A demonstrator wearing a kippah at a protest in Cologne in May against Roger Waters, the rock musician widely accused of antisemitism. Photo: Reuters/Ying Tang

More than one quarter of Muslims residing in Germany believe that “wealthy Jews are the real rulers of the world,” far higher than the national average, according to a new survey published on Tuesday by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

While 26 percent of Muslim respondents endorsed one of the deadliest antisemitic tropes, nationally, only six percent of respondents did the same. Other questions similarly showed that Muslims were three or four more times likelier to embrace antisemitic ideology than the wider population.

For example, seven percent of Muslim respondents said that they believed that violence against Jews was justified, compared with two percent overall. Similarly, while only four percent of respondents of overall respondents agreed with the claim that Jews are “sneaky,” the figure among Muslims was 12 percent.

The Adenauer Foundation interviewed 5,500 people for its survey, which was conducted during the closing months of 2021  stretching into early 2022. It emphasized that it had deliberately used harsh phrasing in its questions — asking whether “Jews shouldn’t be surprised if they get one” in relation to violence — in order to measure the “extremist core” of the population.

Commenting on the study, the Foundation — which is affiliated with the center-right CDU Party — said it showed that “a large majority of the German population firmly rejects antisemitic statements.”

It noted as well that “people with left-wing and right-wing extremist attitudes have significantly more antisemitic attitudes. However, the effect is stronger with a tendency towards right-wing extremist attitudes.”

Alongside Germany’s Muslim communities, the survey showed that respondents with lower incomes as well as supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party were more vulnerable to antisemitic messaging. Around 20 percent of AfD supporters agreed with the statement that “wealthy Jews are the real rulers of the world.”

It observed that “previous evaluations have already shown the AfD electorate’s increased right-wing populist or xenophobic attitudes and [its] proximity to conspiracy theories.”

Dominik Hirndorf, who coordinated the study, said that the answers to the question on the violence demonstrated that potential threats should not be underestimated. “Every percentage point is one too many,” Hirndorf stated.

Germany registered a record number of violent antisemitic assaults in 2022, a year in which there were nearly seven antisemitic incidents each day.

In an interview with The Algemeiner last month, Felix Klein, the federal government’s top official combating antisemitism, suggested that the true number of incidents annually was far higher, due to the reluctance of many victims to report their ordeals to the authorities.

“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have — 25 incidents per day,” Klein said.