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Britons blamed for 'Nazi' attacks
It appears that the effects of Holocaust education and the media
Holocaust are having
the effect of starting racially motivated attacks on Germans
By Kate Connolly in Berlin
Friday 1 August 2003
Telegraph Network
German schoolchildren visiting Britain are being attacked on the streets
because of British "prejudices and stereotypes" about Germany, London's
ambassador to Berlin said yesterday.
Sir Peter Torry said he was alarmed at the number of physical and verbal
assaults on young Germans taking place "across the country" which seemed to
be motivated by anti-German feelings.
A 15-year old boy was taken to hospital in Canterbury six weeks ago after
youths taunted his school group and branded them "Nazis" in the latest
incident.
Sir Peter told The Telegraph: "It is hard to explain why it is that
15-year-old kids in 2003 are attacking Germans on the streets and calling
them Nazis when neither they nor their parents have direct experience of the
war.
"We need to ask ourselves where these prejudices and stereotypes are coming
from."
The ambassador said since taking up his post two months ago he had been
shocked by the number of letters he had received from German parents and
teachers about such attacks.
The embassy cited five specific examples of physical assaults in just over a
year, in Hastings, East Sussex; Frinton-on-Sea, Essex; Morden, south London,
and Bolton, Lancashire, as well as the Canterbury incident.
As 13,000 German schoolchildren visit Britain annually the real figure could
be much higher. A spokesman added that verbal attacks were not unusual.
Sir Peter said: "If there is a perception amongst our kids that Germans
today are Nazis, are of the type that led to the Third Reich and the
catastrophes of the Third Reich I think that is something we should be
concerned about because it doesn't correspond to the reality.
"Given that Germany is our closest ally in the EU and that something like
300,000 jobs in Britain are dependent on German investment, these sorts of
stereotypes can only be harmful."
He added that a number of senior German officials had told him they were
concerned about the persistent stereotyping of Germans in Britain.
Sir Peter blamed a combination of factors, including the drastic decline in
German language teaching in British schools and the "preoccupation" with the
Nazi era in history lessons, as possible reasons for the attacks.
"We should try to get across the message through the media, through the
teaching of our kids, that there's more to German history than the 12 years
of the German Reich - the achievements of Germany since and before the war,"
he said.
"But this is unfortunately no longer a priority because German is no longer
taught as a second language."
He said he would broach the topic with Charles Clarke, the education
minister, who recently criticised the "Hitlerisation" of history teaching in
British schools.
Sir Peter, who was born in Germany in the late 1940s where his father was
stationed with the military and was ambassador to Madrid before taking up
the Berlin post, emphasised that depictions of Germans in popular British
culture only reinforced certain stereotypes.
"Part of the stereotyping comes from the repetition and rehash of the war
films and comedy programmes like Fawlty Towers," Sir Peter added.
Ilse Brigitte Eitze-Schutz, the head of an exchange programme at the German
conference of education ministers, said concern was growing about the
negative treatment received by Germans in Britain.
She added: "We're observing these tendencies with growing apprehension and
think it due to the fact that foreign language learning in Britain -
particularly of German - is decreasing and that many schools in Britain have
no interest in forming partnerships with German schools
