Almost 70 percent of Germans say they are annoyed at being held responsible for the Holocaust and many believe Jews use Germany’s Nazi past to their advantage, a major German university survey showed Thursday.
The survey by Bielefeld University showed 69.9 percent were irritated at still being held responsible today for World War Two-era crimes against Jews.
A quarter of 3,000 people surveyed also agreed with the statement: “Many Jews try to use Germany’s Third Reich past to their advantage and want to make Germans pay for it.” A further 30 percent said there was “some truth” to the statement.
Almost two-thirds said they believed too many foreigners live in Germany, while 30 percent said foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce.
Germany, still haunted by guilt, has spent the nearly six decades since World War Two debating how to atone for the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.
‘Surprising figure’
Endorsing the survey, German parliamentary president Wolfgang Thierse said he understood why so many wanted to shed the guilt for what happened before they were born. He said the survey did not prove there is widespread anti-Jewish sentiment.
“It’s a surprising figure at first. But when you think about the thought process behind it, it is understandable,” he said. “The people alive now are not the perpetrators.”
There was a new distinction between guilt and a responsibility to keep history from repeating itself, he said.
The authors of the survey said they found Germans worried about security threats and losing their jobs more hostile to Jews, Muslims and immigrants.
More than a quarter of respondents said Muslims should not be allowed to come to Germany.
“Particularly with regard to the jobs market, foreigners are increasingly seen as a burden,” said Wilhelm Heitmeyer from Bielefeld University, whose study is set to run to 2032.
’Not grounds for hysteria’
One in 10 German workers is unemployed and more than a quarter of the survey’s respondents said they expected to lose their job in the next five years. People find life increasingly hard and were looking for scapegoats, Heitmeyer said.
Some 7.3 million foreigners live in Germany, or about nine percent of its population of just over 82 million. Three million of those foreigners are Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin.
About 10 percent of the U.S. population, or some 26 million people, is foreign-born.
The 2003 survey, the second to be carried out by the university, introduced some new questions but also repeated ones from 2002. The comparison showed xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism had all risen slightly.
Thierse said the results were “not grounds for hysteria.”
“I have looked at studies in other countries and my impression is this problem is not specifically German, in a European context we are no different to other countries.”
New questions in the survey also highlighted hostility toward Germany’s three million Muslims and the authors warned that attacks by Islamist groups could lead to more tension.
Basel Allozy from the German-Muslim integration group Inssan said the survey was not surprising. “It’s high time people start dealing with anti-Islamism. The expression needs to become an everyday one because the problem has existed for a while.”