 p.m. a number of riot police arrived with a water cannon and tried to give the fire brigade access to the house, which lasted until 10:55 p.m. The fire brigade entered the dormitory at 10:58 p.m. and the fire on the lower floors was extinguished at 11:47 p.m. The situation calmed down at around 3 a.m.

During this time, the self-reliant trapped tried in fear of death to find a way out in the rising smoke. Some managed to use a crowbar to break open a door on the seventh floor, which was designated as an emergency exit , but which is still locked and which leads to the neighboring ZAst. There was no fire there, but there was no access to the roof. On the eleventh floor of the dormitory, others had access to an entrance that led to the roof. This was locked by a lattice door secured with two locks. They managed to break open the upper lock and pry open the gate. It was difficult to climb through this gap and from there to get to the roof. Finally, around 10:50 p.m., they managed to open the door and escape to the roof. The shouts "We'll get you all!" Were still heard from below.

The women and children first reached stairway number 15 via the roof. There they had to go down to the seventh floor before a door was opened for them. At around 11:30 p.m., the police formed a line to escort the Vietnamese to two buses while onlookers cursed them.

52 police officers were injured during the night from Sunday to Monday. That evening, the police estimated the number of violent criminals at 1000, some of whom were supported by around 3000 onlookers.

Tuesday, August 25th

About 1000 to 1200 people took part in clashes on Tuesday that were no longer directed against the building, but only against the police. Again stones, signal rockets and Molotov cocktails were thrown. Several cars were set on fire. 65 police officers were injured.

Reactions

Comments from politicians

The excesses of violence were sharply condemned by all political parties. But there were clear differences in the assessment of the extent and the causes of the riots as well as the conclusions to be drawn from them.

The discussion about the causes was linked to the debate on the right of asylum during the riots. At a press conference in Rostock on August 24, 1992, Federal Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters demanded that the state should act now. In doing so, however, he directed his attention less to the excesses of violence raging in Lichtenhagen than to restricting the number of asylum seekers: “We have to act against the abuse of the right of asylum, which has led to an uncontrolled influx of people into our country , I hope that the last decisions of the SPD to participate in an amendment to the Basic Law finally clear the way. ”A statement read out by Prime Minister Berndt Seite a few days later resembled the statements of the Federal Minister of the Interior on August 24:“ The incidents of the past Days make it clear that a supplement to the asylum law is urgently required because the population is overwhelmed by the unchecked influx of asylum seekers ”. Two weeks after the riots, Justice Minister Herbert Helmrich declared : “We need a new wall”, because “what will flood us will reach Turkey”.

The first reflex of the politicians and police officers in charge of the pogrom-like excesses was to try to belittle the events. In interviews on the night of August 25th, Deckert, Kordus and Kupfer said that there was no danger for the Vietnamese at any time, that the police had everything under control and that no damage had been done to anybody. A few hours after the self-liberation of those trapped, Prime Minister Berndt Seite responded to the accusation that the police had left people defenseless: “Nobody asked the ZDF team to enter the house.” He did not mention the Vietnamese residents.

Key politicians of the CDU denied the right-wing political orientation of the acts of violence or assumed the participation of left- wing radicals , autonomists or the Stasi . Lothar Kupfer asserted: "According to their origin and behavior, these troublemakers partly belong to the right-wing and left-wing radical scene, but also to the group of autonomists". Berndt Seite added that such violent criminals are known "also from Brokdorf , from Hafenstrasse in Hamburg, from the West runway in Frankfurt and from Wackersdorf ". Three days later he told the state parliament that right, left and autonomous radicals had acted together. The Schwerin CDU parliamentary group leader Eckhardt Rehberg made it clear: "It is no longer appropriate to want to differentiate between right and left". Peter Hintze , Secretary General of the CDU, spoke of right-wing extremist excesses, "in which left-wing radicals obviously got involved". The Federal Ministry of the Interior later admitted that there was no evidence of such cooperation.

Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl claimed that the Lichtenhagen riots had been instigated and directed by the Stasi. Also Erwin Marschewski , home affairs spokesman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, said: "Apparently the Stasi has instigated the riots in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with to fall of democracy in the back."

Left-wing politicians, above all from the ranks of the PDS and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , judged the events as a racist pogrom . Knut Degner, the press spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group in the Schwerin state parliament, declared in an open letter on August 30, 1992: "I ask for forgiveness from everyone who has had to experience fear and horror in the past few weeks and days due to the miserable failure of politicians in charge. were in danger or even injured ”. He himself had done too little “to prevent what had happened” and was ashamed of his failure and that of many others, especially those “who applauded the criminal hordes, cheered them on or who secretly conjured up and advocated the inhuman goings-on. “Degner was released the next day.

Media reactions

In the international press, the riots were associated with the National Socialist era . The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet wrote of the “German Kristallnacht 1992”, the Svenska Dagbladet felt reminded of the “terrifying images from dark history” and the Italian La Repubblica saw Germany as the land of “racial terror”. In the Bild-Zeitung it was said: “Foreign countries are beating up the Germans again” and: “Stasi controls Rostock chaots!” Other German media saw a “turning point in post-war history” ( taz ).

The media conveyed the image of the "ugly German", not least abroad. A picture of Harald Ewert from Rostock taken by Martin Langer in front of the burning house became particularly well known on the front pages of the world press. He wore a jersey of the German national soccer team with black, red and gold applications as well as apparently urine-stained sweatpants and showed the Hitler salute with his right hand . The photo was included in the collections of the House of History in Bonn and the German Historical Museum in Berlin.

Bahman Nirumand said in a guest comment in the taz on August 26, 1992: “For the roughly six million foreigners living in Germany, it has been clear since Hoyerswerda, but at least since last weekend, that their life and limb are no longer secure in this country. "

Acts of copying

In the week after the riots in Lichtenhagen, violent neo-Nazis threatened 40 dormitories with incendiary devices and stones and fought street battles with the police. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the asylum seekers' homes in Wismar , Rostock-Hinrichshagen, Lübz and Neubrandenburg and three times in Greifswald were attacked. In Wismar there were six-day riots in front of the asylum seekers' home between September 15 and 20, which, like in Lichtenhagen, were applauded by the residents. Even after that, there were raids almost every day. On the weekend between Friday, September 18 and Sunday, September 20, asylum seekers' homes in Güstrow , Ueckermünde , Kröpelin , Schwarzendorf (Malchin district), Schwerin, Wismar and Retschow were attacked several times and with Molotov cocktails.

Xenophobic raids in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from the end of August to December 1992 (selection)
22.8. until August 26, 1992	Rostock-Lichtenhagen	Riots against the ZAst and the dormitory of the Vietnamese
August 27, 1992	Wismar	Assault on a home for asylum seekers with Molotov cocktails
28.8., 29.8., 1.9.1992	Greifswald	The police prevent attacks on a home for asylum seekers
8/28/1992	Rostock- Hinrichshagen	Attack on the asylum seekers home
8/30/1992	Neubrandenburg	Attack on a home for asylum seekers
8/30/1992	Luebz	Attack on a home for asylum seekers
5.9.1992	Trassenheide	40 young people attack a refugee home
9/6/1992	Brahlstorf	Arson attack on a shelter for Polish workers
9/6/1992	Pritzier	30 young people attack a refugee home with fireworks and Molotov cocktails. The residents had previously been evacuated
9/8/1992	Anklam	Arson attack on a home for asylum seekers
9/8/1992	Boizenburg	Arson attack on a home for asylum seekers
9/8/1992	Goods (Müritz)	Attack on a home for asylum seekers
15.9. until September 20, 1992	Wismar	Attacks on a home for asylum seekers with incendiary devices, iron bars and stones, which were applauded by the residents, a total of 186 young people were temporarily arrested in the five days
September 18 , September 19 , 1992	Guestrow	Attacks on a home for asylum seekers
18.9., 19.9., 25.9.1992	Kröpelin	Attacks by up to 40 young people on a home for asylum seekers, some with Molotov cocktails
September 18, 1992	Ueckermünde	Attack on a home for asylum seekers

Demonstrations and other actions

A first demonstration "to express the positive attitude of the population towards foreigners living and admitted here" was organized on Tuesday, August 25, 1992, in downtown Rostock by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) and had 800 participants. Two days later, 3,000 people took part in a silent march under the motto “Light candles, not houses!”.

