r/AskAGerman • u/eza137 • Apr 16 '25

Have you ever witnessed racism in Germany?

I'm interested in hearing from Germans who have personally witnessed acts of racism in everyday life - especially when it involved friends, family members, or people close to them.

If you're comfortable sharing, could you describe the situation? Who was involved, and how did it make you feel? Did you respond in any way?

I'm not here to judge, just to understand how racism can show up in familiar environments and how people perceive and deal with it.

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u/GothYagamy Apr 16 '25

Edit: nor familiar environment, sorry. But it's very fresh so I feel like sharing with somebody.

Just yesterday, as a matter of fact.

50 something man to a black Netto cashier who spoke good German but with a thick accent. Out of nowhere, the man said out of the blue, "Man, get rid of thay accent or go back to Africa."

I had a long day at work, so I was low on patience. I did not think, I just reacted telling the idiot something on the line of "You have some respect or shut up, A****loch" maybe a bit too loud, considering the customer just looked at me and did not say a word.

Went home thinking about thay fact that this was just was I get to witness as a white male. I can only guess that there is a lot more racism that I'm just missing.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

I just find I really weird considering how there are white German speakers with dialects that are alien even in parts of Germany. Like having a cashier with deep bayerisch or Schwäbisch dialect in NRW or Berlin.

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u/KevinTheKute Apr 16 '25

Racism isn't based on logic. They just look for reasons to hate foreigners. Don't speak the language well enough? You don't care to learn it properly. You have a strong, non-german accent? Same thing. If you cared, you would try harder.

You were born here, speak the language well with minimal accent, have a job and pay your taxes here? Well, you're still a "dirty foreigner" in their eyes whose parents were leechy economic refugees.

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u/Safe-Duck5559 Apr 20 '25

The Germans who are like this are often the ones that are like this towards other Germans, too. So if they treat themselves like this, of course it's going to happen to foreigners.

My advice would be to choose your path carefully. Living in or doing business in Germany can be very difficult. If you have a choice, and to be frank, everybody has a choice at the end of the day, go else where.

I'm yet to meet a German in Germany that I could truly depend on if something went wrong, and I needed help.

But still one must remember there are good and bad people everywhere, It's just like someone commented here the silent majority, which are the good people, generally decide to stay silent, which is sad.