Hamburg sees rise of left-extremism and Islamists after G20

Against the background of the G20 riots last year, the number of left-wing extremist crimes had risen to 1 625. According to a German secret service report presented on Thursday, there were only 165 such offenses in 2016.

The extreme left scene has grown, with security authorities of the Hanseatic city counting at least 1 220 left radicals in the previous year, 120 more than in 2016.

Mayor Olaf Scholz has called the Rote Flora the “spiritual combustion engine” of riots. From that spot, the Antifa’s destructive actions are coordinated. The notorious place is a former theatre in the Sternschanze quarter in Hamburg. It has been squatted since November 1989 in response to a decision to turn it into a musical theatre.

Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) does not want to clamp down on the extreme left-wing scene meetings at Rote Flora, according to the regional newspaper, the Hamburger Abendblatt.

At the presentation of the secret service report, Grote said: “It depends very much on how the Flora behaves in the future. When I talk about options for action, I mean that we as a state must always be able to act – and that is what we are in terms of the Flora. This is not a lawless area.”

But not only the Flora inhabitants, but also the interventionist left and the red supporters are organisations posing an obvious danger to public order.

But it is counterproductive to debate the Flora for political reasons, Grote argued. In the opinion of the senator, this would lead to a “wave of solidarity of unprecedented dimensions” and “drive the sympathizers into the arms of the extremists”.

The number of anti-constitutional and violent Islamists in Hamburg has increased significantly in the past year, and according to Grote: “The most significant focus of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is the fight against religious and especially, of course, Islamist extremism.”

Grote also announced that it would increase its secret service staff to more than 200 from the current 180-strong force. “This strong increase in personnel represents an absolute security gain for the people of Hamburg.”

In addition to left-wing extremism, surveillance of the Islamist scene is also a focus of the work of the security authorities. Their number has increased from 1 355 in 2016 to 1 565 currently of which 800 are violence-prone.

Because of the G20, left-wing extremist crimes increased tenfold in 2017, said Grote. The next big conservative rally is apparently scheduled for September. According to Hamburg’s constitutional protection chief Torsten Voß, most of the organisers are “right-wing extremists”.