On Saturday, August 29th, after a nationwide mobilization, around 15,000 people demonstrated peacefully in Rostock under the motto "Stop the pogroms". In contrast to the riots a few days before, 3,000 police officers were available for this demonstration at short notice, all access roads to Rostock were blocked, rail traffic stopped, a large number of police and BGS helicopters circled over Rostock and thousands of demonstrators were surrounded in front of the city.

The public initially reacted with bewilderment and perplexity to the wave of xenophobic violence of 1992. On September 25, 1992, intellectuals, artists and politicians published the “Frankfurter Call” in the Frankfurter Rundschau with the subtitle “Germany drifts to the right”. In the full-page advertisement, the 250 or so first signatories called on people not to remain silent, to counter xenophobia and right-wing extremism and not to undermine the constitution. It was only after the murder attacks in Mölln and Solingen in November 1992 and May 1993, respectively, that broad protests began to take place, including chains of lights as a new form of demonstration in which hundreds of thousands took part. In December 1992, 800,000 people are said to have demonstrated in Munich and Hamburg alone. In Cologne, 100,000 people gathered on November 9, 1992 for a concert against racism and neo-Nazis under the motto “ Ass huh, Zäng ussenander ” to “end the widespread speechlessness about developments in our country”, and on December 13, 1992 numerous musicians in Frankfurt were under the motto “ Today you - tomorrow you! “In front of about 150,000 people on stage. Around the same time, between October 1992 and January 1993, the proportion of those who expressed understanding in surveys for violent riots against asylum seekers halved from seventeen to eight percent in eastern Germany and from twelve to five percent in western Germany.

Among the Vietnamese, the riots led to a closer union in their own ethnic group. In October 1992 they founded the Diên Hông association in Rostock - Together under one roof , which, in addition to self-help, places a strong emphasis on Vietnamese-German encounters and opened up in 1997 to immigrants of all nationalities and countries of origin. In addition, a non-partisan campaign alliance “Bunt statt Braun” was formed in Rostock, with the aim of ensuring that the incidents of 1992 never recur. Among other things, Gegen Vergessen - Für Demokratie e. V. or the victim fund Cura .

consequences

Evacuation of the Vietnamese and relocation of the ZAst

After those trapped had escaped from the burning house during the night from Monday to Tuesday, they were evacuated from Lichtenhagen with two buses. After several hours of wandering, hardly protected by the police, and being followed by several cars, the Vietnamese were finally billeted in a gym in the Rostock district of Marienehe without food . After three days they were transferred to a country school home in Niex . Another two days later, the deputy mayor Wolfgang Zöllick (CDU) gave the order to return to the sunflower house. Only after massive protests by those affected and on intervention by Wolfgang Richter were the Vietnamese able to stay in Niex for several weeks.

The ZASt was closed and not relocated to Rostock-Hinrichshagen as planned, but to a former barracks of the GDR border troops in the area of ​​the municipality of Nostorf six kilometers west of the city of Boizenburg / Elbe . It still exists there today.

Critics described it as a fatal signal that the riots must be described as successful from the point of view of the perpetrators and the applauding spectators.

Failure to receive compensation

The German neighbors were allowed one month of rent-free living as compensation for the pogrom . However, the attacked did not receive any compensation, neither rent waiver nor compensation for damaged personal belongings, compensation for the injustice suffered or the poor conditions after the evacuation . There wasn't even an official apology. Gung Do Hyuen, one of the attacked, said: "The greatest compensation that can be is first of all a deportation stop and the guarantee of an unlimited residence permit." This protection did not exist for those affected either, most of them were deported.

Changes to the fundamental right to asylum and policy on foreigners

→ Main article : Asylum compromise

Asylum applications in Germany
1992	438.191
1993	322,599
1994	127.210

Even during the Lichtenhagen riots, the SPD repositioned itself on the issue of changing asylum law with the Petersberg turnaround . Wanting to avoid riots like the one in Rostock in the future served as an important argument for changing the Basic Law. On December 6, 1992, the German Bundestag passed the asylum compromise with the votes of the CDU, CSU, FDP and SPD . By changing the Basic Law (now Article 16a GG ) and the Asylum Procedure Act, the possibilities to invoke the basic right to asylum were restricted. The reform of the asylum law came into force in June 1993. As a result, the number of asylum seekers in Germany fell continuously.

Six weeks after the incident, the CDU-led state government in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania insisted that the Vietnamese end their stay in the country on time. There are no legal, political or humanitarian reasons for a right to stay, and this is not accepted by the population.

Committees of inquiry

Both the Schwerin state parliament and the Rostock citizenship set up investigative committees to deal with the events. The citizenry was characterized by a non-partisan will to enlightenment, but its results remained unsatisfactory. The Schwerin investigation committee has already been denied the will to relentlessly clarify. The CDU initially rejected the request of the smaller coalition partner FDP to set up a committee of inquiry as unfounded. She only agreed to external pressure, but linked it to an extension of the investigation to include details of the influx of asylum seekers. While the committee concentrated on Deckert's failures, those of Kordus and Heinsen were largely excluded, and questions of political responsibility were hardly followed up. The role of the Ministry of the Interior was only mentioned on one of the 45 pages of the final report of November 3, 1993, approved by the governing parties CDU and FDP. For these reasons, the SPD did not agree to the report and published its own results a few days later. The LL / PDS had already ceased its work in the committee in February 1993.

Personal consequences

As a result of the riots, there were many complaints about thoughtlessness, a lack of sense of responsibility and a lack of self-criticism, especially on the part of the politicians responsible. Only after tough arguments did some personal consequences arise in politics and in the police.

The committee of inquiry of the Rostock citizenship determined in October 1993 that Kilimann "did not live up to his political and moral responsibility". Kilimann tried to discredit the report but stepped down in November 1993. Interior Minister Lothar Kupfer (CDU) denied any responsibility. After tough arguments, he was dismissed as Minister of the Interior on February 11, 1993.

Rostock's police chief Siegfried Kordus took up his new position as head of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Criminal Police Office a week after the Lichtenhagen riots. Two years later, he was given early retirement because of a red light affair. Chief Police Officer Jürgen Deckert, the police chief during the riots, was transferred to the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration in Güstrow .

Legal processing

The attacks led to 370 preliminary arrests and 408 preliminary investigations. The criminal prosecution turned out to be very difficult, as there were only few qualified, that is to say evidential, arrests . Overall, the legal processing is rated as remarkably slow and mild.

Proceedings were opened against 257 people before the Rostock Regional Court , most of which were reinstated. In 1993/94 only 40 young people were sentenced to fines and suspended sentences in short trials without much evidence for breach of the peace and arson . Eleven of the convicts received juvenile sentences of between seven months and three years, but only four of them actually spent between two and three years in prison and the remaining seven sentences were suspended. Ten years after the riots, the last three judgments were made in Schwerin. These sentences were also low , with 12 to 18 months of probation as a juvenile , although the then 17, 18 and 19-year-old offenders with a previous conviction for bodily harm were the first to be convicted not only of arson but of attempted murder . Most of the crimes were statute-barred at this point. The great majority of those involved in the riots remained anonymous and unpunished.

