SUZ123NJ

These ridiculous statements stem from the "alt right" publications, trolls on Twitter and the repetition by foolish people who are now banning immigrants here in US. A lie repeated enough is thought to be real. Trust the people who live in the city. Good luck

PaulMSN

That's just big-cityness. Any big city in the US will be worse.

transparent

Anecdotal, but I had my luggage stolen from right next to me at a train station in a medium sized city in Germany this past Fall. My fault, for sure, for not having my hand on my luggage while I was looking up train schedules on my phone and trying to match to a track number on the board at the same time, and taking my eyes off my luggage too.

Police said it happens all the time. This is not something that I can imagine happening with any frequency in most parts of Asia or the U.S., not even NYC. Police seemed to indicate that there was some upward trend of such occurrences since opening up to refugees. I don't think it's fair to blame all refugees or immigrants for any increase or perceived increase in petty crime (or harassment/assault like the NYE reports), but I also imagine that if there is a connection it has to do with lack of support and opportunity once refugees are admitted. And of course, there are always bad apples in the bunch, as we've seen in recent protests in the US.

PSA: Credit card insurance from Citi will not cover this circumstance (my train ticket was purchased on my Citi Thankyou Premier, last time I use that card for anything), stating that trips don't begin until you step foot on the train, or alternatively, they don't cover hand luggage (even though the benefits guide says they do). Chase and Amex said they would have covered it.

PaulMSN

Yes, as anecdotal evidence it is less useful, but it is also backed up by statistics. I will add mine: I have been in Germany somewhere between 25 and 50 times and in Europe over 100 times. My experiences are the same -- nothing bad happened, even though I've walked through the seedier districts of many big cities at night. My worst experience -- trapped on a crowded Polish train from Warsaw with a bunch of drunken newly-discharged soldiers, one of whom decided I was his new friend.

teachertraveler

As a single American woman now in my 5th year of living in Germany, two of which in Berlin, I can say that Germany is definitely safer than the US.

I moved into my apartment in Berlin a month before the flood of refugee in 2015 and the main administrative processing center is less than a kilometer from me. I live in an immigrant neighborhood anyway because, well, I'm an immigrant and what I love is that kids still play out on the sidewalk, go to the grocery store on their own with their keys around their neck and neighbors still shout out their windows to each other.

Things I can do in Germany that I would never do in the US:
-Ride public transportation by myself at 1AM.
-Buy furniture from strangers on ebay and show up at their house. Be offered coffee and a ride home with said furniture. This happened more than once.
-Ride my bicycle without the fear of getting killed.

When I lived in Bavaria, I had a cafe that I frequented and I could leave my laptop and purse on the table, go to the restroom and return with no fear of anything being lost. Everyone was watching out for each other. *Note: do not do this in Berlin*

It really makes me upset that Americans spread rumors about Germany, not based on any statistics, but fear. In comparison, the US is so much more unsafe. I've had to live with the horror of dear friends being murdered in the US. I taught in inner city schools where we had to be trained how to deal with trauma in children because the things they saw on a daily basis were traumatic. That's unfathomable in Germany.

Germany is wonderful for children and families: exceptional healthcare, generous parental leave, beautiful green spaces, safe roads and public transport, very family-friendly culture.

I think it's wise that you are doing research and I would highly recommend doing a visit before making a decision. Stay with a local and do "daily life" kinds of things.

All the best!

Daedalus214

I've traveled to Frankfurt for ~25 years and have never felt threatened or worried walking around that city day or night. On one of my first trips, there was a small group (3-4) of Roma (I believe) children that tried to, unsuccessfully, separate me from my luggage. A hard kick to the ... of one miscreant sent them all on their way. That has been the only time I have ever had problems. For the first ten years of my visits there seemed to be a lot of graffiti on the trains (U-Bahn and S-Bahn) and buildings. This was a time when West Germany was spending large amounts of money integrating East Germany, and I think some things slipped. This does not seem to be the case anymore; still some graffiti but not like it was.

The only area I thought was sketchy was Kaiserstrasse just outside of the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, where the sex shows are located (Think of Times Square from 20+ years ago). There were always many drug addicts in that area as well because some entity (German government?) would feed them on a daily basis. This is a small 4 block by 3 block area. Away from that area, you will be fine.

Frankfurt also has the largest (I think) Convention Center (Messe) in the world. There are trade fairs there that draw people from every corner of the planet. I do not think the Federal or Local governments would put that cash cow at risk by not making sure that Frankfurt was a safe city.

