Railway stations were again key hotspots for violent crime in 2025. According to fresh figures from the Federal Police, as reported by ”Bild am Sonntag”, Leipzig’s main station led the list with 859 violent offences, followed by Dortmund’s Hauptbahnhof (735) and Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof (654). Other stations that trailed included Cologne’s (648), Hanover’s (612), Hamburg’s (580), Munich’s (553), Nuremberg’s (528), Frankfurt/Main’s (520), and Düsseldorf’s (499) violations.
The data also indicate a lowered threshold for confronting law‑enforcement officers. In the past year, 5,660 violent offences against Federal Police officers in the railway sector were recorded, surpassing the already high figure from the previous year (5,500). More than 980 knife attacks and approximately 2,200 sexual offences were documented on trains and at stations.
A stark disparity was noted regarding the origin of suspects. The Federal Police report that non‑German suspects-measured relative to their share of the population-were identified about five times more often in general violent offences, six times more in knife attacks and eight times more in sexual crimes than German nationals.
When the Federal Police was asked to reallocate additional forces to the train stations, a spokesman for the agency rejected the request, stating, “No personnel will be withdrawn from the borders”. He warned that pulling back from the border would encourage illegal immigration and further deteriorate the overall situation.