Investigations against Rostock's police chief Siegfried Kordus were closed in 1994. Criminal proceedings for negligent arson through omission were in progress against the chief police officer Jürgen Deckert, which was also discontinued in 2000.

causes

Inadequate police action

The police operation during the riots was initially hampered by logistical problems. While the emergency services in Lichtenhagen were completely inadequately equipped, modern protective equipment remained in a cellar in Schwerin and was not issued. New forces were not drawn together even as the situation worsened. The water cannons were ordered back to Schwerin after each use and had to be fetched back by Rostock drivers with a delay of hours.

Furthermore, the situation was characterized by the extensive absence of the responsible managers. Because although the media reported continuously from the events, only Jürgen Deckert of the responsible top officials broke off his home weekend and returned to Rostock. Deckert, who had no experience in leading large-scale operations, stayed on duty until Tuesday evening at 11:00 p.m. for a total of 66 hours without replacement, without a break and without the support of his boss, Rostock Police Director Siegfried Kordus.

Kordus withdrew completely on Monday evening. Between 7:15 p.m. and 8:10 p.m. he signed off from duty with the remark that he had to rest now and did not want to be disturbed. To do this, he also withdrew Görke, the assistant to head of operations Deckert, from the site so that he could represent him in the management. On the way from the police headquarters in downtown Rostock to his home in Warnemünde, he did not have to drive 100 meters past the sunflower house on the expressway, where violent arguments were raging at the time. When he got home, he went to sleep, as the chairman of the SPD opposition in the Schwerin state parliament, Harald Ringstorff , found out three hours later while trying to reach him.

After the riot, deployed policemen suspected they had been used, perhaps criticizing intentional passivity and the withdrawal from the home.

At the police level and in the state parliament's committee of inquiry, Chief Police Officer Deckert was held largely solely responsible for the escalation, especially after the police withdrew. He claimed that “until it really banged on Monday”, he did not distinguish between ZAst and dormitory and therefore did not know that 120 Vietnamese were still there. This is countered by the continued chanting, an attack on the dormitory on Sunday as well as warnings from the Rostock foreigners commissioner and the head of the ZAst on Sunday and Monday afternoon. The very belated development of police protection for the fire brigade is generally regarded as scandalous. Deckert claims to have commissioned the Mecklenburg Hundred “Arkona 150” to do this at around 9:45 p.m., immediately after he received the emergency call. Their leader Wenn-Karamnow denied this and claimed to have pushed for an order for his unit himself at 10:28 p.m. His colleague Günter Niemann criticized passivity in the operations center, while five (partly incompletely staffed) hundreds and around 100 individual police officers were waiting in the courtyard for an assignment.

Dieter Hempel, Kordus' successor as Rostock police director, on the other hand, accused his predecessor and former boss of deliberate blatant management errors. Kordus “totally failed. But this failure had a system, otherwise it could not lead to such a chaotic result ”. Kordus, in turn, later accused the Schwerin police office of having been informed, but of having actively obstructed the operation in Lichtenhagen by deliberately withholding forces.

State police chief Hans-Heinrich Heinsen only claims to have recognized on the evening of August 24th that his presence was necessary. Only on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. did he finally take over the command of operations. Heinsen was the only one of the police officers involved who had experience in leading large-scale operations; thus he would have been predestined to take the lead during the violent clashes. A situation report drawn up after the riots was subsequently processed by hand in the state police office in Schwerin. It originally said on Monday: "A further escalation of the situation in the evening hours was expected" and "Vietnamese (approx. 100) living in the side entrance (No. 19) were threatened by the fire".

The role of politics

Politicians are made three reproaches. On the one hand, the populist asylum campaign in the months and years before August 1992 was largely responsible for the heated mood. This was what made the pogrom-like riots against foreigners possible. The corresponding charge was "verbal arson". In a 1992 study on the acceptance of asylum seekers in Rostock it was said that the nature of the public debate about asylum policy had encouraged growing xenophobia.

Second, the responsible politicians showed the same tendency as the leading police officers not to accept responsibility. On Monday evening at the same time as Siegfried Kordus, Interior Minister Lothar Kupfer went home and later stated, like him, that he had to change his clothes or shirt. On the same evening, Lord Mayor Klaus Kilimann went on vacation again. He later justified this with the statement: "I just dismissed the matter in my head". Klaus Baltzer, State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, did not return to Schwerin from his family weekend until the Prime Minister ordered him back. On Monday morning he obtained information in Rostock, but at 2 p.m. he only passed the pressure on from Hamburg to State Police Director Heinsen to replace two hundred teams sent as quickly as possible.

The third charge went even further. From the combination of the political aim of tightening the asylum law and the omissions of the police and politicians during the riots, the journalist Jochen Schmidt drew the conclusion in his book “Politische Brandstiftung” ten years after the events in Rostock that the actions were pointless in terms of police tactics followed a political goal. The riots could have been planned by politicians as a controlled escalation of popular anger with the aim of forcing the SPD to give in on the asylum issue. The state government had been given the task of putting this interest of the CDU-led federal government into practice. Schmidt's assumptions go so far that, in his opinion, there is much to suggest that the round of negotiations on August 24 for Seiters and Kupfer deliberately put the lives of over 100 people at risk in order to achieve a political goal. Schmidt's thesis convinced many reviewers. So wrote Liane von Billerbeck in the time : "One may Jochen Schmidt's thesis have been skeptical about, her fall to withdraw after reading his book difficult". In 2012, Rainer Fabian, a co-initiator of the “Lichtenhagen moves” initiative, criticized the lack of clarification of the responsibilities at the time. "The culprits were city representatives, were state representatives and probably also the federal government"; Fabian referred to the lack of intervention and the presence of Federal Interior Minister Seiters. Attempts had been made to "set an example when it came to policy on foreigners."

Schmidt's suspicion had already been expressed many times in 1992. So who made NDR correspondent Peter gates in a special broadcast of the evening news night of the fire thought to how it could come to the situation: "There are only two rational explanations: either bottomless stupidity or deliberate attempt to bring the matter to a boil" . The Israeli daily Haaretz commented on the wave of violence after the Mölln assassination attempt in November 1992: “It will be difficult for the German government and Helmut Kohl to wash away the suspicion that they did not stop the wave of violence against foreigners for a very specific reason : In the hope of mobilizing the reluctant social democratic opposition in the Bundestag to abolish Article 16 ”. The British Independent on Sunday had drawn a similar conclusion: “The Nazi gangs in Germany are the product of a racist crisis, not the cause. They are the result of a systematic government campaign that presents foreigners as a problem group ”. And the Süddeutsche Zeitung asked on August 28, 1992: "Could it be that copper purposely risked the danger of rioting, not out of incompetence, in order to send an unmistakable political signal?"

Even those involved, such as the then Rostock Interior Senator Peter Magdanz, the Operations Manager Jürgen Deckert and the Rostock Police Director Siegfried Kordus stated that they suspected that the escalation in Lichtenhagen was deliberately staged by the political side. When urgently needed additional forces were not made available on Monday, August 24th, operations manager Jürgen Deckert explained to his Hamburg colleague Klaus Springborn that he had the impression that he was being left alone politically. While in Rostock politicians negotiated up to and including the Federal Minister of the Interior, he received neither guidelines nor guidelines nor support. “They're kidding me,” Deckert thought.

