BERLIN — Politically motivated crimes in Germany reached a new high last year, with the greatest number of cases attributed to actors with right-wing beliefs, according to statistics released Tuesday by the interior ministry.

“The majority of crimes were committed by right-wing and far-right perpetrators, which once again demonstrates that the greatest danger currently stems from far-right extremism,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in Berlin on Tuesday after presenting an annual report on crimes motivated by political ideology.

Yet, he said far-left actors were responsible for the largest increase in violent crimes, with offenses attributed to left-wing extremist ideology up by about 42 percent. That surge, said Dobrindt, underscores the “growing threat” posed by the “far-left scene.”

A total of 85,837 political crimes were recorded in 2025, an increase of just 2 percent over 2024, when the authorities recorded a surge of around 40 percent. That means such crimes remained at a relatively high-level last year rather than continuing to soar.

Crimes attributed to actors with right-wing ideological motives made up just under half of the total recorded crimes in 2025. The sharp rise in violent crimes committed by left-wing actors was largely attributed to incidents recorded during protests and demonstrations, including those coinciding with the far-right Alternative for Germany(AfD) party’s convention in eastern Germany and the founding congress of the AfD’s new youth organization.

Authorities attributed the overall high level in such crimes to increasing radicalization and political polarization in a year of a snap federal election— with nearly every sixth crime linked to elections— as well as domestic frictions over the war in Gaza.

“Social media, through which hate speech, incitement, and propaganda are spread, are major drivers of social polarization,” said Holger Münch, the head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office. “This also accelerates radicalization and, in the worst-case scenario, leads to serious crimes in the physical world.”

Political crimes related to espionage also surged by 558 percent to 474 recorded cases in 2025, according to the annual statistics. German authorities observed a growing reliance on so-called “disposable agents,” which are often recruited via messaging services and deployed for specific espionage or sabotage operations.

“Due to its central role within the EU, NATO, and the global economy, Germany is one of the primary targets of foreign intelligence services and state actors,” read the annual report.