Commemoration of the racist riots against Algerian labour migrants in Erfurt in 1975

The events from 10 to 13 August 1975 in Erfurt are considered to be the first massive racially motivated riots in Germany since 1945. Around 300 young Erfurt residents chased around 25 Algerian workers from “Domplatz” through the city centre to the main railway station, beating several of them and leaving them hospitalised. The racist attacks on Algerian labour migrants continued in the days that followed. The violence was triggered by racist rumours that had been spread in Erfurt in the previous days. The charged atmosphere escalated in public at a public festival on the cathedral square on 10 August.

Algerian labour migrants were employed in various Erfurt companies at the time, and their total number in the GDR between 1974 and 1984 amounted to over 8,000 people. Their stay was limited to four years and was regulated by an intergovernmental labour agreement. The life stories of this group of labour migrants in the GDR are hardly known to the public today. The Oral History Research Centre at the University of Erfurt would like to draw attention to the topic and therefore invites you to this public commemorative event 50 years after the events.

It is supported by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, the Commissioner for Migration and Integration of the City of Erfurt, Decolonize Erfurt, the Topf & Söhne Place of Remembrance, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Catholic Forum in the State of Thuringia, the State Centre for Political Education Thuringia, MigraNetz Thuringia and the “Sparkassenstiftung” Erfurt.