Nearly half of criminal suspects in violent crimes are foreign nationals in Germany, police statistics have found.
According to the annual statistical release from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), violent crime in Germany fell slightly in 2025, by 2.3 per cent compared with the previous year. However, the agency noted that “Non-German suspects continue to be significantly overrepresented in violent crime” at 42.9 per cent.
Data collected from various federal states across the country from the Welt am Sonntag newspaper found similar results, with around one in every two suspects of violent crimes in Bavaria, Berlin, and Baden-Württemberg being foreign nationals, which is significantly higher than their proportion of the population, with just 15 per cent not having a German passport.
While the data only reveals the number of suspects, rather than those convicted, it is one of the only means of estimating the criminality of different ethnic groups in the country.
The data appear to demonstrate that some groups are significantly more likely to be suspected of violent crime, with Afghans being 14 times more likely to be suspected than German nationals, and Syrians being 16 times more likely.
The true disparity is likely to be even greater, however, given that migrants who obtained German citizenship or their children would be counted among the native population.
Although other factors do come into play in the disparity, with migrants being more likely to be younger, and are more male than the general population — both indicators of higher criminality — the data does indicate that gender does not explain the entire difference.
Indeed, according to the Welt am Sonntag report, the number of violent female suspects in Berlin from Afghanistan (569) and Syria (539) were both higher than the number of German male suspects (387).
While violent crime fell overall, the statistics also revealed that certain violent crimes are on the rise in Germany, notably sexual offences. According to the BKA, 2025 saw a nine per cent increase in cases of rape over the year before. However, the police agency said that there had been a 72 per cent increase in suspected rapes since 2018.
The statistics found that migrants were again overrepresented at 38.5 per cent of all rape suspects. Yet, migrants made up a smaller contingent of rape victims, at 22.3 per cent.
Member of the Bundestag parliament for the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Sascha Lensing, said of the statistics: “The proportion of non-German suspects is not a marginal phenomenon, but a central factor – especially when it comes to violence in public spaces.”
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann of the centrist Christian Social Union (CSU) party said that the figures showed a “clear connection with the high level of immigration in recent years” and added that “anyone who has no right to stay, anyone who commits crimes or rejects our values must leave our country.”
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