The number of sexual assaults at outdoor swimming pools in Germany is increasing. This week, further cases are reported from several cities.
The summer heat is driving people to outdoor pools – but with the swimming season, the number of sexual assaults also increases. The perpetrators are almost exclusively men. The number of incidents has increased in recent weeks – several crimes were reported in four German states on Wednesday, writes Die Welt.
In Ludwigshafen, a 36-year-old man harassed four girls and women aged between 13 and 28. In Besigheim in the Ludwigsburg district, a 14-year-old girl was grabbed on the bum by a 27-year-old man.
In Asperg, just a few kilometres away, a 25-year-old man masturbated on a bubble bed in the non-swimming pool – right in front of several 13- and 14-year-old boys.
In Ludwigshafen, a 36-year-old man harassed four girls and women aged between 13 and 28. According to the police, he touched them in an inappropriate way, including on the buttocks. Security guards alerted the police. The man is now being investigated for sexual harassment.
In Rüsselsheim, a 28-year-old man with no permanent residence in Germany was temporarily arrested. The man is suspected of indecently touching a 23-year-old woman while he was swimming.
This comes shortly after the incident in Gelnhausen, where nine girls aged 11-17 were molested by five Syrians. The incident sparked not only outrage, but also a political debate about offender profiling and security concepts.
It’s fairly obvious that this is one of several negative consequences of Angela Merkel’s «Wir schaffen das» declaration and the opening of borders in 2015.
According to the Bavarian State Office for Correctional Services, 227 cases have been registered so far in 2024. According to the statistics, the perpetrators are almost exclusively men. In 2024, 159 out of 163 suspects were men. Particularly striking is the high proportion of non-German suspects: 97 out of 163 did not have German citizenship – equivalent to about 60 per cent.
Of the 40 per cent who actually had German citizenship, the odds are hardly particularly high if you want to bet that a majority of these are immigrants.
In Berlin, 19 crimes have been recorded so far this year, including two sexual assaults. 14 of the incidents involved physical assault, and three involved threats or coercion. This relates to the period April to June, according to the newspaper BZ.
In a commentary in Die Welt, Henryk M. Broder writes that these assaults mean the end of the «welcome culture». Broder goes on to write: «The realisation that the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington may have been right in his book ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ is slowly dawning.»
Broder also reacts to Mayor Christian Litzinger’s reaction after the attacks in Gelnhausen. He stated: «In high temperatures, tempers can sometimes flare.»
But why does this temperature contagion only affect immigrants?
Litzinger does have a point: In winter, assaults don’t happen at outdoor pools, simply because the pools are closed. The abuse then moves to schools, or to crowded buses and trains.
The clash of civilisations takes place daily and openly, Broder writes. This affects not only Germany, but all of Western Europe.
In swimming pools, kindergartens and supermarkets, at schools and universities, at festivals, in hospitals and on public transport.
But millions of people suffer from mental illness without resorting to stabbing, violence and sexual assault. What’s more, it’s not exactly common for white German women to harass boys with dark skin.
After widespread criticism on social media, the city of Büren has apparently removed the controversial sexual harassment posters from its outdoor pools. However, the city is defending its campaign.
The «welcome culture» that Katrin Göring-Eckardt of Die Grünen boasted about during the party congress about ten years ago no longer exists.
Göring-Eckardt exulted that«our country will change, and change drastically» and become «younger, more diverse and probably more religious».
She was right in a way, but forgot to mention the costs, in terms of violence, sexual assault and terror, as well as a cost to taxpayers of an unknown number of hundreds of billions of euros.
