Extremist crimes in Germany down, number of fanatics up Germany's domestic intelligence agency says criminal extremism has declined, but numbers of potential extremists have risen. The BfV's annual report noted a sharp increase in members of the radical Reichsbürger movement.

(Deutsche Welle) The overall news was good as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) President Hans-Georg Maassen presented their report on Tuesday for 2017.

Politically motivated crimes in Germany declined by 4.9 percent over 2016 from 41,549 to 39,505. Far-right extremist crimes also declined by an impressive 35 percent, although their numbers remain higher than in 2014, the year before the so-called migrant crisis.

Still, as was true of left-wing extremism, the number of people deemed potential committers of far-right extremist crimes rose slightly. For that reason, neither Seehofer nor Maassen was bragging about the results of the study.

Right-wing extremists, Seehofer cautioned, weren’t always easy to recognize and could be radicalized “in extremely short spans of time.” He added that the extreme right potential for violence hadn’t remained “high.”

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