A recent survey and related studies suggest a small decline in overt racism in Germany, but make clear that discriminatory attitudes remain widespread and often more subtle than before.
Between October 2025 and January 2026, researchers working for the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (Dezim) interviewed about 8,200 people aged 18 to 74 about racism and discrimination. About one quarter of respondents still said they believe in racial differences — a view long rejected by science — and nearly half held beliefs that some groups are inherently more hardworking than others.
Tae Jun Kim, a sociologist involved with the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor, notes that racist attitudes are expressed less bluntly than in the past. Today’s patterns, he says, often show up as seemingly polite rationalizations that maintain social hierarchies and justify unequal treatment.
Federal anti-discrimination commissioner Ferda Ataman, who also has a journalism background, hears frequent reports of direct prejudice. She recounts recent incidents such as a Black woman who was searched without permission while shopping and told the search was justified because “someone like you” had stolen there recently.
Ataman’s own analysis of the Socio-Economic Panel 2022, which covered roughly 30,000 people, found that one in eight residents experienced discrimination at least once in 2022. Extrapolating from those results, researchers estimate about 9 million people in Germany have been treated unfairly because of their appearance.
Discrimination, Ataman emphasizes, is not marginal: it occurs in workplaces, schools, housing searches and everyday transactions. Despite legal protections under the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), which has been in force for about 20 years and outlaws discrimination based on many visible characteristics, most people who experience bias do not pursue formal remedies. More than half of those who reported discrimination took no action, roughly 30% confronted the person responsible directly, and only about 3% sought legal recourse.
When asked why they believed they were targeted, respondents most often cited ethnic background or race (42%) and gender (almost 24%, mostly women). Other reasons reported included age, religion and illness.
Ataman argues stronger protections are needed — for example, adding nationality explicitly to the AGG’s list of protected traits — and points to countries like Belgium as offering more robust legal options. She also suggests everyday discrimination appears less prevalent in many English-speaking countries and in Scandinavia. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency (ADS), an independent body within the Federal Ministry of Education, provides advice, while Ataman has served as the government’s commissioner since 2022.
The data indicate that while some forms of overt racism may be declining, prejudice remains embedded in everyday life and often takes subtler forms that are harder to challenge.