The role of the media

The accusation that the type of reporting heated up the climate, triggered mass hysteria and thus prepared the ground for the wave of violence against foreigners hit the media as well as politics. Above all, the tabloids and primarily the Bild were the focus of criticism. The foreigners 'perspective was seldom asked about and taken, but rather unintentionally, for example by compiling individual opinions from local residents or printing prejudiced reports that “laid the groundwork for a mood that ultimately promoted violence.” A lack of reflection on the social context of the refugees' living situation led to the instead of empathy for their plight, the consequences of the lack of living space were attributed to a “Roma culture” that was stereotypically demarcated from “Central European” ideas of cleanliness.

It was also criticized that the mass media had given the perpetrators the opportunity to mobilize, present themselves and coordinate. This happened in live broadcasts from over 20 domestic and foreign camera teams on site, but also in advance of the riots. Even the uncommented reprint of the threat of violence, combined with an ultimatum and precise details of the place and time of the announced actions, in the Norddeutsche Neuesten Nachrichten on August 19, 1992 and the interview in the Ostsee-Zeitung two days later had a mobilizing effect. The constant media presence created expectations, an incentive for potential violent criminals and had a rewarding character. This strengthened the feeling of acting as a representative of general interests; the crowd was given a sense of collective importance.

The journalist Jochen Schmidt criticized that television channels had influenced the course of events. The staging of a message - for example by illuminating the square as a test without anything new happening - is incompatible with the basic principles of media ethics and journalistic craft. Schmidt also reports that a youth offered him to pose with a Hitler salute for 50  marks . The BBC , the boy said, paid.

The ZDF team included in the Sunflower House, consisting of Jochen Schmidt, Thomas Euting , Dietmar Schumann , Jürgen Podzkiewitz and Thomas Höper, was also criticized. Freerk Huisken insinuated that the journalists had only wanted to record the Vietnamese "being torched by skins". Including by chance, they would have succeeded in an impressive reality show , a “'live crime thriller', so to speak, with blurred and shaky images from the burning house that 'convey authenticity'”. The Rostock State Security investigated temporarily against the editorial staff of Kennzeichen D and investigated whether the Vietnamese had received a fee for their appearance. For the most part, however, the Kennzeichen -D report was recognized and - together with the Rostock commissioner for foreigners, Wolfgang Richter - was awarded the IG Medien Journalist Prize and the Carl von Ossietzky Medal of the International League for Human Rights . Thomas Euting and Dietmar Schumann also received the Telestar .

Xenophobia, right-wing extremism and violence

See also : Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany

A study in February 1992 came to the result that there was little acceptance of asylum seekers in considerable parts of the Rostock population, which were not socially structurally limited. The Roma refugees in particular were portrayed by the population, the media and politicians as “dirty”, “criminal”, “asocial” and as exploiting the social system. Antigypsy prejudices and stereotypes thus sparked the pogrom. In the course of this, this dimension took a back seat to a general racism, on the basis of which Vietnamese contract workers who were adapted to GDR times and who were largely accepted, were attacked.

Police chief Siegfried Kordus wrote an article in a brochure for the Federal Ministry of the Interior in March 1992 about increasing xenophobia in Rostock, in which he pointed out that it was also directed against the Vietnamese who remained in Rostock. The everyday racism to which the Vietnamese were exposed was reflected, among other things, in the term "Fijis", which is common in East Germany for all East Asians .

From the very beginning, the debate about the causes of the outbreak of violence concentrated very much on the question of whether the xenophobic and right-wing extremist acts of violence at the beginning of the 1990s were primarily an East German problem. Brandenburg's Interior Minister Alwin Ziel ruled in 1992: "Rostock would be possible in any of the new federal states ". It is often pointed out that there was also a considerable number of right-wing extremist attacks on residential buildings by foreigners in West Germany at the beginning of the 1990s. The murders in Mölln and Solingen are mentioned in particular in this context . However, there is a big difference in the fact that in these attacks a small group of perpetrators proceeded in secret, while the characteristic of the riots in Lichtenhagen that lasted several days was the public encouragement of a large group of perpetrators by a mass of mostly adult viewers in front of television cameras. The same pattern was observed in Hoyerswerda, in Wismar and elsewhere.

In parts of the population, the acts of violence were supported or at least tolerated. Immediately after the Lichtenhagen riots in September 1992, 17 percent of East Germans and 12 percent of West Germans declared understanding of violence against asylum seekers. A social-psychological study that examined the value orientations of young people from East Germany at the beginning of 1993 came to the conclusion that they did not differ significantly in many respects from their West German peers; the willingness to use violence, however, was 33 percent higher in the east than in the west with 21 percent.

There is the thesis that the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen were planned and organized by West German right-wing extremists. The Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania constitutional protection could not confirm this assumption. It is known, however, that in the course of the events in Lichtenhagen, a number of West German right-wing extremists, including some of their leaders, traveled to Rostock. There are also indications that this influenced the riots on site at least on the third day. There are statements that on Monday a hard core within the attackers communicated with each other by radio; Instructions had come from a car in which the Hamburg neo-Nazi Christian Worch had been identified. Of the approximately 370 people arrested, 217 came from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, 147 of them from Rostock, and 37 from other new federal states , 116 of those arrested from the old states . Berlin, from where 41 people arrested, was added to the old states.

It is known that there was a right-wing extremist youth subculture in the GDR in the 1980s, which from 1989/90 was specifically integrated into an overall strategy by West German neo-Nazis and right-wing extremist parties. In 1989, nine "young adults" were arrested in the Rostock district. They called their group " SS -Division Walter Krüger ", adorned themselves with appropriate "ranks", collected uniforms, weapons and other accessories from the Nazi era and "to maintain tradition" April 20th visited former concentration camps .

According to an assessment by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution , there were 600 skinheads in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1992. In absolute numbers, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, together with Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, was at the top nationwide; relative to the population, the state was even in the top position. In contrast, the number of skinheads was significantly lower in West Germany. There were around 100 skinheads in neighboring Schleswig-Holstein, which had around one million more inhabitants than Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and 300 in North Rhine-Westphalia, which had almost ten times as many inhabitants. A similar picture emerges with the number of right-wing extremists motivated acts of violence. In 1992 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there were 9.31 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants, while in neighboring Schleswig-Holstein it was 4.15 and in Bremen only 0.29. This means that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was also at the top in these statistics. The 1990 report on the protection of the constitution warned that "neo-national socialist skins in East Germany clearly outnumber their like-minded people in West Germany, not only in number, but also in politicization and brutality". However, in 1992 the skinhead scene in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was still considered unstable, weakly organized and only poorly networked. The number of members in right-wing extremist parties was also relatively small at the time. The National Association of Republicans had around 350 party members , the DVU around 200 and the NPD only 80 party members.

Social and psychological causes

The question is discussed whether xenophobia can also be traced back to social and mental peculiarities of the former GDR citizens as well as to problems in the period of upheaval after 1989. In Rostock, 40,000 people were unemployed in 1992, half of them for over a year. In a survey, over a quarter of the unemployed stated that they had serious family problems, and many were over-indebted. Fear of the job, housing shortage, the resulting dissatisfaction, aggression and the search for scapegoats are cited as important reasons for xenophobia. Federal President Joachim Gauck , who was pastor in the neighboring prefabricated building district Evershagen in the 1970s and 1980s , named in his 2012 commemorative speech the lack of coexistence with strangers and structural ruthlessness in the GDR as reasons for the xenophobia; everything that was different and not true to the line was suspected, denounced, fought or ostracized. The culture journalist Peter von Becker interpreted this as the legacy of almost 60 years of “dictatorship, war, post-war and dictatorship again”. One had to experience “instead of a cosmopolitanism after National Socialism, a national to nationalistic socialism”.

