ABSTRACT
Unlike 70 years ago democracy and rule of law in the German Federal Republic are not seriously threatened. Nonetheless, the wave of xenophobic violence from 1992 to 1994 and the ongoing hostility directed towards immigrants and non-local residents in general – especially in Eastern Germany – have revealed circumstances under which the law and democracy became ineffective even as minorities became the targets of politically motivated offenders. The ALLBUS and Eurobarometer data, which make possible the comparison throughout a longer period of time, show that the attitudes of Germans towards foreigners or immigrants in the eighties and early nineties have remained fairly stable. Xenophobic emotions predominate amongst groups of the population who due to their low educational levels compete or are afraid to compete with the immigrants for jobs, accommodations and/or, potentially, social security. The social distance to the immigrants is not binarily coded but 'more or less' negotiated in actual communication.
