Last year, significantly more people contacted the Radicalization Advice Center at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) with questions about Islamist radicalization than in previous years. The number of consultations, which were mostly conducted with concerned family members, but also increasingly with teachers via the nationwide hotline, rose to 313 in 2023, a spokesman for the Nuremberg authority told the Editorial Network Germany (RND). “This is the highest value in the past five years and almost doubled compared to the previous year.”
According to the report, in 2022 the number of counseling sessions conducted on the Federal Office’s hotline was 161. In 2021 there were 224 and 191 in 2020. The head of the counseling center, Florian Endres, had already noticed the increased interest in the terrorist attack in the fall of Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organizations traced to Israel on October 7th. That was “a turning point for the work of the advice hotline,” said Endres.
The Bamf advice center has existed since 2012. It receives calls and then forwards the cases to independent, local advice centers throughout Germany.
