A government agency combating discrimination in Germany logged a record number of complaints in 2023. Around 40% of them pertained to racism, while roughly a quarter targeted the disabled or chronically ill.

The German government agency combating discrimination (the ADS) logged 10,772 complaints from members of the public in 2023, its highest annual figure and an increase of 22% on the previous year’s figures.

“Our case numbers show an alarming trend,” the commissioner heading the agency, Ferda Ataman, said in Berlin on Tuesday while presenting the report. “More people than ever before are getting first-hand experience of the increasing societal polarization and radicalization. The situation is serious.”

Ataman said that “the foreigners-out-mood and contempt for human beings have become normal nowadays — not just while partying on Sylt or at public festivals,” referring to two prominent recent cases that courted national and sometimes international media attention.