Racist riots in Schönau in 1992

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In 1992, in the Mannheim district of Schönau , there were racist riots against a collective camp for asylum seekers in the old gendarmerie barracks.

prehistory

At the end of the 1980s / beginning of the 1990s, Schönau developed from an old working-class district that was traditionally close to the SPD into a problematic social district in which drug trafficking and consumption flourished and the unemployment and crime rates rose. Several apartment blocks with social housing were built in Schönau-Nord .

At the end of November 1991, the old gendarmerie barracks were returned to the city by the US Army. The building was then approved by the city administration for use as a state assembly center for asylum seekers. 216 refugees should move in there. Although several city councils voiced their concerns about opening a refugee shelter in a problem area, the plan was implemented and in January 1992 the first 59 asylum seekers moved in. Already then there were complaints from the neighborhood about noise pollution and contamination of the opposite school yard. Attempts by the responsible social workers to defuse the situation by integrating the refugees into other youth welfare facilities, for example the youth center or the youth leisure center, failed because of the concerns of the respective employees and providers.

The situation in the district finally worsened when the upper limit of 216 people was exceeded at the end of April 1992. There were fights between the asylum seekers and Schönauer, especially among the young people. In May, the TV station RTL reported in its local program about a mass brawl in the accommodation, which was ignited by the poor food.

Beginning of the riots

On May 26, 1992, the rumor spread that an African asylum seeker from the collective center had raped a 16-year-old girl. In fact, she was raped by her own friend, an American, who gave false information when he was arrested and pretended to be one of the asylum seekers. A mob of around 150 young people and older people moved in front of the accommodation and wanted to catch the alleged perpetrator. Nothing happened that evening.

After the rumors spread again at a festival on May 28th, a public holiday, and this was broken up shortly afterwards due to some brawls, another mob of 100 to 150 people, some of them drunk, went to the refugee home with baseball bats. Xenophobic slogans were shouted there. Neither the police nor Lord Mayor Gerhard Widder (SPD) and city councilor Regina Trösch managed to calm the angry crowd, which also grew to 400 people. These began to throw stones, bottles and firecrackers at the police and the camp. The police called reinforcements from Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate and began to clear the site at 10:30 p.m. About 24 people were arrested.

The next day, Widder wrote to the citizens of Schönau, in which he announced that he would stop the influx of refugee families in favor of young single people and establish a porter service in the home. Despite this courtesy, in which the racist mob was not mentioned, hundreds of people gathered again on May 29 in front of the former barracks, which was now guarded by security forces. The television station Sat.1 reported on site and showed film recordings of young people shouting racist slogans. 21 people were arrested. There were also counter protests. A solidary group of around 60 people unrolled a banner with the inscription “Against Racism - Right to Stay for Everyone!” And moved towards the collective accommodation.

Protests have also been announced for May 30th. The police set up a buffer between the two groups, i.e. those who demonstrated against the refugees and those who showed solidarity with the refugees. The evening passed without any major incident. According to the media, a total of 150 to 200 people on the side of the anti-racists and 50 to 500 refugee opponents have gathered.

On June 2, 1992, a group of thirty from Pro Asyl unfurled a banner that read "Get rid of the racist bourgeoisie". The group eventually grew to 100 people. The anti-asylum mob also gathered again. There was a fight between the two groups. There was also a fight between the police and the autonomous side.

Aries then banned all demonstrations and gatherings in front of the home. But just one day later, on the fringes of a meeting in the district between residents and refugees, a gathering of around 50 to 100 refugee opponents and around twice as many anti-fascists took place. The police were able to separate the two groups and found a large number of cutting weapons among the autonomists, who had also traveled from the surrounding cities. At night, a demonstration of the refugee opponents took place under police protection.

On June 4, opponents of refugees also gathered in front of the barracks. Twelve youths armed with batons were arrested.

On Saturday, June 6th, an alliance called for a demonstration against the xenophobic attacks. Aries had the demonstration banned. The police then evacuated the Mannheimer Paradeplatz, where 200 to 300 demonstrators gathered, by force. A total of seven people were injured and 140 people were temporarily arrested.

The protests then subsided on both sides. A week later, a march of 2,500 people took place against racism. 189 people were arrested. However, the march was generally peaceful.

The following evaluation

Matthias Möller examined the riots in Mannheim-Schönau in 2007 as part of a master's thesis at the University of Tübingen , which was later published as a paperback. Matthias Möller also appeared as a speaker in the following years. The mob appeared in Mannheim as a very mixed audience. The protests did not consist of organized neo-Nazis, as in other cities, but were normal citizens and not an organized protest. Because of this, and because the police protected the refugee home, he does not see the riots as a pogrom . What was special for him, however, was that the state violence predominantly took action against anti-fascists, while the xenophobic protests were tolerated.

In 2017 Richard Rohrmoser published an article in an anthology by the Friends of the City Archives on youth protests in Mannheim in which he took up his research.

Both also address the role of the media and the mayor. So who had the Mannheimer Morgen tendentious reports about the protests and the racist mob also fired as mayor Widder, who advocated a tougher asylum policy and expressed understanding for the racist mob. The protests were also reinterpreted as "non-political", so that the riots are less imprinted on the collective memory than the pogroms in Hoyerswerda , Rostock-Lichtenhagen , Solingen and Mölln . There were also fewer incidents there. Nevertheless, he sees the incidents as one of "several high points in a chain of attacks on refugees and their accommodations after German reunification".

literature

  • Matthias Möller: "A very direct people"? : Mannheim-Schönau and the representation of collective violence against refugees . Orig.-issued edition. Nevertheless, Frankfurt, M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-931786-41-0 .
  • Richard Rohrmoser: The racist riots in Schönau in 1992 . In: Youth Protest and Youth Culture in the 20th Century. Over 100 years of dynamic youth in Mannheim . Edited by Philipp Gassert, Ulrich Nieß, Hanspeter Rings and Richard Rohrmoser. Mannheim: Friends of the Mannheim City Archives 2017. ISBN 978-3-9817924-2-3 . Pages 144-156
  • Don't forget Schönau! Don't forget the information brochure of the Schönau Committee. May 2007 (new edition 2012). ( PDF )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Richard Rohrmoser: The racist riots in Schönau in 1992 . In: Youth Protest and Youth Culture in the 20th Century. Over 100 years of dynamic youth in Mannheim . Edited by Philipp Gassert, Ulrich Nieß, Hanspeter Rings and Richard Rohrmoser. Mannheim: Friends of the Mannheim City Archives 2017. ISBN 978-3-9817924-2-3 . Pages 146f
  2. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 147>
  3. ↑ a b c Andrea Röpke, Andreas Speit: Blood and Honor: History and Presence of Right-Wing Violence in Germany . Ch. Links Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86284-236-0 , p. 102 f . ( google.de [accessed on May 11, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. P. 149f
  5. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 150
  6. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 152
  7. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. S. 152f
  8. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 151
  9. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 152
  10. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 153
  11. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 154
  12. ↑ Matthias Möller: "A very direct people"? : Mannheim-Schönau and the representation of collective violence against refugees . Orig.-issued edition. Nevertheless, Frankfurt, M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-931786-41-0 .
  13. ↑ a b Mannheim against right: don't forget Schönau! - 20 years after the pogrom-like riots in Mannheim-Schönau. Retrieved on May 11, 2020 (German).
  14. ↑ Racism kills! 1992. Pogrom in Mannheim-Schönau. An interview with Matthias Möller. YouTube , accessed May 21, 2012 .
  15. ↑ Rohrmoser 2017. p. 156