05/26/2024 – 16:48
After an argument, a Green Party deputy was attacked by a 66-year-old man during a campaign event. The trend is alarming: in 2023, there were more than 60 thousand attacks for political and/or religious reasons in Germany. The series of physical attacks against politicians in Germany continues. This Sunday (26/05), the victim was Green Party deputy Marie Kollenrott. During an election event in the center of the university city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, a 66-year-old man suddenly lunged at her, striking her several times on the upper body and then moving away. With minor injuries to her arms, Kollenrott pursued him, assisted by a witness, and the police were called.
Before the incident, the man had spoken derogatorily about the Green Party, near the campaign stand. A brief political discussion followed and the attack against the 39-year-old state deputy.
The attacker, a native of Göttingen, was arrested shortly afterwards, a short distance from the scene. After police formalities and identification of the attacker, he was released. The police Staatsschutz-Kommissariat, in charge of politically motivated crimes, opened investigations into bodily harm, among other crimes.
A native of Hamburg, Marie Kollenrott has represented the Greens in the state parliament in Hanpver since October 2021. Her thematic focuses are environmental and energy policy.
Green Party: “We will not be intimidated”
The governor of Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil, from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), severely condemned the crime: “there is no end to it, it happened again, and it can be seen that it will not be the last incident of this kind. It is completely unacceptable that politicians and politicians on election campaigns are repeatedly victims of violent attacks.”
Weil calls the trend “dangerous.” “Our democracy only works if citizens are committed to their convictions in a visible, public way.” Therefore, it is important to “be alert, intervene against unbridled aggressiveness in political confrontation and, if possible, nip it in the bud”.
The Green Party’s deputy director for political affairs, Emily Büning, expressed herself on platform X (formerly Twitter): “Another attack on a policy and, therefore, on our democracy and free elections. Let’s not be intimidated!”
Greens are main targets of political violence
According to Berlin, the frequency of violent acts against politicians has increased in the country. The greens are the main targets: in 2023 alone, there were 1,219 cases – a significant increase, compared to the 575 records in 2022.
Next come politicians from the ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), with 575 attacks; and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), with 420.
The situation is so extreme that in April 2024 President Frank-Walter Steinmeier convened around 80 of the country’s approximately 11,000 municipal and communal leaders to discuss the problems and anxieties of those who have to face the ultra-right. A symbolic case of this threat is that of Kassel governor Walter Lübcke, killed by a neo-Nazi in 2019.
Matthias Ecke, an SPD MEP running for re-election, was beaten by four men on May 3, when he was putting up campaign posters in Dresden, in the state of Saxony. Hospitalized, he had to undergo surgery due to the severity of his injuries.
Sociopolitical and religious motivations are often intertwined
On that occasion, the German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, clearly pointed out the instigators of attacks of this kind: “those who, especially in right-wing groups, provoke a climate of violence with totally uncontrolled hostilities, bear considerable responsibility for all of this”.
Four days later, Berlin’s finance secretary, Franziska Giffey, also from the SPD, was injured in the head by a bag full of heavy material thrown during her visit to a library in the Berlin neighborhood of Rudow.
On the night of May 17, state deputy Martin Schmidt, from the ultra-right AfD, was hit in the head with a glass ashtray, after insults and an argument, and had to be hospitalized. The incident occurred in a bar in Schwerin, capital of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
According to recent statistics from the Federal Department of Investigations (BKA) and the Ministry of the Interior, in 2023 Germany had a record of more than 60 thousand crimes of a socio-political and/or religious nature – 1,100 more than in the previous year. The analysis confirms that it is common for both motivations to be interconnected.
av/le (AFP, Reuters, EPD, DPA)
#German #politician #victim #physical #attack