After Solingen
Tuesday 27th August
Good morning.
Over the weekend, a 26-year-old Syrian man attacked crowds with a 15-cm-long blade at a town festival in Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, killing 3 people and injuring 8 others. The ‘Islamic State’ have claimed responsibility. The perpetrator, who had been living in Paderborn, had been due for deportation last year, but had been registered as ‘fugitive’, though BILD has suggested that the authorities were too lax in their attempts to locate him, accusing them of “knocking once” to see if he was in before declaring the case closed.
This, frankly, has handed the AfD the initiative ahead of this Sunday’s regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia. Brandenburg also goes to the polls on 22nd September.
The party is currently set to gain around 30% of the vote in both states, putting it substantially ahead in Thuringia and neck-and-neck for first place with the centre-right CDU in Saxony, while other mainstream parties (the SPD, Greens and FDP) are struggling to make it over the 5% ‘hurdle’ which qualifies parties to sit in parliament, especially in Thuringia.
This will make forming coalitions to keep the AfD out of government incredibly challenging, and will probably force the CDU into a pact with the hard-left, Ukraine- and NATO-sceptic BSW in both cases.
Beyond the short term, however, Solingen threatens to solidify the current furious debate in Germany about Islamism and ‘irregular’ migration into a fixed shift in policy. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that he is “furious”, and that ‘irregular’ migration “must go down”, thought what that might entail is of course unclear. On top of resuming deportations to countries currently considered unsafe such as Syria and Afghanistan (an idea mooted for months by the SPD), there are concerns that the government will follow calls to start checks on the German border, threatening the integrity of the EU’s Schengen area with a ‘domino effect’ as anti-immigration politicians in other countries advocate the same.
The press output reflects a deeply concerned mood, both with the attack itself and with its potential political consequences.
BILD: The state has lost control
A short, angry editorial in Europe’s most widely-read newspaper today delivers “five bitter truths” to its readers, declaring that the German state is failing in its duty to protect citizens.
“Firstly, the state does not prevent people from crossing its borders illegally.
Secondly, the state makes at best half-hearted attempts to deport people who are not allowed to be in Germany. Its toughest means: knocking once.
Thirdly, German laws are so lax that you only have to wait to prevent deportation.
Fourthly, the authorities have no idea how many radical Islamists, like the Solingen perpetrator until Friday, are quietly living in Germany. The authorities themselves don't believe the official number of Islamist threats - 480 as of 1 January.
Fifthly, if Issa al Hasan really did strike on behalf of IS, then terrorists can record confessional videos and send them to the Middle East via the internet without being noticed by our intelligence services.
The conclusion is as bitter as it is clear: the state does not currently have the security situation in Germany under control.”
ZEIT: Director of Munich’s Oktoberfest questioned on suitability of security measures
Die Zeit’s interview with Clemens Baumgärtner, director of the Munich Oktoberfest, indicates the extent of the feeling of insecurity now gripping the country. The ‘world’s largest folk festival’, which last year attracted over 7 million visitors over the two-and-a-half week-long event, is due to open on the 21st September.
Baumgärtner is forced here to assure readers that “there is probably no safer place to be during these 16 days than the Wiesn.”
He adds that “Solingen is not a discussion that is only being held as a society, but a real political discussion. Politicians must draw the necessary conclusions and do so in a way that preserves the sense of security. With regard to the Wiesn (Oktoberfest), I can justifiably say that the feeling of security is very good thanks to the controls and the presence of police officers and security services.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Höcke or Solingen”
The SZ has a good piece today on exactly how the AfD is using Solingen rhetorically ahead of this weekend’s elections in Thuringia and Saxony.
“Naturally, Alice Weidel was ready with a line on the topic, with the AfD leader presenting demands for a "Migrationswende" almost on a daily basis across the country. There must be an immediate "halt on immigration, admission and naturalisation for at least five years", Weidel told (the broadcaster) ZDF on Sunday. In addition, Weidel wrote on Platform X on Monday, the borders must be closed and the groups of people with the highest crime rates, "i.e. above all Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis", must be deported. Weidel is therefore calling for mass deportations of entire groups as a consequence of the murders in Solingen.”
The SZ surveys the party’s reaction in the regional campaigns:
"There can only be security with the AfD", writes the Saxony AfD on ‘X’, while their Thuringian counterparts want to emphasise the situation for their lead candidate, Björn Höcke, with the formulation: "Höcke or Solingen".
Effectively, the party’s message in light of attacks such as this, like with the murder of a policeman in Mannheim several months ago, is simple: “we told you so”. Since February, the party has had an ‘individual case tracker’, which records incidents of ‘migrant violence’, plotting them on a map to give a sense of a ‘wave’ of such violence nationally.
The SZ’s article goes on to quote pollsters who suggest that the attack will have minimal impact on the results, but I think this is wishful. It may be that the AfD is not the only beneficiary — the CDU will also stand to gain — but I would think that this fear and anger will only compound the perilous position that the SPD finds itself in in both states, hovering just above the 5% ‘hurdle’ to keep its place in parliament. Its partners in the federal government, the Greens and FDP, are already failing to meet it in both cases.
Euractiv: Germany’s neighbours alarmed by potential border control
Solingen has also had European-wide consequences already. The online news site Euractiv has a useful account of the European reaction to the CDU/CSU’s advocacy of border checks, which has strengthened since the weekend. Some of Germany’s neighbours — Poland and Czechia are named — are reportedly fearing the breakdown of the Schengen system entirely in the event of a more permanent system of checks, in addition to temporary measures which have already been in place for several months.
See also:
Handelsblatt: German economy shrinks in Q2:
German economic output fell by 0.1 per cent and the hoped-for upturn is still not materialising. Consumer spending, which has receded again since the Euros, is highlighted as a dual symptom and cause of stagnation.