German
far right tries to seize on deadly knife attack ahead of crucial state
elections
The AfD
accuses the ruling coalition and the moderate center-right opposition of
shortcomings on security.
August 24,
2024 4:22 pm CET
By Hans von
der Burchard and Joshua Posaner
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-far-right-afd-knife-attack-solingen-state-elections/
BERLIN — A
brutal knife attack in the German city of Solingen has reignited a debate about
public security a week ahead of important state elections in eastern Germany,
with the far right hammering the government coalition and other parties over
alleged shortcomings.
Police on
Saturday were still searching for the perpetrator, who killed three people and
injured eight others late Friday.
A
15-year-old person was arrested on suspicion of potential involvement in the
preparation of the attack, but public prosecutors said the manhunt continued
for the perpetrator. Islamic State later Saturday claimed responsibility for
the killings.
No official
information about the attacker, his origin or his motives has been released so
far, but the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) was already framing
it as a migrant attack.
“Germans,
Thuringians, do you really want to get used to these conditions? Free
yourselves; finally put an end to the wrong path of forced
multiculturalization!” Björn Höcke, the AfD’s lead candidate in Thüringen,
wrote on X. Thüringen heads to the polls on Sept. 1, along with neighboring
Saxony.
Höcke, who
is leading election surveys in Thüringen, urged the people to “vote for change”
and send “the responsible cartel parties into the desert,” adding: “There can
be no more like this!”
The AfD is
attacking not only the ruling coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social
Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats, but also the two main opposition
parties, the center-right CDU/CSU and the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht alliance,
which are the AfD’s main opponents in both state elections.
In Saxony,
where the AfD is neck-and-neck with the CDU, the party wrote on X that the CDU
would “do NOTHING to change the current situation” and pursue “a policy of open
borders with even more migration” at the EU level.
“Change is
only possible with us,” argued AfD Bundestag lawmaker Nicole Höchst.
The
far-right volleys of criticism, amid a lack of information on the assailant,
recalled the recent riots in the U.K. that were fanned by false claims that a
suspected attacker was a newly arrived immigrant. The stabbing of three girls
in Southport in late July sparked days of violence across Britain with
far-right groups accused of inflaming violent disorder.
Scholz
called the attack in Solingen “a terrible event that has shocked me greatly.”
At an election rally on Saturday in the eastern German state of Brandenburg,
which also holds elections next month, on Sept. 21, the chancellor said that
“we must not accept something like this in our society … The full force of the
law must be applied here.”
Scholz has
made similar comments following previous incidents in Germany, such as the
gruesome killing of a police officer by a man from Afghanistan at the end of
May. The chancellor vowed to enforce tougher migration policies and step up
deportations, even to Syria and Afghanistan.
The new
attack on Friday is raising the political pressure as it risks feeding the
narrative of the far right that the Scholz government is talking too much and
acting too little.
Interior
Minister Nancy Faeser, who in a first reaction on Saturday expressed her
condolences to the victims, was criticized by Florian Hahn, a lawmaker from the
center-right CSU opposition, who accused her of alleged shortcomings on
security. “It can’t go on like this,” Hahn wrote on X.
Center-right
opposition leader Friedrich Merz was more moderate in his reaction, writing:
“This barbaric violence is unbearable. Our thoughts are with the victims and
their families. We wish them all much strength in these hours.”
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