Timelines

In September 1991, a group of neo-Nazis, alongside several hundred local residents, besieged a neighborhood in Hoyerswerda inhabited predominantly by Vietnamese contract workers and home to an asylum-seekers’ shelter. A year later, similiar xenophobic-inspired riots occured in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, a town that was inhabited primarily by Roma families and was the the central processing point for asylum-seekers. As many as 3,000 local residents took part in the rioting, often actively, alongside the right-wing extremist instigators. These incidents, along with several others, occurred during a time of heated political and social debates on immigration and asylum. Not only did a large segment of the local population support the attacks, but the police also remained passive and largely unresponsive. These attacks and the rise in xenophobic sentiment coincided with intensified national unity following the reunification of East and West Germany. Unemployment in the reintegrated territories of the East skyrocketed, leading to discontent and a sense of hopelessness, particularly among youth. Acts of racially motivated violence, perpetrated mostly by youths and young adults, increased dramatically in the early 1990s. A mere two months after Rostock-Lichtenhagen, arson attacks were carried out in Mölln and the following year in Solingen. (see: Arson attacks in Mölln and Solingen, 1992-1993)