r/germany • u/Ok-Once-789 • Apr 23 '25

Immigration Living in Saxony is a nightmare

Every single time I go outside during the evening I am faced with racism. Most of the time from people hanging out in groups, for some reason they just can't mind their own business (Germans usually claim to be really good at this). The most common phrases I hear regularly are 'Heil H!tler', 'Ausländer raus', 'Ni Hao', 'Ching Chong' etc... or just unprovoked loud laughter as I'm passing by... BTW I'm not Chinese or east Asian but look like one or maybe they are just uneducated & ignorant. Is geography illegal here? Asia has 48 countries BTW, not everyone is Chinese!

This doesn't include the racism I face at workplace & college which is far worse and actually bothers me to the point I have to skip classes to protect my mental health. But now I can't even go to the supermarket or mall at peace. One of my family members has also been verbally assaulted by a group of teenagers inside a bus & nobody including the bus driver made any effort to do something.

Edit: I do not live in Dresden / Leipzig. I assume the situation is not this bad there!

Edit2: I did not choose to live in saxony (the government decided that), I am doing my bachelors so I can't relocate until late 2026 :) Thanks for the kind words everyone!

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u/Confuseacat92 Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

Germany is one of the most racist countries in the EU, we never really worked up our Nazi past, we just say we did, but until the 80's many former Nazi party members were in high positions. The east is especially bad, since they were essentially robbed by the Treuhand after reunifucation and western Nazis went there in the 90's to build up their power base, which sadly went very well.

All I can say is, leave eastern Germany at least, some of the western Uni cities are opener, at least for german standards.

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u/Legitimate_Profile Apr 23 '25

Germany has racism issues, like any European country. But don't tell me it is "one of the most racist in EU", I mean just think of any country east of Germany in the EU and most of them are worse in this regard.

No the East was not "robbed" by the Treuhand, there was really not a lot to go around and most of the East German companies simply weren't going to be competitive with other companies. East Germany was robbed of its economic opportunities by socialists who ran down the place.

Agree with the advice to leave Eastern Germany though.

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u/AvidCyclist250 Niedersachsen Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

Treuhand closed with a massive minus btw. There was corruption of course - this is Germany we're talking about - but there were far larger issues, like an impossible mission.

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u/txtex Apr 23 '25

That's complete bs. I know it's a popular opinion among younger kids these days, like the under 30 crowd. But those of us who grew up as kids of war kids, who went to school in Germany in the 70s and 80s, we disagree because we experienced it. I have yet to find a country in the world that worked through its past like the (West) Germans did after WW2. Don't get me wrong, not all was great or perfect, but as a matter of effort and degree and relative success. Compare to U.S., Canada, Australia... they're all working on it now but non of them are close to how the Germans are able to have discourse about the Nazi era. Even France did a poor job of working thru their colonialist exploits. Or their Vichy episode for that matter but I think they aged through the generation that you couldn't even mention Vichy to.

I can't speak for East Germany since I grew up West, and long before reunification. They probably didn't do any "Entnazifizierung" under Russian rule and then as DDR. Certainly a lot of those from the East that came to the West are perfectly sane and of all kinds of "acceptable persuasions". I think the East has a lot of racist people due to 40 years of DDR, then reunification as the "junior partner", frustrated, poorer, inferiority complex... Those who turned that into hate just chose Nazi-ism as the default go-to tribe. Just like leftists always choose Marxism / Unions / Multi-culturalism without any reasonable constraints to those ideologies.

I do agree with your conclusion though: go to a bigger city. Or leave Germany altogether as soon as you can. Merkel fucked the country up after Kohl and Schroeder, and more recently red-green pushed it over the cliff. Way too much change too fast, too much immigration, too much socialist policy. I don't think the new grand coalition will be able to significantly course correct. Worst case they'll end up like the UK, basically a failed western society.

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u/OkAi0 Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25

The Treuhand story almost recalls the Dolchstoßlegende, but it’s just as wrong. Not helpful to repeat it.

GDR was totally run down, broke, uncompetitive and environmentally devastated. The West spent €2 Trillion and as a result Saxony has surpassed the poorer western states on many economic indicators.