Anti-antisemitism in Germany is the German state's institutionalised opposition to antisemitism, in acknowledgement of German history and the murder of some six million Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust. Anti-antisemitism has been described as "a defining marker of post-war German identity"[1] and a commitment to supporting Israel is considered a "Staatsräson", a fundamental principle guiding the German state's actions.[2] [3] Following the 2015 European migrant crisis, the German federal government and most of Germany's states set up commissioners for fighting antisemitism. Controversially, the German government officially classifies the following as antisemitic: the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, the accusation that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, and the depiction of Israel as a colonial or settler-colonial entity. Many of those arrested and cancelled in Germany over allegations of antisemitism have been Jews critical of Israel's policies.
In the wake of the 2015 European migrant crisis, German institutions created full-time or part-time positions for fighting antisemitism.[4] [5] The German Parliament decided to establish the office of "Commissioner of the Government for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism" in January 2018; in addition, 15 of the 16 federal states (Bundesländer) had appointed their own antisemitism commissioners by 2024, with five of these states having additional commissioners in their chief public prosecutors' offices. The commissioners are non-Jews who work in concert with German Jewish organizations and the German-Israeli Society.
According to Germany's Federal Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism,, the reason for the creation of these positions was the large influx of immigrants and refugees from the Middle East, thought to harbour anti-Jewish sentiments. German antisemitism commissioners frequently speak of an "imported" antisemitism. While only a small fraction of antisemitic incidents (1 percent in 2021) are classified as Islamic,[6] and there is no apparent correlation between immigration and violent antisemitic attacks (committed almost entirely by far-right ethnic Germans),[7] the vast majority of the discourse revolves around racialized minority groups and those intellectuals who stand in solidarity with them.[8] Judith Gruber writes that the belief that Germany has successfully confronted The Holocaust enables the projection of antisemitism onto the outside world, especially to Muslim immigrants—a subtle form of Islamophobia that coexists with the vehement rejection of antisemitism.[1]
Although hate-motivated violence against asylum seekers, Muslim Germans, and refugee aid workers occurs much more frequently,[7] no equivalent institution was created on behalf of Muslim victims of hate crimes.[9] The antisemitism commissioners were controversial from their outset and continuously over the first five years of their operation.
According to Peter Ullrich, German discourse on antisemitism is premised on it being eliminationist and irrational.[10]
In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, German anti-antisemitism has involved the infusion of new tropes into German public discourse, with a focus on "post-colonial antisemitism", "Israel-related antisemitism" and "hatred of Israel", creating a link between antisemitism—hatred of Jews—and anti-Zionism. It is used to imply that solidarity with Palestinians, which is particularly widespread in the global south, is due to hatred of Jews rather than the expression of a legitimate political view of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Australian historian A. Dirk Moses has said the aim of this is to prevent postcolonial academics as well as the German art and museum scenes from fostering the spread of such views.[11] Major public debates followed the invitation—and subsequent disinvitation due to political pressure from Commissioner Klein—of postcolonial Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe to the 2020 Ruhrtriennale festival[12] and the invitation of a Palestinian art collective to the Documenta 15 art exhibition in 2022.[13]
Particular points in the German debate include the controversial characterization as antisemitism, and consequent rejection, of the following:
In 2019, the Bundestag passed a resolution declaring Germany's "unique historical responsibility", which entailed prioritizing "the fight against antisemitism and a commitment to Israel's security" as part of Germany's Staatsräson. The resolution also declared the BDS movement antisemitic and compared it to the 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. This comparison—and belief that BDS is "nothing less than the start of a road to another Holocaust"—is prevalent in German discourse. However, this comparison has been described as "highly questionable, if not pure demagogy" by peace researcher Gert Krell, who highlights the difference between objecting to a military occupation versus targeting a powerless minority in a totalitarian state. In 2024, Germany labeled BDS an extremist organization[15] —despite its commitment to non-violence.[14] Although the ability to block BDS is limited by protections on freedom of expression, the anti-BDS efforts have had a significant effect.[14]
The German position is that the apartheid allegation is "demonization of the Jewish State of Israel"; therefore, slogans and stickers such as "no pride in apartheid" have been registered as antisemitic incidents. In contrast, the International Court of Justice stated in its 2024 advisory opinion on the "Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem" that Israel had violated Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which contains the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid.[16] [17] [18]
With the sole exception of the Linke party, the Staatsräson ideology came to be supported by all political parties represented in the German parliament, including the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.[19] In November 2024, an antisemitism resolution proposed by the German mainstream parties "to protect Jewish life" passed with a great cross-party majority in the German parliament, with only the newly formed, left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance voting against.[20] [21] The resolution ties public arts and science funding in Germany to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism, which critics say conflates criticism of Israel with Jew hatred. The resolution was praised by the Israeli government and the state-funded Central Council of Jews in Germany, but Jewish artists and academics in Germany came out strongly against it, with some warning that it identified Jewishness with the policies of the state of the Israel and might lead to the "surreal" situation where Jewish and Israeli human rights groups are deemed antisemitic by the German state.