The Lichtenhagen riots were repeatedly interpreted as a conformist revolt . The concept of authoritarian character plays an essential role as a theoretical explanation . He has an ambivalent need both for submission to authority and for rebellion against the rulers or abstract compulsions. Therefore, pent-up negative feelings can only be discharged if authoritarian personalities are sure of the approval of the elites. The partial tolerance of the “mood before the pogrom and perhaps also [the] pogrom itself” directed against minorities was then a condition for the outbreak of violence, as was the low number and initially passivity of the police. The aim was to restore a perceived disorder through a strong state.

reception

Scientific processing

Although the Lichtenhagen riots are regularly the subject of broad debates, these remained largely limited to political discourse and journalistic work. It was not until the 20th anniversary of 2012 that some scientific articles appeared, but their number was still manageable.

Commemoration

The riots seem to be permitted only as a “temporary special topic”. The dominant media narratives present the pogrom as closed. Questions about “long-term consequences and the political connection with the present” do not seem to be of interest. Kien Nghi Ha calls for racism to be dealt with as a task inherent in the system and in the form of a conscious and continuous discussion instead of "short-term, event-dependent and catching up" theming, as is happening with the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen. In the media processing, the marginalization of the victims of the pogrom is reproduced and "racist violence and discriminatory effects [...] are also continued in the memorial policy". What is striking is the absence of the perspective of the victims of racist acts of violence, which makes it clear that the possibilities for “cultural representation and political articulation are regulated and limited by social power relations and racial access to resources”. Contrary to Ha's demand, there was no broad public commemoration between 1992 and 2012. The pogrom was also not taken up in most of the media until 2012. An exception are anti-racist and anti-fascist media such as B. the anti-fascist information sheet (AIB). There, their own reaction was reflected on and it was established that a more decisive intervention by anti-fascist groups right from the start might have contained, if not prevented, the pogrom.

On the 20th anniversary in August 2012, Rostock and Lichtenhagen were the sites of various commemorative events under the motto “Lichtenhagen is moving”. The media reported unilaterally on the events and produced numerous reports. The media processing lacked the perspectives of People of Color , so that there can be no talk of a multi- perspective processing of the events of that time. Furthermore, z. For example, by describing the pogrom as “riots”, “assaults” or “riots”, only the violence is named, but not its racist orientation and thus the pogrom is relativized.

At a memorial demonstration, around 5000 people moved from downtown Rostock to the Sunflower House, where they demonstrated for tolerance and humanity and called for changes to the asylum laws. Up to 3,000 demonstrators came together for a rally on the Neuer Markt .

The few Vietnamese victims of the pogrom who remained in Germany were only invited by the organizers at very short notice and only at the suggestion of the Vietnamese community. At the memorial event they were "unfortunately not allowed to speak in public [...], but rather [served] as a decorative accessory to the public staging". Members of the Roma community, who could have been invited to represent the Roma refugees who had been hostile for days and were later deported, were not considered. Kien Nghi Ha criticizes this approach: "Such exclusions lead to a homogenized form of remembrance".

At the town hall , a memorial plaque was installed. It recalls both the “racist acts of violence” of August 1992 and the “National Socialist genocide” of Jews, Sinti and Roma, “in order to prevent violence and inhumanity from ever being repeated.” A similar board had a group of Jews and Roma around Beate Klarsfeld already attached in October 1992, but they were arrested and the plaque removed. In December 2012, the memorial plaque on the town hall was removed by strangers, presumably neo-Nazis.

It was criticized that in addition to the main speaker, Federal President Joachim Gauck , and the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Erwin Sellering , except for Claudia Roth, no top politicians of federal politics had come to Rostock for the central memorial event . The press praised Gauck's speech as courageous and respectable. The fact that Gauck “ speaks stereotypically about ' xenophobia ' and only dares to mention the term ' racism ' once was ignored. His evocation of the natural 'fear of the foreign' is accompanied by a normalization of 'xenophobia' ”.

In addition, many found the choice of a “ German oak ”, which was planted in front of the sunflower house as a “peace oak ”, to be unfortunate. A few days later the tree was sawed off by strangers. The perpetrators, who belong to the left-wing extremist political spectrum, admitted themselves to this on the Internet portal Indymedia on the grounds that the oak tree was "a symbol of Germanism and militarism ".

Artistic reception

Konstantin Wecker addressed the excesses of Lichtenhagen in the song Die Ballade by Amadeu Antonio Kiowa . Bands with a connection to the punk scene in particular picked up the right-wing extremist acts of violence in the early 1990s. Well-known examples of the musical reception of the events in Lichtenhagen in this context are the songs Schrei nach Liebe by the doctors , Sascha ... an upright German from the dead pants , eyes on the Rostock band Third Choice , only idiots need leaders from ... But Alive , Schweineherbst of Slime , I'm not Germany of SIK , August 24, 1992 by ZSK , Fatherland of the Krupps and the video for hip-hop -Titel foreign in their own country the group Advanced Chemistry .

Particular attention was paid to the fact that the band Böhse Onkelz , which gained cult status in the Oi! - and Skinheadszene, positioned against the right-wing extremist scene and its racist attacks in 1993 with the song Germany in autumn . Band member Stephan Weidner said: “The incidents last year, Rostock, Mölln and so on, did not leave us without a trace. 'Germany in autumn' is our reaction to these riots, and the choice of words clearly shows what we think of it: 'Brown shit', these are chaos for me, no more and no less. "

The events were also picked up by right-wing rock bands, for example with the CD Barbecue in Rostock by the group No Remorse from 1996.

In 2011/12, the rioting of Lichtenhagen was processed in the play Up to the Stop by the Free Theater Youth under the direction of Christof Lange.

In April 2013, shooting began on a film about the events with the working title We are young. We are strong. The film was shot under the direction of Burhan Qurbani in an empty prefabricated building and other locations in Halle . The actors include Devid Striesow , who grew up in Rostock , Jonas Nay , Saskia Rosendahl and Joel Basman . The film was released in German cinemas on January 22, 2015. It was shown on ZDF and arte .

In 2014 the theater director Dan Thy Nguyen developed the play Sunflower House together with Iraklis Panagiotopoulos , which shows the events from the perspective of the attacked, who managed to fight back without having to kill. This was the first time that the victim's perspective was treated in terms of the culture of memory.

In the single Mein Rostock , released in September 2014, the rapper Marteria addressed the city's bad image, which has persisted to this day, due to the events of the time: Your enemies know you well / But only see your burning house in you / Laugh out and say you are bad .

Lichtenhagen as a topic in the right-wing extremist scene

In 1998 the NPD held its final rally for the federal and state elections on a parking lot in front of the sunflower house in Lichtenhagen. Twenty years after the riots, the party complained about a subsidy from the Hanseatic City of Rostock to the Bunt instead of Braun association, which it describes as part of a “Rostock foreigners and foreign infiltration lobby”, amounting to 50,000 euros as a waste for a “Lichtenhagen guilt cult”.

On the night of July 20, 2002, just a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of the attacks, there were again arson attacks on the sunflower house. After residents alerted the police because windows had been smashed, another hour after the police left the scene of the crime, there was another attack with incendiary devices on a workers' welfare office and an Asian shop near the house.

