Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “Democracy is under threat”. Concern in Germany over political violence

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned on Saturday that “democracy is threatened” by gestures such as the attack on MEP Matthias Ecke, assaulted by unknown persons in Dresden on Friday evening, AFP reports, taken over by Agerpres.

Matthias Ecke, 41, head of the SPD’s list in Saxony for June’s European elections, was attacked by four unknown assailants on Friday while putting up posters in the eastern state’s capital, Dresden. According to the SPD, the man will have to undergo surgery following the injuries he suffered.

A week ago, dozens of demonstrators attacked Bundestag Vice President Katrin Goering-Eckardt, an environmentalist, after a celebration in eastern Germany, blocking her car. It took the intervention of the police so that the politician could leave.

Such aggressions are the result of “the discourse, the created environment, the fact of inciting people against each other”, lamented Olaf Scholz on Saturday. “We must not resign ourselves in the face of such acts of violence (…) We must oppose it together”, urged the chancellor.

Armin Schuster, the minister of the interior of Saxony, where an important regional election will be held on September 1, mentioned that in this state, since the beginning of the year, 112 crimes related to elections have been registered, of which 30 were against holders of political positions or elected mandates. He declared himself “absolutely concerned” by the “intensity” that such attacks currently have.

The number of attacks on politicians from parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to German government figures released in January.

Representatives of the SPD in Saxony mentioned a role in this sense of the far-right party AfD (Alternative for Germany), which is growing strongly in the polls.

“The seeds planted by the AfD and other right-wing extremists are about to germinate. Their partisans are completely uninhibited and clearly consider us, the democrats, to be hunted”, lamented the party’s regional leaders, Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel.