German police have opened an investigation after the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) distributed pamphlets that looked like plane tickets for deportation aimed at “illegal immigrants”, as part of an increasingly provocative campaign for the general elections of the next month
Residents of migrant communities in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe found the leaflets in their mailboxes, although it is not clear if they were addressed directly to them.
The Karlsruhe police reported in a statement this Tuesday that they had opened an investigation against “unknown persons on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.”
A police spokesman said a complaint had been made in relation to a social media post about the leaflet, which had an AfD logo, a QR code linking to the party’s local branch website and the supposed destination of a “safe country of origin”. Below appears the slogan: “Only remigration can still save Germany.” [“remigración” es un polémico térmico acuñado por extremistas de derechas y neonazis para referirse a la expulsión masiva de migrantes y personas de origen extranjero].
The leaflets look very similar to the fake airline tickets distributed by the neo-Nazi party NPD in 2013 in a racist attempt to discourage immigrant candidates from standing for Parliament. Both campaigns are reminiscent of chilling Nazi-era calls for Jews to leave Germany by offering “free tickets to Jerusalem…never to return” with a design that also imitated real travel documents.
Greens politician Beate Hoeft, from Ettlingen, south of Karlsruhe, posted the leaflet on her Instagram account with the caption: “People of immigrant origin from the Karlsruhe region have found this in their mailboxes,” adding the hashtags “No to the AfD”, “Let’s protect democracy” and “Be careful at the beginning”. He says he is in contact with an affected family.
Karlsruhe Mayor Frank Mentrup of the Social Democrats has accused the AfD of fomenting “fear” among communities already worried about far-right sentiment spreading through Germany.
AfD MP Marc Bernhard from Karlsruhe told public broadcaster SWR that 30,000 leaflets have been printed and distributed at election campaign stands and in home mailboxes. He denies targeting people with “foreign-sounding names” as well as any connection to the decade-old NDP campaign.
Markus Frohnmaier, co-president of AfD in Baden-Württemberg, assures that he supports “the creative action of local sections.” The party’s goal is for the nearly one million Syrians living in Germany to return to their country of origin after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he says, calling it “compliance with current law.”
A year after tens of thousands of Germans took to the streets to protest the AfD’s alleged secret plans for “mass remigration,” the party openly adopted the term at its congress last weekend ahead of the elections. February 23.
The AfD, which authorities suspect of being far-right, is second in polls with 21% support behind the center-right Christian Democrats, meaning it is highly unlikely to win a majority. absolute. All the main democratic parties have ruled out forming a government coalition with the far right.
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