The memorial plaque attached to Rostock's town hall in August 2012 was dismantled by strangers on the night of December 5, 2012, and a poster with the slogan “Forever Germany” was stuck on instead.

literature

• Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Why in 1992 the residence for foreigners in Rostock went up in flames. Edition Ost, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-360-01040-X .
• State Parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , 1st electoral period: recommendation for a resolution and interim report of the 2nd committee of inquiry. Printed matter 1/3277, June 16, 1993 (PDF; 249 kB).
• Thomas Prenzel (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen. Context, dimensions and consequences of racist violence ( Rostock Information on Politics and Administration. Volume 32), University of Rostock, Institute for Political and Administrative Sciences, Rostock 2012, ISBN 978-3-940835-31-4 (PDF; 1.4 MB ) .
• Thomas Prenzel: "We'll clean up in Lichtenhagen at the weekend". The attacks on the central reception center for asylum seekers in Rostock in August 1992 , in: Refugee camps in post-war Germany. Migration, Politics, Remembrance , edited by Henrik Bispinck and Katharina Hochmuth, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-811-0 , pp. 234-253.
• Gudrun Heinrich: Fanal »Rostock Lichtenhagen«. Racist riots and the young democracy , in: Land im Umbruch. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after the end of the GDR (dictatorship and modernity in the 20th century, Volume 4), edited by Stefan Creuzberger, Fred Mrotzek and Mario Niemann, be.bra Wissenschaft verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-95410-079- 8 , pp. 173-188.
• Gudrun Heinrich: Rostock Lichtenhagen 1992–2017. Processing and memory as a process of local political culture , in: Political leadership in the mirror of regional political culture , edited by Martin Koschkar and Clara Ruvituso, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-22564-3 , pp. 293-309 .
• David Anbich: Hoyerswerda and Lichtenhagen. Primal scenes of racist violence in East Germany . In: Heike Kleffner , Anna Spangenberg (ed.): Generation Hoyerswerda: The network of militant neo-Nazis in Brandenburg. be.bra, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-89809-127-5 , pp. 32–44. * CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (ed.): Political discussion instead of trauma Lichtenhagen. Final report of the 2nd parliamentary committee of inquiry on the events surrounding the central reception center for asylum seekers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, November 1993. Schwerin 1994.
• Siegfried Jäger , Helmut Kellershohn , Joachim Pfennig (Red.): SchlagZeilen. Rostock: Racism in the media. 2nd, revised edition, DISS , Duisburg 1992, ISBN 3-927388-32-7 .

Film, television and radio documentaries

• Reports from the Tagesschau at 8 p.m. on 23 , 24 , 25 and 26 August 1992 and a report in the ARD 1992 annual review .
• Kennzeichen -D -Reportage 1992. Film team Thomas Euting , Dietmar Schumann , Jürgen Podzkiewitz , Jochen Schmidt and Thomas Höper. In 1992 he was awarded the IG Medien journalist prize , the Carl von Ossietzky Medal of the International League for Human Rights and the Telestar .
• Who sows violence - From arsonists and honest men , documentary by Gert Monheim , broadcast on January 29, 1993 on ARD, 44 minutes ( youtube )
• The truth lies in rostock , documentary by Mark Saunders and Siobhan Cleary, produced by a Rostock initiative (JAKO videocoop) and Spectacle (London) for Channel4, D 1993, 82 minutes ( youtube )
• The fire trap of Rostock - the arsonist, the cheers and a disturbed country , documentary by Kamil Taylan for ARD , Germany 2002, 45 minutes. Awarded the Civis - Europe's Media Prize for Integration and the Prix ​​Europa in 2002 .
• Pork autumn. 15 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen , radio feature by Thilo Schmidt on NDR Info - Das Forum, August 20, 2006, 29 minutes ( thiloschmidt.de ; MP3; 21.5 MB)
• Rostock-Lichtenhagen , uncommented original images and sounds from the riots, Spiegel-TV , 60 minutes, 2007
• When Rostock-Lichtenhagen was on fire , documentary by Florian Huber, NDR 2012, 45 minutes ( ndr.de ( memento from August 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ))
• Video Four days in August. Die Schande von Rostock (documentary by Sylvia Bleßmann and Thomas Hass, ZDF, 30 minutes, broadcast on August 22, 2012)  in the ZDFmediathek , accessed on August 22, 2012. (offline)
• Lichtenhagen - media rushed along , report by the media magazine Zapp on the role of the media, 5 minutes, broadcast in August 2012 ( available online at ndr.de ( memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )) and interview with journalist Michael Schmidt, 30 minutes, broadcast on August 22, 2012 ( ndr.de ( memento from August 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ))
• We are young. We are strong. , Feature film by Burhan Qurbani , which reproduces the events of August 24, 1992 using fictional characters.

Web links

• Trauma in a city (PDF; 255 kB) - booklet accompanying the exhibition of the citizens' initiative Bunt statt Braun
• 10 years of Diên Hông - Together under one roof e. V. (PDF; 6 MB) October 2002

