‘Asylum-seekers
as criminals, politicians as traitors’
German
officials warn that the far right is inciting hatred and violence.
By JANOSCH DELCKER
10/19/15, 6:07 PM CET Updated 10/19/15, 6:39 PM CET
BERLIN — German
politicians warn that a resurgent far-right has seized on the refugee
crisis to incite hatred and, in some cases, violence against refugees
and the elected officials who are seen as sympathetic to them.
The stabbing of a
candidate for mayor in the west German city of Cologne last Saturday
underlined their concerns in a dramatic fashion.
Henriette Reker, a
58-year-old whose work as head of social services in Cologne put her
in close contact with the large local immigrant population, was
stabbed in the neck at a campaign event, but went on to be elected
mayor Sunday by a clear majority. Her attacker was described as
mentally confused, with a history of far-right activism.
Reker was an
independent supported by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian
Democrats. After reports that the alleged perpetrator cited refugee
policy as the motive for his attack, politicians linked it with the
resurgence of anti-immigrant movements such as PEGIDA in eastern
Germany, and the broader rise of what the Greens leader called “new
Nazis inciting the mood against foreigners.”
On Monday night,
PEGIDA will celebrate its first anniversary with another weekly march
in Dresden, the east German city where the movement — Patriotic
Europeans Against the Islamization of the West — was founded.
“There’s no more
question about whether those who organize (the PEGIDA protests) are
hardcore right-wing extremists” — Interior Minister Thomas de
Maizière.
PEGIDA has since
split into rival factions while growing increasingly radical and
aggressive towards politicians, journalists who are denounced as
Lügenpresse (“lying press,” a term coined in World War One and
favored by Hitler’s Nazis) and asylum seekers, who are termed
Invasoren (invaders) by the marchers.
Last Monday, some of
the protesters had mocked up a gallows with signs “reserving” it
for Merkel and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, presumably in
retribution for Berlin’s initially welcoming policy on the tens of
thousands of refugees arriving from war zones like Syria. Merkel was
later forced into a U-turn by conservatives who were worried about
how to cope with new arrivals to Germany estimated at as many as 1.5
million this year.
“There’s no more
question about whether those who organize (the PEGIDA protests) are
hardcore right-wing extremists,” said Interior Minister Thomas de
Maizière on national television. “They condemn all asylum seekers
as criminals, and all politicians as traitors.”
Collaborators
Patrick Gensing, an
investigative journalist focused on right-wing extremism, said hatred
directed at refugees was “only one element of the phenomenon. There
is a broader form of hatred behind it, which is directed towards a
multicultural and open society — this often includes hostility
against politicians, who are seen as collaborators in a perceived
Islamization of the country.”
For Gensing, the
attack on Reker in Cologne had echoes of Anders Breivik’s attack on
a Norwegian center-left youth camp in 2011, which was linked to the
anti-Islam debate. Although there are many differences — Breivik
killed 77 people — Gensing saw a similar thought pattern: “The
idea is to attack representatives of a system that lets refugees in.”
“The AfD speaks
the voice of the people” — Björn Höcke, local AfD party leader.
As estimates of the
number of refugees arriving in Germany skyrocket, the backlash is
radicalizing not just PEGIDA, but also the Alternative für
Deutschland (AfD), which began as anti-euro party but has broadened
its right-wing populist message. In 2014, it won seats in the
European Parliament and three state assemblies in eastern Germany.
Party leader Frauke
Petry said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag that membership is
rising at the rate of 40 people a day. She described Merkel’s
repeated message that Germany is strong enough to cope with the
refugee influx as “almost moronic.”
One of her party
colleagues from Thuringia, one of the former German Democratic
Republic regions where the AfD scored major gains in elections last
year, pulled a German flag from his waistcoat pocket during a
prime-time TV talk show on Sunday night.
Björn Höcke draped
the flag on the armrest of his chair and said: “The AfD speaks the
voice of the people — against the policies of the old parties,
which have gone mad.”
While waving the
German flag at football matches became more common when Germany
hosted the World Cup in 2006, signaling the partial normalization of
German national symbols after a post-war taboo lasting decades, its
use as a political symbol can still be considered provocative.
‘Beautifully
German’
Later, Höcke was
confronted with footage of himself addressing demonstrations
including screaming to a crowd in Thuringia’s state capital Erfurt
that the historic city “is beautifully German, and should remain
beautifully German.”
Höcke contrasted
the situation in Erfurt, where there are relatively few citizens of
immigrant background, with the situation in Berlin, where there is a
large population of Turkish descent.
“The Turkish
children in Erfurt, who are still few, still speak the language of
Erfurt. But the few remaining German children in Berlin, they speak
the language of Kanaken,” he said, using a pejorative term for
immigrants in Germany. “Why do we give something away that has
emerged – and worked – over centuries?”
“That’s
disgusting,” remarked German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who was
seated next to Höcke. “This is an example of rhetorical arson.”
Although Höcke
distanced himself from the stabbing Henriette Reker in Cologne,
critics accuse the AfD and PEGIDA of contributing to an environment
of increased aggression in Germany, where such crimes become
possible.
The head of the
Greens in the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, said everyone who
joins their demonstrations should be aware that they “join the
far-right, join new Nazis inciting the mood against foreigners,
against refugees, as well as against democrats.”
Authors:
Janosch Delcker
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