Riots in Erfurt in 1975

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The riots in Erfurt found in August 1975 in Erfurt , the first xenophobic, pogrom-like riots in 1945 in Germany. The events from August 10th to 13th were directed against Algerian contract workers who had been employed in various Erfurt factories since June 1975. During this period, Germans chased Algerians through downtown Erfurt several times and attacked them with iron bars and wooden slats, among other things.

prehistory

Even before August 10, there had been conflicts between Germans and Algerians since the arrival of Algerian contract workers. The riots in June and July 1975 were preceded by several physical disputes in restaurants and at dance events between Germans, Algerians and Hungarians.

These are closely related to the numerous rumors and allegations against Algerian contract workers that spread before August 10th. Allegedly the Algerians were “not clean”, “not hardworking” and “fond of alcohol and casual women”. There were also suspicions that Algerian contract workers would be better paid and would also benefit from finding accommodation. In an interview with Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, a former member of the German People's Police (VP), who was present at the riots on August 12, suspected the causes of a specific event. According to this, the Algerian contract workers were housed in apartments that had previously been promised to GDR citizens.

In addition to rumors about the unequal treatment of Germans and Algerians, there were also fictitious accusations that the Algerian contract workers had raped German women and murdered up to ten Germans. The Erfurt district administration of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) investigated all rumors. However, she did not find a single serious crime committed by Algerians. In fact, the MfS found that since the arrival of the Algerians in Erfurt, several people "had been circulating continuously rumors that had no basis whatsoever". One of the ringleaders had apparently planned brawls with Algerians days before the incident.

procedure

The following descriptions refer to the research of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and the historian Harry Waibel . Both refer to files of the MfS. Accordingly, it must be borne in mind that the MfS refers in its files to the reports of white Germans (especially by people's police and employees of the MfS) and had hardly taken up the perspective of the Algerian contract workers.

Furthermore, the interpretations of the MDR assign the Algerian contract workers a certain complicity in the attacks. Especially during the first hunt on August 10th, it is apparently assumed that only the aggressive behavior of an Algerian towards a German woman led to the escalation of the situation. At the same time, it is known that false rumors were deliberately spread about Algerians and that violent German young people deliberately provoked and attacked Algerians in downtown Erfurt. It therefore remains unclear how spontaneous the racist attacks really were from August 10th.

The fact that most of the events between August 10th and 13th during the day took place very centrally in downtown Erfurt is not considered in the following. It is therefore clear that in addition to the attackers, numerous passers-by and onlookers were present. Except from the People's Police, there is no known direct aid to Algerians as victims of racist attacks.

August 10

On August 10, the situation in Erfurt escalated for the first time. According to the MfS documentation, an Algerian tried to kiss a German woman against her will in the hustle and bustle on Domplatz . Some German teenagers watched the incident and broke his nose. A second Algerian was also beaten up. Thereupon the 25 or so Algerians fled from the cathedral square towards the fish market. “In an angry, pogrom-like mood, they were first followed by around 150 and later almost 300 young people.” They beat the Algerians with “slats and poles stolen from construction sites and from market stalls”. A German later convicted as the main perpetrator had set a sheepdog on the contract workers.

August 11th

On the following day, the situation initially seemed to have calmed down. The security forces noticed that Algerians were behaving “correctly” in the city center. In the evening, a rumor reached the dormitory of the Algerian contract workers on Nordhäuser Strasse that some compatriots had been attacked again. A group of Algerians immediately armed themselves with sticks, wire ropes and knives, but they did not get far. The tram drivers refused to transport the Algerians, and rail operations were suspended. The group calmed down. In a discussion that followed, Algerians stated that they no longer wanted to be treated “as second or third class people”. In the dormitory, the security forces found a leaflet that read "GDR fascists" and "We want to go home".

12. August

On August 12th, 50 to 60 young people from Germany gathered in downtown Erfurt. They provoked the Algerians present, prevented them from going to their dormitory and beat them up. The Algerians fled in panic and fear for their lives, whereupon the people's policemen present ushered them into the courtyard of the main post office. The German pursuers rushed close behind them. More and more people gathered in front of the post office. The MfS noted that the attackers called for the Algerians to be surrendered in chants. The meanwhile 150 to 300 people shouted: "Kill the Algerians, chase them home, they should shear themselves into the bush again", "Give the Algerians out", "kill them", "hang them up", "Germans out - Algerians in chains ”or“ kill the cops ”. The situation now also became threatening for the police officers. Stones flew, there were broken pieces, but ultimately the security forces managed to lead the Algerians through the back exit to be evacuated to the dormitory under cover. When the racist mob tried to force their way into the building, the TP broke up the spontaneous meeting with batons and the use of dogs. A total of 19 people were provisionally arrested.

13 August

The next day, August 13th, around 150 people gathered again and there were “loud and provocative discussions” with the People's Police. At the same time, squads of screaming Germans armed with sticks headed for the Algerian dormitory. The VP was alarmed and countered with a large contingent. The group of racists was broken up in front of the dormitory by people's police officers who took data from 132 GDR citizens and arrested 57 people. Five suspected "ringleaders and hooligans" were taken into custody.

Reactions and consequences

Information on the reactions and consequences to the Erfurt pogroms can also be found in the MfS files. We know that in the weeks after the incidents, attempts were made to improve the situation, primarily through increased public information. Newspapers reported on the incidents, the events were evaluated in factories and the existing rumors were dealt with. The sports offer for the Algerians was increased in the companies. The Stasi rated this as a success. Accordingly, many Algerians now used the opportunities offered by the company sports clubs together with their German colleagues.

