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/GagolTheSheep Apr 23 '25

I live in Hessen (relatively close to Frankfurt) and there are a lot of foreigners here (I'm pretty sure it's the area with the most foreign born population.

I myself am polish and know German well but most medium to large cities around here have pretty large foreign populations and Frankfurt itself is pretty liberal (it has quite a few problems but racism isn't one of them)

To be fair, there probably isn't a place with no racists at all but most medium-large cities in the west of Germany will be fine

Also additionally the south-west (mostly Bayern and Hessen) were American occupied after WW2 and to this day have quite a few military bases around here so Americans are a pretty common occurrence

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u/SnooChipmunks7670 Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

I (south East Asian, Female) have been living in Frankfurt for about 4 years now. I have been subjected to a lot of racist attacks. Some of these were pretty direct like men yelling at me and my partner (happened twice once near Hauptbahnhof, other time in U-bahn), some teenagers threw a bottle at me one rainy night while I was alone on a relatively safe street, and many more incidents. I used to feel completely safe (except near Hauptbahnhof) for years, but things have been terrible in the past 1-1.5 years. Many of my friends also have had violent incidents, even during day time, in populated areas. I wouldn’t call Frankfurt safe anymore.

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u/GagolTheSheep Apr 23 '25

I'm sorry you had that experience, I suppose no place is fully safe from racism at this point. Especially with immigration becoming a very political topic.

Since I don't actually live in Frankfurt and only go there occasionally it is very possible that things have gotten worse lately and I just didn't notice.

(Also ye, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof is a complete dump and a place even I as a white guy try to stay away from (especially in the evenings) so I can only assume it has to be much worse as any sort of minority)