A series of attacks on German officials and politicians ahead of several key elections this year have raised new concerns about political violence and a collapse of civility, including in three states where the far-right Alternative for Germany could make significant gains.
In the latest attack on Friday night, four men attacked a prominent Social Democratic politician in Dresden as he hung campaign posters, leaving him with a broken cheekbone and eye socket that required emergency surgery.
The official, Matthias Ecke, is running for re-election as a member of the European Parliament.
That night, an unnamed Green Party activist was attacked in the same housing estate, by what police believe was the same gang. A day earlier on Thursday, Rolf Fliss, the deputy mayor of Essen, 300 miles to the west, was punched in the face by a group of people he initially described as having a “friendly exchange” with them.
The violent attack on Mr Eck on Saturday prompted a strong response from Berlin’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, himself a Social Democrat.
“Democracy is threatened by these things, so shrugging and accepting them is never an option,” Mr. Scholz said. “We will not accept it, and we, decent, rational people, are the majority in Germany,” he added.
Thousands of people then protested against violence in Berlin and Dresden on Sunday. At Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, politicians from mainstream parties and members of civil society gave speeches condemning the attack.
On Tuesday evening, the interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states, as well as federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, will meet to discuss security issues following the attack.
Police have linked four teenagers to Mr Eck’s attack. A 17-year-old boy walked into a police station in Dresden on Saturday accompanied by his mother and admitted his role in an attack on the politician, police said.
As of Sunday, police raided the homes of three other people, all aged 17 or 18, believed to be involved in the attack. Dresden prosecutors said on Monday that at least one of them was linked to far-right ideology.
The latest attacks on politicians began to attract national attention last September when a man threw rocks at a Green party leader at a campaign event in Bavaria.
In January, a mob prevented Robert Habeck, Germany’s deputy chancellor and a prominent Green party politician, from getting off a ferry. Recently, another senior Green politician, parliamentary deputy speaker Katrin Göring-Eckardt, was blocked as she left an event when 40 to 50 demonstrators surrounded her car.
While most of the victims were members of the ruling Greens and Social Democrats, the Alternative for Germany (AfD by its German acronym) was also targeted.
On Saturday, vandals attacked a stall in Dresden where election materials were stored, according to the party. A 54-year-old man guarding the stall was not injured.
“Things have now come to a head,” said political scientist Andrea Rohmel at the Hertie Institute in Berlin.
According to preliminary government data, In 2023, the police registered 2,790 attacks against political representatives, including physical attacks, verbal threats or other types of threatsroughly double the number registered in 2019.
Some experts and rival political parties have pointed the finger at the far right and the Alternative for Germany, saying they often use inflammatory language aimed at mainstream politicians. In 2017, when the AfD first entered federal parliament, Alexander Gauland, one of the leading candidates at the time, promised on election night that “we will go after them”, an apparent reference to the governing coalition.
Johannes Hillje, a political scientist who studies political communication, said: “I call it affective polarization – it means that a person no longer responds to his opponent’s factual arguments but instead responds to the fundamental to delegitimize opponents and label them as enemies.”
In a statement released over the weekend, the Social Democrats of Saxony, the capital of Dresden, called the attack a “clear alarm signal.”
“Violent actions and intimidation of democratic figures are tools of the fascists,” said Heads of State Henning Hohmann and Catherine Michel.
Hilger said the problem is not only the increasing polarization of Germany’s political landscape, but also the verbal attacks on centrist, mainstream politicians, especially the Green Party.
“The danger is that democratic forces adopt right-wing populist stylistic tactics and thereby promote rhetoric that is not in keeping with the spirit of democracy,” Hilger said. “They were sawing off the branches they were sitting on.”
The latest attack recalls Germany’s most high-profile political assassination in recent years, when Walter Lübcke, a conservative lawmaker and defender of Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policies, was shot In June 2019, a neo-Nazi killed Lübke. Lübke’s death is believed to be Germany’s first far-right political murder since the end of World War II, triggering public reflection.
While this crime was shocking, it was targeted, well-planned, and the killer had a criminal record and was a known violent neo-Nazi. The latest attacks appear to be more opportunistic but still elicit a strong reaction.
“The series of attacks by thugs on Democratic campaign teams is an attack on the foundations of our democracy,” said Mr. Hohmann and Ms. Michel of the Saxony Social Democrats.