The 31 Germans involved were subsequently investigated, and another twelve received a fine. The trial took place in August. The "main perpetrators" received several years' imprisonment. Most had a criminal record. The verdicts against the "ringleaders" of the hunt did not silence the rumors among the population. Many Erfurters criticized an alleged unequal treatment. The Germans had been convicted, nothing happened to the foreigners. That would border on perversion of the law.

How strongly these rumors further shaped the general formation of opinion in the population was shown in an inventory by the MfS in September 1975. At the Angermuseum , employees stubbornly believed that Algerians had attacked people with knives. Some GDR citizens were killed, including a woman. Employees at the local print shop said that they no longer dare to go out on the streets in the evening, as they could be attacked by Algerians. In the Combine Forming Technology, the workforce was outraged that three Germans had their throats cut. Algerians attacked a couple from Erfurt in the Nordpark. The man was immediately stabbed to death, while the woman was raped by three Algerians. The testimony of a SED comrade who turned against the arguments of his party has also been handed down. It was not about ideological motives at all, he claimed, but rather about "natural problems that are crucial: 150 young men have sexual needs that have to be taken into account (brothel)."

There were also persistent rumors about instructions or information from government agencies to the population that warned against foreigners. For example, the VP allegedly "warned the population to be careful" in the Rieth residential area in Erfurt. Rumors circulated in kindergartens about instructions from the Department of Popular Education, "in which the Algerians' predisposition to approach girls as early as 9-14 years had been pointed out". Many people assumed that when guilt issues are resolved, Algerians are generally favored. Missing press reports were rated as "evidence of the manipulation of the incidents". Similar to the rumors before the rioting, the rumors after August 13th were mostly fictitious and racially motivated.

Accordingly, there continued to be arguments and racist hostility. One week after the hunt through the Erfurt center, individual groups of German youths who gathered at certain points in the city to provoke Algerians were again noticed. In addition, the nationalist and racist agitation against Algerians continued throughout the country and ultimately led to the Algerian government's almost complete withdrawal of the Algerian workers from the GDR.

Historical classification

Due to the low level of awareness of these racist attacks, the term "forgotten pogroms of Erfurt" has also emerged. In fact, these xenophobic and pogrom-like excesses play a subordinate role in the public memory of the city of Erfurt and Germany as a whole. As a result, the wrong assumption arose in the past that the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992 were the first pogrom-like riots in Germany after 1945.

The knowledge that racism and right-wing extremism was a widespread and persistent problem in the GDR cannot be found in the files relating to the Erfurt events. Xenophobic incidents or, for example, desecration of Jewish cemeteries with Nazi slogans, there were quite a few in the 1970s, including in Thuringia. However, a corresponding awareness of the problem that hatred of foreigners and racism were commonplace within GDR society and that right-wing extremism could also flourish in socialism did not develop until the 1980s, especially with the emergence of different youth cultures.

literature

  • Harry Waibel : The failed anti-fascism of the SED. Racism in the GDR . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-65073-8 .
  • Rainer Erices : Hunting in August 1975 in Erfurt. How xenophobia was played down and denied in the GDR. In: Gerbergasse 18. Thuringian quarterly magazine for contemporary history and politics. 4/2018, issue 89, ISSN  1431-1607 , pp. 22-25.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rainer Erices : Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia , archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; accessed on February 12, 2018 (introduction): “In August 1975 there was a pogrom mood in Erfurt. German youths chased hundreds of Algerians through the city. Some of the attackers went to court. MDR THÜRINGEN has evaluated the extensive Stasi files on everyday racism in the GDR. "
  2. ↑ a b c d Harry Waibel: The failed anti-fascism of the SED. Racism in the GDR. In: publikative.org. Publikative.org , November 27, 2014, accessed on February 13, 2018 (section: Racism against “contract workers”).
  3. ↑ a b Anniversary of the forgotten pogroms of Erfurt '75 & racism in the GDR. In: deutschlanddemobilisiert.wordpress.com. Naturfreundejugend Berlin, August 15, 2016, accessed on February 13, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia , archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; accessed on February 12, 2018 (section: Escalated situation in Erfurt).
  5. ↑ Story in First: Shadow on Friendship of Nations. (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR.de, April 10, 2017, archived from the original on February 10, 2018 ; Retrieved on February 9, 2018 (the above-mentioned statement by the People's Police from 3:20 min.).
  6. ^ A b c d Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; Retrieved February 12, 2018 (section: Failure of government agencies).
  7. ↑ a b Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; Retrieved on February 12, 2018 (section: Large formation of the security forces).
  8. ^ Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; Retrieved on February 12, 2018 (section: Algerians fled for fear for their lives).
  9. ^ Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; Retrieved on February 12, 2018 (section: Prison sentences for main offenders).
  10. ^ Rainer Erices: Everyday racism in the GDR. Pogrom mood in Erfurt: "Give them to us, we want to hang them". (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on November 20, 2017 ; Retrieved on February 12, 2018 (section: Many rumors due to lack of information).
  11. ^ Anniversary of the forgotten pogroms of Erfurt '75 & racism in the GDR. In: deutschlanddemobilisiert.wordpress.com. Naturfreundejugend Berlin, August 15, 2016, accessed on February 13, 2018 (This is where this term is mentioned for the first time.): “The history of the pogroms and racist attacks in the GDR is largely unknown. We want to take a look back today in order to better understand today's mobilizations in Saxony or Thuringia. "
  12. ↑ H. Waibel: The failed anti-fascism of the SED . Review by Enrico Heizer in H-Soz-Kult from May 4, 2016