Numerous Jewish speakers—including Nancy Fraser and Masha Gessen—have been deplatformed in Germany due to criticism of the Israeli state deemed beyond the bounds of German public discourse,[22] while other Jewish activists—including Adam Broomberg and other members of the anti-Zionist group Jüdische Stimme (Jewish Voice)—have been arrested at pro-Palestinian protests.[23] [24] Jüdische Stimme also had its bank accounts repeatedly frozen amid accusations that it supports BDS and "demonizes and delegitimizes the Israeli state in particular".[25] [26]
British-Israeli professor Eyal Weizman, the founder of Forensic Architecture, said that it was ironic that he and other Jews were "being lectured by the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators who murdered our families and who now dare to tell us that we are antisemitic".[27] Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham similarly said, "To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire—and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger ... If this is Germany's way of dealing with its guilt over the Holocaust, they are emptying it of all meaning."[28] A group of Jewish-Israeli students in Berlin working on an art project titled "Unlearning Zionism" had its funding withdrawn and was accused of antisemitism—"How can we and our work be placed in an intimate connection with the ideology of Nazis?" asked Yehudit Yinhar, a member of the group, whose grandmother fled Berlin in 1938. Jews represent less than 1% of the German population, yet in 2023, of the 84 cases of deplatforming or cancellation documented by the German Diaspora Alliance, a quarter (25%) targeted Jewish individuals or groups with Jewish members.[29] According to researcher Emily Dische-Becker, nearly a third of the people cancelled over antisemitism allegations in recent years have been Jews.[30] [31]
In August 2024, an open letter published by Die Tageszeitung and signed by 150 Jewish personalities expressed the view that the German draft resolution "to protect Jewish life" was focusing on the wrong people.[32] The letter said: "We do not fear our Muslim neighbours, nor do we fear our fellow artists, writers and academics. We fear the growing right-wing, as evidenced by mass gatherings of neo-Nazis emboldened by a national climate of xenophobic fear. We fear Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country's second-most popular political party, whose leaders knowingly traffic in Nazi rhetoric. This threat is barely mentioned in the resolution."
South African Jewish artist Candice Breitz – herself de-platformed in Germany – criticized the German approach as part of a troubling dynamic where Germans decided who were "good Jews" and "bad Jews" in order to suppress dissent. Her views were echoed by Eyal Weizman: "The irony that the German state would actually classify who is a Jew, what's a legitimate Jewish position, and how Jews should react, is just beneath contempt."
The approach has led to complaints about a type of McCarthyism from German and international scholars, artists, writers and intellectuals. Critics of the commissioners argue that they rely heavily on reporting from pro-Israeli NGOs, who investigate the backgrounds of invited speakers in order to find material that can be used in an attempt to cancel them.[14] In 2023, more than 400 scholars, among them Judith Butler and Noam Chomsky, published an open letter "opposing ideological or political interference and litmus tests in Germany." Several dozen prominent Jewish academics signed another open letter critical of commissioner Klein. Philosopher Susan Neiman noted that Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein would not be able to lecture at publicly funded institutions in present-day Germany, given that both had signed an open letter in 1948 calling Israeli violence "fascist"—a statement that today would fall under the IHRA definition of antisemitism used by the German state and adopted by German universities in late 2019.[33]
Charlotte Wiedemann has described "Staatsräson" thought as authoritarian and comfortable, "a kind of national sofa for the educated classes. It allows an inertia of the heart and mind, it allows one to feel morally superior while avoiding burning questions of humanity. This has created a mentality of wilful ignorance: as if there is a special German right not to know – not to know what exactly is going on in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank, or how dangerous Israel's radical right wing actually is."[34] Hannah C. Tzuberi argues that in Germany, anti-antisemitism can go beyond the identification of Germans with Jews because it can even include the identification of Germans as Jews and the identification of Germany as Israel.[35]
In 2024, the Conference of European Rabbis awarded Federal Commissioner Klein the Moshe Rosen Prize for his work. Volker Beck, president of the German–Israeli Society, and Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, welcomed the joint November 2024 draft resolution by the coalition parties of Germany's government aimed at "protecting, preserving, and strengthening Jewish life in Germany".[36]