Germany: Left-wing politician car-bombed as attacks on refugees rise

Die Linke councillor and refugee activist, Michael Richter

Just after midnight on Monday 27 July, a bomb exploded in the car of left-wing politician and refugee activist, Michael Richter, in the town of Freital, on the outskirts of Dresden in eastern Germany.

Richter, a 39-year old town councillor for the socialist party Die Linke (“The Left”) was not in the car at the time, and fortunately noone was harmed by the blast, which damaged a nearby car.

While police are yet to assign blame, Richter is certain that the attack came from right-wing groups in the area, who have threatened him repeatedly in recent months over his campaigning work for refugees.

"I am one of the faces in Freital who say we are for asylum, and I think that's the reason for the attack," Richter said after the blast.

"Threats have now become reality. They are trying to scare me, but I will not give up,"

Germany has seen a steady rise in violence against asylum seekers in the past year, with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior recording 202 attacks in the first six months of 2015 alone, compared to 162 in all of 2014 and 58 in 2013.

Germany: anti-Islamic PEGIDA rally draws 25,000 but is outnumbered by counter-protests

PEGIDA protesters in Dresden

Since October last year, Germany has become increasingly polarised, as weekly marches by a new right-wing movement opposed to a perceived “Islamisation” of Europe continue to grow by their thousands – a growth now matched by counter-protests nationwide.

The organisation – PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes or “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident”) – was founded in October after an anti-Islam march in Dresden organised by 41-year-old Lutz Bachmann through Facebook.

While the first march only attracted three hundred supporters, PEGIDA has held rallies in Dresden every Monday since, with numbers swelling to 18,000 on January 5. On January 12, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, they reached a record 25,000.

The regularity of the protests is a conscious appropriation of the “Monday demonstrations” of the pro-democracy movement in the former East Germany in 1989, which also grew rapidly and eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German government.

As well as attracting a variety of conservative and islamophobic elements of German society, PEGIDA also operates as an umbrella for a number of right-wing groups, including the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), as well as other neo-Nazi groups and right-wing football hooligans.

While PEGIDA claims not to be racist or right wing, Ralf Jäger, SPD interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, has dubbed the protesters “neo-Nazis in pinstripes", and the protests are widely viewed as thinly-concealed expressions of blatant xenophobia.

Germany: Police attack anti-Nazi protesters

On February 19, more than 21,000 anti-fascist protesters took to the streets to stop up to 3,000 neo-Nazis from commemorating the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II. 

The police again protected the fascists from protesters, but - unlike in 2009 - didn't give them an armed guard in their march.

For the second year running, the anti-fascists successfully stopped the march form taking place, and the neo-Nazis were forced to leave the town centre via the railway to the nearby town of Leipzig, where they were also denied the right to march.

The victory was again marred by police violence against the anti-fascists.

Germany: Protesters stop neo-Nazi march

On February 13, a neo-Nazi march through the German city of Dresden was prevented when more than 15,000 locals braved freezing temperatures to oppose them.

The fascists intended to march through the centre of Dresden to mark the 65-year anniversary of the allied firebombing of the city in 1945.

In recent years, this has become a regular event. Last year, 6000 neo-Nazis accompanied by 5000 police paraded through the city — the largest fascist march in Europe in recent history.

This year, however, about 5000 neo-Nazis were vastly outnumbered by a broad alliance of trade unions, political parties and civil society groups who formed a 12,000-strong human chain around the city centre, making Dresden, in the words of Mayor Helma Orosz, "a bastion against intolerance and stupidity".

Thousands of left-wing protesters blockaded the fascists at Neustadt railway station, stopping the march. The victory was marred, however, when police attacked the anti-fascist protesters with tear gas.

The lead-up to this year's march was full of controversy. 

The Dresden Council failed in a legal bid to prevent the march. In January, secret police raided the offices of the protest organising group Dresden Nazifrei ("Nazi-free Dresden") and the left-wing party Die Linke — confiscating leaflets, posters and computers. The Dresden Nazifrei website was closed down.

The Lower Saxony state government is also preparing laws to ban protests that are deemed "inflammatory". While supposedly aimed at preventing future Nazi parades, the wording of the new laws is broad enough to include left-wing and even union protests in its scope.

Similar laws passed by the right-wing government in Bavaria are currently facing a legal challenge.

First published in Green Left Weekly, 20 February, 2010.