Are Germans singing in the streets to welcome "hitherto unseen" numbers of migrants, even though the number of crimes committed by migrants in Germany has soared by 72 percent since 2021? No, that's not true: The video with the claim shows Germans giving immigrants a choral reception, but it dates from 2015 when Germany was taking in unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers from war-ravaged countries. The video is not from 2024 when the German government is even working to limit irregular migration. Furthermore, according to police statistics, the number of crimes committed by non-Germans in 2022, the last full year for which statistics are available, did not increase by anywhere near 72 percent compared to 2021.
The claim appeared in a Hungarian-language video (archived here) on TikTok on January 27, 2024, under the title "Germans are singing for the immigrants!" (translation from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff). The presenter is Bence Apáti, a choreographer who is also a partner of Megafon Center, which produces social media content in support of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Apáti says (as translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
Have you heard the Germans singing for the migrants? You're going to shit your pants!
The video switches to a clip of people standing in a street singing an English-language verse:
Say it loud, say it clear, Refugees are welcome here...
Apáti then says (as translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
You didn't misunderstand. The Germans, with teary eyes, with thumping hearts, are singing while awaiting the migrants. As if they were awaiting the national team returning from the Olympics, singing 'über alles.' But no... Hitherto unseen crowds are arriving in Germany even to the present day. Since 2021, the number of crimes committed by migrants has increased by 72 percent... Is there any way out of this for Germany?
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Feb 1 12:37:05 2024 UTC)
The clip does indeed show Germans singing together to welcome migrants, but it was filmed on September 5, 2015, as can be seen at the 1:47 mark of a video in the Associated Press archive titled "Migrants arrive in Saalfeld" (archived here). That year, a record 1.3 million migrants pushed into the European Union, Switzerland, and Norway, about half of them fleeing the conflict-ridden countries of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center (archived here). Germany received 441,899 new asylum applications in 2015 and 722,370 in 2016, according to a report by Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (archived here).
By comparison, 329,120 people filed first-time asylum applications in Germany in 2023, according to a separate statement by the Migration Office on January 8, 2024 (archived here). This casts doubt on Apáti's claim that "hitherto unseen" numbers of migrants are flowing into Germany in 2024.
Refugees arriving in 2024 may not get the same reception that the refugees enjoyed in 2015. Since June 2023, the anti-immigrant party "Alternative für Deutschland" (Alternative for Germany, AfD) has been registering record levels of support between 19 and 22 percent, according to opinion polls by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen agency (archived here). The governing coalition parties, which are trailing the AfD in the polls, passed a law (archived here) on January 18, 2024, that aims to "speed up repatriations and deportations of those who have no right to remain in Germany" and foresees significant cuts in benefits for migrants (archived here).
It is unclear why Apáti states that the rate of crimes committed by migrants residing in Germany has increased by 72 percent since 2021. In December 2023, Germany's Federal Police Office updated its report titled "Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung" (translated by Lead Stories staff as "Crime in the Context of Immigration," downloadable here). Using data from 2022, the last full year for which statistics are available, the police reported that the number of crimes involving at least one immigrant suspect was 271,626, a 12.3 percent increase compared to 2021's number of 241,788.
These numbers exclude recorded violations of immigration law, which numbered 225,829 in 2022 and 146,853 in 2021, according to a statistical report (archived here) compiled by Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community in March 2023. If all immigration-law offenders were non-Germans, the total number of crimes involving at least one immigrant suspect would come to 497,455 in 2022, representing a 28 percent increase over 2021's level of 388,641.
The Federal Police Office notes that restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic may have slowed criminal activity in 2021. Compared to 2019, the last full year before the virus broke out in Europe, the number of non-immigration crimes involving at least one immigrant suspect in 2022 increased by just 2.1 percent, the report said.
A Google search (archived here) with the German words "Straftaten" AND "Migranten" AND "2022" AND "72" AND "Prozent" OR "%" (criminal offense, migrants, 2022, 72, percent, %) did not yield any credible results that would confirm the claim that crimes committed by migrants in Germany have soared by 72 percent since 2021.
Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is an anti-immigration leader who warned in 2015 that European leaders had concluded a "secret agreement" that would allow Islamic migrants to "overrun" Europe, according to a statement on his official website (archived here).
More Lead Stories debunks of Hungarian claims related to migrants can be found here.
