On September 18th 2025, Svenja Schulze, a member of the German Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), made the following statement during the second reading of the 2025 federal budget: “Every two minutes, a person in Germany becomes a victim of domestic violence. Last year alone, there were more than 265,000 affected individuals.” This statement requires some nuanced contextualization, but it turns out to be mostly true.
Context: Debate on funding model projects against domestic violence
Schulze spoke during the budget debate concerning the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and the Federal Constitutional Court. In her prepared speech, she assessed the budget proposal and outlined the SPD’s position on domestic violence. She used the cited figures to highlight the societal relevance of the issue and to underscore the need for stronger governmental action. According to Schulze, the numbers represent a shocking record high, making additional state measures necessary.
What data is available?
In her speech, Schulze did not cite a specific source. Upon request, her office confirmed that she referred to the official data of 2024 published by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA). This had already been covered in the media earlier that summer, including by the German public broadcaster Tagesschau.
For verification, the most relevant sources are official statistics such as the BKA’s 2024 National Situation Report on Domestic Violence and the Police Crime Statistics (PKS), which record all police‑registered victims of domestic violence within a calendar year.
What does “domestic violence” mean?
The BKA defines domestic violence as the sum of intimate partner violence and intrafamilial violence. This includes physical, sexual, or psychological violence occurring in current or former family or partnership relationships, regardless of whether the individuals share a household.
For 2024, the BKA reports 265,942 victims of domestic violence. Schulze’s reference to “more than 265,000 affected individuals” therefore aligns with the officially documented figures. Nevertheless these numbers only represent registered victims, not all the actual cases. They are not estimates but counts of incidents reported to and recorded by the police. Schulze’s core claim is therefore factually well supported.
Temporal condensation: “Every two minutes”
The phrase “every two minutes” does not appear directly in the BKA report but is a mathematical illustration. When the annual number of victims is divided by the number of minutes in a year (525,600), the result is approximately one victim every two minutes. This makes Schulze’s statement mathematically plausible, though it does not reflect a literal, evenly distributed timeline.
The underlying data had already been reported before the official publication. On August 2nd 2025, the Tagesschau stated: “According to the data from the Federal Criminal Police Office, which is also available to the ARD capital bureau, a total of 265,942 people were officially affected.” The editorial team had received the figures in advance and provided journalistic context, but did not conduct an independent data investigation.
Limitations
The statement is partly imprecise because it refers exclusively to police‑recorded cases of domestic violence. According to the 2024 BKA report, the Police Crime Statistics (PKS) record “only those offences that have become known to the police.” The BKA further emphasizes: “All acts that occur but are not reported to the police constitute the so‑called dark field.” As a result, changes in PKS figures may reflect shifts in reporting behavior rather than actual changes in crime prevalence. Due to this substantial dark field, the true extent of domestic violence cannot be fully captured.
Additionally, PKS victim numbers do not represent a count of unique individuals. Persons who experience domestic violence multiple times within a year are counted multiple times. The number therefore reflects registered victimizations, not necessarily the number of distinct victims.
Political context and need for action
BKA data show a persistently high and, in recent years, rising level of domestic violence in Germany.
Despite existing measures and political programs aimed at preventing domestic violence, the number of victims has continued to increase. Various factors may contribute to this trend, including the long‑term effects of the COVID‑19 pandemic or a rise in reporting willingness. There is also ongoing debate about whether current protection and prevention measures are sufficiently effective. The figures alone do not allow for a definitive assessment of the causes, but they underscore the political relevance of the issue.
Conclusion
Svenja Schulze’s statement is mostly true. The reference to more than 265,000 affected individuals is supported by the official police data of 2024. The phrase “every two minutes” is a mathematically derived illustration but not an exact temporal measurement. The true extent of domestic violence, however, cannot be fully captured, as many cases go unreported. To receive a rating of “True,” Schulze would have needed to phrase her statement more precisely: referring to “police‑recorded cases” rather than “people,” describing the temporal condensation as “statistically about every two minutes,” and clarifying that the data reflect only the police‑recorded cases. Nevertheless, her statement highlights that rising victim numbers play a crucial role in the political debate about the effectiveness of state measures against domestic violence.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Nadja Ellinger, Stuttgart Media University, Germany
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