Federal banker under fire for racist remarks

SENIOR German government officials and immigrant leaders yesterday condemned remarks by a board member of Germany's federal bank as racist and anti-Semitic.

Thilo Sarrazin of the German Bundesbank came under fire for telling the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag that "all Jews share the same gene".

He also said Muslim immigrants across Europe were not willing or capable of integrating into western societies.

Several MPs demanded that Sarrazin, 65, step down from his post and resign his party membership of the Social Democrats - demands Sarrazin rejected.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in an interview with weekly Bild am Sonntag that "remarks that feed racism or even anti-Semitism have no place in our political discourse".

Defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Sarrazin had "overstepped the borders of provocation".

Leaders of Germany's Jewish and Muslim communities also condemned the banker's remarks.

Stephan Kramer of the Central Council of Jews in Germany told German news agency DAPD: "Whoever tries to identify Jews by their genetic makeup succumbs to racism."

Last year, Sarrazin, who previously served as finance minister for Berlin, told a magazine: "I do not need to accept anyone who lives on handouts from a state that it rejects, is not adequately concerned about the education of their children and constantly produces new, little headscarf-clad girls."

A leading member of the Turkish community in Germany, Kenan Kolat, called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to expel Sarrazin from his Bundesbank post.

In his interview yesterday, Sarrazin said: "Muslim immigrants don't integrate as well as other immigrant groups across Europe. The reasons for this are apparently not based on their ethnicity, but are rooted in the culture of Islam."

While most MPs have condemned his accusations, some newspapers and TV stations have said an open debate about the country's integration of Muslim immigrants is needed.

A government survey in 2009 found that Muslims in Germany make up between 4.6 and 5.2 per cent of the population.

Sarrazin has a new book out on the topic. In excerpts that have already been published by German media, he writes that immigrants have profited much more from Germany's welfare system than they have contributed to it, and claims that immigrants are making German society "dumber" because they are less educated but have more children than ethnic Germans.