Germany is experiencing an unstoppable rise of the extreme right, especially in the east of the country. Experts tirelessly warn of the danger posed by messages of hate that are increasingly penetrating a part of society and the increase in attacks against elected politicians or candidates in different elections. Now, the brutal attack against the social democrat Matthias Ecke, candidate in the European elections next June, last Friday night, in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, has unleashed an intense debate about how to fight against this environment of violence .
The MEP was taken to hospital with a fracture to his cheekbone and eye socket and underwent surgery on Sunday. Ecke posted a photo of himself on the social network X this Monday to thank him and remember that “in democracy, no one should be afraid to say what they think.” Investigators have already identified four suspects of German nationality, ages 17 and 18. At least one of them is part of the “extreme right” ideology.
This incident set off alarm bells throughout the country. Questions such as who is responsible for reaching this point or how it is possible that there are people who believe they can use violence against their political opponents resonate strongly, especially in such a delicate year, in which, in addition to the European Next June 9, local elections will be held in nine federal states. And most importantly: the September elections in three eastern states (Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia) in which, according to polls, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) will emerge as the leading force.
In Saxony, however, the great support for ultra parties is not new. After German reunification, neo-Nazi formations achieved their first electoral successes in this eastern region in the 1990s. The great exodus that the area suffered after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 meant that an entire generation was lost, especially in rural areas. The citizens who remained developed a feeling of forgotten citizens, with a lower standard of living than their neighbors in the west of the country. Then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s famous prediction that eastern Germany would see “flourishing landscapes” after reunification in 1990 turned out to be far from reality.
The economic precariousness in Saxony and the rest of the former states of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), whose levels of poverty and unemployment have always been traditionally higher than the country’s average, thus generated an ideal breeding ground for the extreme right. . The capital of Saxony, Dresden, emerged as a stronghold of right-wing extremists. In 2015, for example, demonstrations organized there by the Pegida movement — an acronym for European Patriots against the Islamization of the West — drew thousands of people.
Pegida, the fuel of radicalism
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The political scientist Wolfgang Kraushaar, author of the book No to false tolerance. Why democracy must be defended more strongly than before,considers that Pegida was “the fuel for right-wing radicalism, from which the AfD later benefited.” However, this rise of the far-right in the region was partly due to the fact that after reunification it was underestimated how strong the xenophobic, racist and nationalist currents were in eastern Germany.
These factors combined with a feeling of inferiority among eastern Germans, which provided fertile ground for extremists. “Of course, part of this ultra boom in eastern Germany has to do with issues of wealth distribution. Many people in the west continue to earn more and feel better represented. Furthermore, many people in the east of the country feel that they were treated unfairly after reunification. AfD plays with all these narratives,” explains Lorenz Blumenthaler, spokesperson for the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which has been fighting since 1998 against the extreme right.
The violence of these days prior to the electoral campaign is not something that has at all surprised experts like Blumenthaler. “It’s something we’ve been watching for a long, long time,” he says. “Antidemocratic sentiment is so widespread in Saxony and the AfD has spread so much hatred that the attacks have simply become part of everyday life,” he explains of incidents that are no longer limited to one part of the country and that he predicts will “increase.” drastically” in the coming months. In his opinion, they are mainly due to the communication carried out by the AfD, which uses, above all, social networks and Telegram to spread its message of hostility against democracy.
But not everything is limited to the AfD. According to the expert, the far-right scene in Saxony is a “mosaic.” It is not about a single party or organization. Along with the AfD, there are other groups such as the Free Saxony party, which also, among other things, calls for the independence of Saxony.
Although Saxony stands out as the main bastion of the far right – with the AfD being the party with the most votes in the last general elections – the rest of the eastern states also have a large number of AfD followers. In Thuringia, this formation was also the most voted in 2021. While in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it came in second position. In Saxony Anhalt, it was the third political force.
Last weekend’s attack adds to a long list of attacks. According to government data, in 2023 a total of 2,790 attacks on representatives or members of parties represented in Parliament were reported in Germany. The Greens lead the list with 1,219 cases. They are followed by the AfD, with 478, and the Social Democratic Party, with 420. Likewise, according to figures from the Saxony Criminal Police Office, 302 attacks against mayors or deputies were recorded last year, compared to the 110 registered in 2019.
Added to these figures is a recent Forsa survey, which warned that 40 percent of the country’s honorary mayors stated that they or people around them had been insulted, threatened or physically attacked for their work. Among full-time elected officials, the figure was even as high as 57 percent. As a result of this experience, more than one in four mayors has already thought about retiring from politics for their own safety.
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