German officials and extremism: always mention right and left together

German officialdom displays a deeply ingrained habit when talking about extremism: if at all possible, they will talk about right wing and left wing extremism in the same speech, interview, article or whatever form of discourse they use.

Of course, there are many contexts when this is perfectly acceptable, for instance when the annual report on extremist activities in Germany is unveiled by the domestic intelligence service.

In West German school books, you would find the extremes handled in a supposedly balanced fashion, especially when dealing with the crucial period from the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II.

East German schools went in a different way, of course, with some very interesting consequences for civic education teachers in East Germany after re-unification: they might be employed in the newly formed schools (every teacher had to re-apply for a teaching job), but only if they taught another subject.
The same did not hold true for East German politicians or members of the socialist youth organization FDJ. You may know one of the latter as Germany's current chancellor Angela Merkel.

Only in recent years have German educational institutions started to state the obvious: right wing violence is directed at individuals to a much greater extent than left wing violence.

To make a long story short, here are figures about the number of people killed in Germany by right wing extremists, left wing extremists since 1990, and Islamist terrorists since 1993. These numbers do not include German nationals killed during terror attacks in foreign countries.

Number of people killed by right wing extremists: 156 according to new media research
(according to official government figures: 73)

Number of people killed by left wing extremists: 5
(1 since 2001 according to this report)

Number of people killed by Islamist terrorists: 2
(the victims were two American soldiers, Wikipedia confirms this as the only known Islamist terror attack with fatalities in Germany to date)

As we all know, a major attack could change future numbers within hours or minutes, but in the past two decades, the risk was clearly coming from the extreme right.