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The concept of pogroms in relation to Rostock-Lichtenhagen is problematized by: Thomas Prenzel: Rostock-Lichtenhagen in the context of the debate about the restriction of the basic right to asylum . In: ders. (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen . Rostock 2012, p. 10, note 2.
2. ↑ Hans-Bernd Brosius, Frank Esser: Escalation through reporting? Mass media and xenophobic violence. Opladen 1995, p. 15.
3. ^ Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 271.
4. ^ Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 272 ​​f.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} bpb.de: Ausländer und Asyl ( Memento of December 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 7, 2012; Excerpt from Uwe Andersen, Woyke Wichard (Ed.): Concise dictionary of the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany . 5th edition. Opladen 2003.
6. ↑ Who is Edmund Stoiber? In: tagesspiegel.de. October 11, 2004.
7. ^ Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 299.
8. ^ ^{A b c d} Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 303.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Hans-Bernd Brosius, Frank Esser: Escalation through reporting? Mass media and xenophobic violence. Opladen 1995, p. 19 f.
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, pp. 59–74, lists a selection of attacks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania up to the end of 1992 on 25 pages.
11. ↑ In the beginning there was a rumor. In: nrhz.de. May 23, 2006.
12. ^ ^{A b c d} Mathias Brodkorb and Thomas Schmidt: Right-wing extremism in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - an overview. (PDF; 888 kB) In: Is there a modern right-wing extremism? Edited by Mathias Brodkorb and Thomas Schmidt, Rostock 2002, p. 68.
13. ^ Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, p. 66.
14. ↑ Examples from Michael Lausberg : Die extreme Rechts in Ostdeutschland 1990–1998. Marburg 2012, p. 60.
15. ^ Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, p. 63 f.
16. ^ Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, p. 16.
17. ^ Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, p. 118.
18. ↑ ^{a b c d} Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, p. 114 ff.
19. ^ Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, pp. 26, 119.
20. ^ ^{A b} Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, p. 28 f.
21. ^ Britta Müller: Foreigners in Eastern Germany. A study in Rostock. Cologne 1996, p. 29.
22. ↑ Overview of the population development on the Rostock town hall website .
23. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 55.
24. ^ Karl Otto Richter, Britta Hermann, Bernhard Schmidtbauer: Acceptance of asylum seekers in Rostock city . Rostock 1992, p. 4.
25. ^ Karl Otto Richter, Britta Hermann, Bernhard Schmidtbauer: Acceptance of asylum seekers in Rostock city . Rostock 1992, p. 6.
26. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 64, 72 f.
27. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 56.
28. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 165.
29. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 60.
30. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 74.
31. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 78, 161 f.
32. ^ ^{A b c} Michael Lausberg: The extreme right in East Germany 1990-1998 . Marburg 2012, p. 61.
33. ↑ Quoted from Jochen Schmidt: Political Arson. Berlin 2002, p. 56.
34. ^ The NPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . ( Memento from December 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: verfassungsschutz-mv.de . Protection of the Constitution Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .
35. ↑ The Fall of Man . In: dradio.de. August 24, 2007.
36. ↑ Christian Lüdemann, Thomas Ohlemacher: Sociology of criminality. Theoretical and empirical perspectives . Weinheim, Munich 2002, p. 92.
37. ↑ Quoted from Jochen Schmidt: Political Arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 24, 53.
38. ↑ ^{a b c} Article printed in Jochen Schmidt: Politische Brandstiftung. Berlin 2002, p. 29.
39. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Otto Diederichs: The police debacle of Rostock. Attempt at an analytical assessment. In: Bürgerrechte & Polizei / CILIP 44 (1/1993).
40. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 24.
41. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 28.
42. ↑ Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the state parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . Parliamentary document 1/3277, June 16, 1993, p. 44., online version
43. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry of the State Parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Recommended resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 41 f.
44. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 30 f.
45. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 31.
46. ↑ ^{a b c} Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 36.
47. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 25.
48. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 147.
49. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 32.
50. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 33
51. ↑ Florian Diekmann: Burschenschafter incites against Nazi resistance fighters . In: Spiegel Online . April 11, 2012.
52. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 33.
53. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 34.
54. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 35.
55. ↑ ^{a b} Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Parliament: Recommended resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 45.
56. ↑ ^{a b c d} Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Parliament: Recommended resolution and interim report June 16, 1993, p. 47.
57. ^ Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, p. 36.
58. ↑ Answer of the Federal Government to the small question of the Bundestag member Ulla Jelpke and the Bundestag group PDS / LL. Printed matter 12/3230. (PDF; 410 kB) German Bundestag, 12th electoral period, printed matter 12/3389, October 8, 1992, pp. 6, 10.
59. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 70.
60. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 78 f.
61. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 79.
62. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 91.
63. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 94., 124 f., 149.
64. ↑ Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the state parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 52.
65. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 81.
66. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 97-102.
67. ↑ ^{a b c} Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, pp. 53-63.
68. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 84.
69. ^ NDR documentation When Rostock-Lichtenhagen burned. 2012, at Min. 37:49 (copy on YouTube , accessed December 30, 2012).
70. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 89-91.
71. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 106.
72. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 106-114.
73. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 111.
74. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 122.
75. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 113 f.
76. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 92.
77. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 115.
78. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 132.
79. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 116.
80. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 134.
81. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 141.
82. ↑ Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the state parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 86.
83. ↑ Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the state parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 37.
84. ↑ Parliamentary committee of inquiry of the state parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: recommendation for a resolution and interim report . June 16, 1993, p. 73.
85. ^ ^{A b c} Michael Lausberg: The extreme right in East Germany 1990-1998. Marburg 2012, p. 64.
86. ↑ The Fall of Man. In: dradio.de. August 24, 2007
87. ↑ TV recording. In: youtube.com
88. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 157.
89. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 182.
90. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 142–144
91. ↑ Heribert Prantl : Hysteria and helplessness. Chronicle of the asylum debate since German reunification. In: Immigration and Asylum in a Competitive Society. ed. v. Bernhard Blanke, Opladen 1993, p. 321.
92. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 156.
93. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 158.
94. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 180.
95. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, p. 38.
96. ↑ Answer of the Federal Government to the small question of the Bundestag member Ulla Jelpke and the Bundestag group PDS / LL. Printed matter 12/3230. German Bundestag, 12th electoral term, printed matter 12/3389, October 8, 1992, p. 10 (PDF; 410 kB).
97. ^ ^{A b} Michael Lausberg: The extreme right in East Germany 1990–1998. Marburg 2012, p. 63.
98. ^ A small question from the Bundestag member Ulla Jelpke and the Bundestag group PDS / LL. Claim by the Federal Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Seiters, about cooperation between the autonomous and right-wing radicals. German Bundestag, 12th electoral term, printed matter 12/3547, 22 August 1992 (PDF; 276 kB).
99. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt 2002, p. 211
100. ^ ^{A b} Michael Lausberg: The extreme right in East Germany 1990–1998. Marburg 2012, p. 62.
101. ^ Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 315.
102. ↑ Online at langphoto.de ( Memento from April 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); see also What is Harald Ewert ashamed of? In: Der Tagesspiegel. January 6, 2002.
103. ↑ Printed in headlines. Rostock: Racism in the media. Editors: Siegfried Jäger, Helmut Kellershohn, Joachim Pfennig. 2nd Edition. Duisburg 1992, p. 23.
104. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, p. 69 ff.
105. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Langer: Conflagration from the right. Rostock 1993, pp. 70-71.
106. ^ Roman Guski: After Rostock-Lichtenhagen: Processing and Perspectives of Remembrance . In: Thomas Prenzel (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen . ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Rostock 2012, p. 38 (PDF; 1.4 MB).
107. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 179.
108. ↑ Printed in headlines. Rostock: Racism in the media. Editors: Siegfried Jäger, Helmut Kellershohn, Joachim Pfennig. 2nd Edition. Duisburg 1992, p. 18.
109. ↑ ^{a b} Enlightenment for Politics. In: The time. January 29, 1993.
110. ^ Foreword from Kölner against Racism and Neo-Nazis. In: arschhuh.de. Quoted from ass huh - Zäng ussenander! Cologne against racism and neo-Nazis. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1992.
