© dpa
Berlin's governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) has invited to a "security summit" on Friday, September 8.
Among others, representatives of the police and fire brigade, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as well as the justice and interior administration are to take part. The mayors of the districts of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Mitte have also been invited, said Senate spokesperson Christine Richter on Tuesday. The overriding theme of the meeting will be the security situation in Berlin. But the special situation at Görlitzer Park and Leopoldplatz will also be discussed.
Wegner had announced the "security summit" at the end of July after it became known that several men had raped a 27-year-old woman in Görlitzer Park the month before. He had described the situation there as unacceptable and held out the prospect of a set of measures for more security in Berlin. In the discussion about the crime hotspot at Görlitzer Park, there have been demands for access restrictions at night, video surveillance, exit programmes for dealers and for the extensive redesign of the park. The Leopoldplatz in Wedding in the Mitte district has long been considered a meeting point for drug addicts.
In Berlin, Germany's largest city, far more crimes are committed in absolute numbers than in Hamburg or Munich, for example. However, in the comparative crime statistics of major German cities by population, Berlin is in second place, just behind Frankfurt am Main, with 14,135 registered crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. It is followed by Hanover, Cologne and Bremen in very similar orders of magnitude. The contrast is Munich as the safest major city with only about 5,800 offences per 100,000 inhabitants.