The Cities to the Northwest of Frankfurt are very high end; Bad Homburg, Oberusel, Kronberg, Konigstein. I believe the American school is in Oberusel at the end of the U-3 (Oberusel Hohemark), which also has great hiking in the Taunus and mountain biking.

Sachenhausen has great museums, walking along the Main river on a sunny Sunday in the summer is just spectacular. The Schnitzel with Green sauce and Apfelwein are not to be missed.

I am a big fan of Germany and especially Frankfurt. I would move there in a heartbeat as the quality of life is quite high. You may even want to get yourself a little Schrebergarten by the Deutsche Bahn and watch the ICE go by.

Ifti Khan

I think your buddy meant Frankfort, Kentucky!

Scrooge McDuck

^ We should have figured this one out much earlier!

AATrout

Im in Frankfurt a lot as well as Munich, speak fluent german (but don’t have to in order to survive) and while these two metro areas are very different re: demographics, both are perfectly safe. i would not hesitate to range into “seedy” areas of either, whereas with certain areas of SE Washington DC or the near west or south side of Chicago - I would not get out alive.

offerendum

Really? First we had this problems for centuries as most other countries have. When I was in Saigon I was warned by Vietnamese people that they have big problems with pickpocketing.

Re immigrants: Many people claim crime increased with the arrival of immigrants. But so far I miss any proove. Yes, we had spectacular cases (1 murder, 1 rape) were immigrants were the offender. But if you consider the number of immigrants it´s logical that something happens. As street-murders or street-rapes are very rare in Germany every case gets treatment at the news.

Regarding pickpocketing/ burglary many offenders are part of gangs, often from eastern Europe. Can´t also see a significant impact of refugees.

Nevertheless we must be Aware that some criminal elements impose the situation amd enter Germany "as refugees". That was the case with terrorists catched in Germany. But this is nothing you are normally affected by in the daily life.

BigE

Here's the U.S. gov't (Obama administration) report on 2016 German crime: https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentRe...aspx?cid=19030

They expressed concerned about recent increases in crime rate and about the influx of immigrants. But they still gave German "medium" rating, which is pretty good I think.

Here's a German page for crime statistics: https://www.bka.de/DE/Home/home_node.html

They even have a report in English on changes crime rates. https://www.bka.de/EN/CurrentInforma....html?nn=39580

It seems there was a downward trend in crime over the last decade+, but there has been a small uptick in recent years of a few percent. It's still relatively safe.

If I'm reading it right, the stats seem to show that immigrants (overall) are disproportionately responsible for crimes. Something like 8% of population but 25% of crimes. There are rumors that police have are told to downplay immigrant crimes, but that's hard to prove.

Again, Germany still seems safe overall and much safer than most places.

Flying Lawyer

In particular much safer than the US: The chance to get murdered in the US is four times as high as it is in Germany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._homicide_rate

Given that I have to agree with on statement of the POTUS: The US offers great opportunities. Just to encounter POTUS´ allegations: Most of the US capital crimes are neither committed by muslims nor by illegal immigrants.

Scrooge McDuck

When you look at the plain figures, then there is one caveat you need to consider. Many immigrants come without official identification papers (due to many reasons). This is a crime here is Germany and it is usually reflected in the official statistics. So, it would be good to know if these figures are part of the referenced statistics or not. I personally don't want to call and count this as a crime committed by immigrants.

Sorry, but I lost the reference for the following: About 2-3 years ago, we had the same set of arguments. The police in Braunschweig (?) then made a decision for which they were heavily bashed. In case of a crime, they were also registering if the crime was committed by an immigrant or not. The result surprised everyone. There was no difference between immigrants and "local" people in terms of averages (even broken down to the different crimes). But what the main difference was that there was a clustering of crimes committed by immigrants as there were a few clans who were responsible for the majority of the crimes, whereas such a clustering was missing for the locals. So it turned out that the "average" immigrant was less criminal as the local people.

TravelingNomads

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YVR Cockroach

@:-) Maybe if you turn your primary source of news and information away from Fox/Faux and its ilk and/or don't get information from people who do, you'll get a better reception here and the genuine answer that you sought (and which you have received).

Many of us are sick of the bigoted and often-times blatantly false (dis)information emanating from Fox and its ilk (for U.K. readers, Daily Mail et al).