111. ↑ Karin Weiss: After the fall of the Wall: Vietnamese contract workers in East Germany today . In: Karin Weiss, Mike Dennis (eds.): Success in the niche? The Vietnamese in the GDR and in East Germany . Münster 2005, p. 90.
112. ^ Phuong Kollath : The Diên Hông Association - Self-Help and Integration Work in Rostock . In: Karin Weiss, Mike Dennis (eds.): Success in the niche? The Vietnamese in the GDR and in East Germany . Münster 2005, pp. 127-136; see also the website of the Diên Hông association .
113. ^ Website of the association Bunt statt Braun .
114. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 145 f, 167.
115. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 168.
116. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 169.
117. ^ So Freimut Duve , quoted in: Michael Lausberg: Die extreme Rechts in Ostdeutschland 1990–1998. Marburg 2012, p. 64.
118. ↑ The truth lies in Rostock. Documentary by Mark Saunders and Siobhan Cleary, produced by a Rostock initiative (JAKO videocoop) and Spectacle (London) for Channel4, D 1993, 82 minutes ( available online on youtube )
119. ↑ ^{a b} Migration report by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees on behalf of the Federal Government ( Memento from January 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: bmi.bund.de , 2008, p. 119 (PDF)
120. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 49 f.
121. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 175.
122. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 177; Political discussion instead of trauma Lichtenhagen , published by the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin 1994.
123. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 178 f.
124. ↑ ^{a b c d} Done. In: Die Zeit , November 19, 1993.
125. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 152.
126. ↑ ^{a b c d} Michael Lausberg: Die extreme right in East Germany 1990–1998 , Marburg 2012, p. 65.
127. ↑ ^{a b} Only four rioters were jailed. In: Die Zeit , 25/2002, June 13, 2002.
128. ↑ I was part of the pack. In: Die Zeit , June 13, 2002
129. ↑ Ten years after the fact. In: Berliner Zeitung , June 17, 2002.
130. ↑ ^{a b} attempted murder. In: Die Zeit , June 20, 2002.
131. ↑ Defender: The Rostock riots are statute-barred. In: welt.de , 2001, November 21, 2001
132. ↑ Without contact. In: berliner-zeitung.de , April 4, 2002
133. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 124.
134. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 127 f.
135. ↑ ^{a b c} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 148.
136. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 96.
137. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 150.
138. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 151.
139. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 154.
140. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 25 f.
141. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 101 f.
142. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 120-122.
143. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 189.
144. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 191.
145. ↑ Summarized in Jochen Schmidt: Political Arson. Berlin 2002, p. 184.
146. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 125–127.
147. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 181, 185.
148. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 83.
149. ^ Pogroms and fresh shirts . In: Die Zeit , No. 3/2003.
150. ^ Rostock: 20 years after the pogroms .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: arte .tv , 23 August 2012, from 2:10.  
151. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 185.
152. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted from Ulrich Herbert : History of foreign policy in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees. Munich 2001, p. 317.
153. ↑ Quoted from Jochen Schmidt: Political Arson. Berlin 2002, p. 206.
154. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 192 f.
155. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 82.
156. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 61 ff., 200, 205.
157. ↑ Stephan Geelhaar u. a .: Rostock-Lichtenhagen as a conformist revolt . In: 20 years of Rostock-Lichtenhagen . ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Rostock 2012, pp. 59–61 (PDF; 1.4 MB) ,.
158. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 196.
159. ↑ ^{a b} Christian Lüdemann, Thomas Ohlemacher: Sociology of criminality. Theoretical and empirical perspectives , Weinheim, Munich 2002, p. 90.
160. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, pp. 69-71.
161. ↑ ^{a b} Freerk Huisken : German lessons from Rostock and Mölln . 2nd Edition. Hamburg 2001, p. 14 [unchanged new edition of the 1993 edition].
162. ^ Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 190.
163. ^ Karl-Otto Richter, Bernhard Schmidtbauer: On the acceptance of asylum seekers in Rostock city . In: From politics and contemporary history , B 2-3 / 1993, pp. 45–54.
164. ↑ ^{a b} Stephan Geelhaar u. a .: Rostock-Lichtenhagen as a conformist revolt . ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.4 MB) Rostock 2012, pp. 59ff., 65.
165. ↑ Current issues of internal security using the example of the city of Rostock . In: Defensive Democracy and Right-Wing Extremism . Federal Ministry of the Interior, 1992, p. 88; quoted in Otto Diederichs: The Rostock Police Debacle. Attempt at an analytical assessment . In: Bürgerrechte & Polizei / CILIP , 44 (1/1993); summarized in Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 138.
166. ↑ Ulrike Heß: Xenophobic violence in Germany. A sociological analysis . Munich 1996, p. 117.
167. ↑ Gerhard Schmidtchen : How far is it to Germany? Social psychology of youth in the post-socialist world , Opladen 1997; summarized in: Youth in East and West Germany: A new study shows their longing for values ​​as well as their willingness to use violence . In: Die Zeit , No. 8/1997.
168. ↑ ^{a b} verassungsschutz-mv.de: The development of right-wing extremist activities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the years 1992-2002 . ( Memento from September 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 485 kB) Schwerin 2002, p. 12; Interim report of the investigative committee of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament , June 16, 1993.
169. ↑ ^{a b} Answer of the Federal Government (PDF; 410 kB) to a small request from the MP Ulla Jelpke and the PDS / Linke Liste group of October 8, 1992, printed matter 12/3389.
170. ^ So Mathias Brodkorb and Thomas Schmidt: Right-wing extremism in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - an overview. (PDF; 888 kB) In: Is there a modern right-wing extremism? , edited by Mathias Brodkorb and Thomas Schmidt, Rostock 2002, p. 67.
171. ↑ Walter Süß: On the perception and interpretation of right-wing extremism in the GDR by the MfS , Berlin 1993, p. 11.
172. ↑ ^{a b c} Holger Bredel: Skinheads - Danger from the right? , Berlin 2002, p. 71.
173. ↑ Quoted from Michael Lausberg: Die extreme Rechts in Ostdeutschland 1990–1998 , Marburg 2012, p. 39.
174. ^ Verassungsschutz-mv.de: The development of right-wing extremist activities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the years 1992-2002 ( Memento from September 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 485 kB), Schwerin 2002, pp. 35, 34, 28.
175. ^ ^{A b} Jochen Schmidt: Political arson. Berlin 2002, p. 54.
176. ^ Klaus Schroeder: Right-wing extremism and youth violence in Germany. An east-west comparison. Paderborn 2004, p. 71.
177. ^ NDR documentation When Rostock-Lichtenhagen burned , 2012, from 8:45 am (excerpts on ndr.de , copy on YouTube ).
178. ↑ Joachim Gauck's speech on August 26, 2012 in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, p. 4.
179. ↑ ^{a b} Germany failed again in Rostock-Lichtenhagen . In: tagesspiegel.de , August 28, 2012.
180. ↑ Stephan Geelhaar, Ulrike Marz, Thomas Prenzel: Rostock-Lichtenhagen as a conformist revolt . In: Thomas Prenzel (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen . ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.4 MB) Rostock 2012, p. 55 ff. [P. 55, notes 4–6 with further papers discussing the theory of the conformist revolt in the 1990s]
181. ↑ ^{a b} Stephan Geelhaar, Ulrike Marz, Thomas Prenzel: Rostock-Lichtenhagen as a conformist revolt . In: Thomas Prenzel (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen . Rostock 2012, pp. 55-58.
182. ↑ Stephan Geelhaar u. a .: Rostock-Lichtenhagen as a conformist revolt . 2012, p. 65.
183. ↑ Va: 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen , ed. v. Thomas Prenzel, Rostock 2012 (Rostock information on politics and administration 32)
184. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Kien Nghi Ha (2012): Rostock-Lichtenhagen. The return of the repressed. In: Heinrich Böll Foundation. Local lore. Migration policy portal.
185. ↑ cf. Five years after Rostock: A look back in anger. In: antifainfoblatt.de , November 18, 1997.
186. ↑ Thousands remember the Lichtenhagen riots . ( Memento from August 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: ndr.de , August 25, 2012.
187. ↑ Memory of the victims of Lichtenhagen . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 30, 2012.
188. ^ Roman Guski: After Rostock-Lichtenhagen: Processing and Perspectives of Remembrance . In: Thomas Prenzel (Ed.): 20 years Rostock-Lichtenhagen . ( Memento of August 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.4 MB) Rostock 2012, p. 48 f.
189. ↑ Lichtenhagen - The chapter of evil. In: tagesspiegel.de , August 26, 2012.
190. ↑ The foxtail takes hold . In: taz.de , August 29, 2012.
191. ↑ Text on wecker.de .
192. ↑ Interview in Rock Hard magazine , 1993.
193. ↑ Announcement Until it stops ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
194. ↑ The film team will be shooting in town from Tuesday . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , online edition, April 19, 2013
195. ^ Rostock-Lichtenhagen in Halle. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , online edition, April 23, 2013.
196. ↑ Look the monster in the face . In: faz.net , April 23, 2013.
197. ↑ Feature film about riots in Lichtenhagen has world premiere . In: Ostsee-Zeitung , January 23, 2015.
198. ↑ Hall as a backdrop for Rostock riots . ( Memento from April 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: mdr.de , April 23, 2013.
199. ↑ Radio play version under Sunflower House. In: freie-radios.net (MP3, 34 minutes, 43 seconds, 48 ​​MB)
200. ↑ Florian Frederik Manthey: "I wasn't afraid." - Dan Thy Nguyens and Iraklis Panagiotopoulos' play and radio play "Sunflower House". New perspectives on the culture of remembrance on the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen . In: Geschichtswerkstatt Rostock e. V. (Ed.): Contemporary history regional. Messages from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . tape 20 , no. 1 , 2016, p. 47-55 .
201. ↑ 50,000 euros for Lichtenhagen guilt cult! In: npd-mv.de ; Retrieved May 6, 2012.
202. ↑ Nationalist slogan instead of a memorial plaque . ( Memento from December 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: ndr.de , December 5, 2012.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 27, 2012 .

Coordinates: 54 ° 9 ′ 11 ″  N , 12 ° 3 ′ 59 ″  E