Latest news with #AfD
DW
2 hours ago
- Politics
- DW
Eastern Germany in western hands – DW – 07/30/2025
Even 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there's still an imbalance between eastern and western Germany. Many executive positions in the former East are still held by people from the former West Germany. What are the reasons for this? Since the fall of the Wall, the former East Germany has undergone an unprecedented transformation, in which immigrants from former West Germany still play a significant role. Often, they arrived as young people, networked and rose to leadership positions. From here, they shaped and continue to shape eastern Germany today. According to figures published by the Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Germany in September 2024, more than 3 decades after reunification, only around 12 per cent of the leadership elite in eastern Germany were actually born there. The documentary ponders the reasons for this – and its consequences. Does it go some way to explaining the widespread rejection of the democratic system and the great popularity of the far-right AfD party in eastern Germany? The fact is that immediately after the fall of the Wall, West Germans were urgently needed - for example in the judiciary. Many East German lawyers didn't make the grade. Iris Goerke-Berzau came to Saxony-Anhalt from West Germany in the 1990s and helped to rebuild the judiciary. She has stayed to this day. When it came to the economy in the new federal states, the rebuilding process also relied on skills of West Germans like Ludwig Koehne. The Oxford graduate came to the former East Germany in 1992 and worked for the Treuhandanstalt, a government agency set up to privatize East German state-owned enterprises. When the agency was dissolved in 1994, he took over a railway crane manufacturer in Leipzig and turned it into the global market leader in its sector. Koehne says this economic salvage operation wouldn't have been possible without western knowledge and capital. Angela Merkel and Joachim Gauck are prominent exceptions – former East Germans who have excelled in their field. Another is 45-year-old Manja Kliese, who heads the crisis response center at the Federal Foreign Office. 'Many East Germans wouldn't even dare to apply for careers like mine,' she says. Eastern Germans are also underrepresented in senior positions at the Federal Foreign Office. 'We have a huge democracy problem,' says Kliese, 'when people in the East have been controlled by others for decades.' This is another reason why people feel very distant from elite groups and are more likely to support right-wing extremists, she says. But still, she encourages other eastern Germans to get involved -- and better represent their part of the country.
Al Arabiya
a day ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Syrian charged over Berlin Holocaust Memorial stabbing
A Syrian man who allegedly supports ISIS has been charged with attempted murder over the stabbing of a Spanish tourist at Berlin's Holocaust Memorial, prosecutors said Tuesday. The suspect, a refugee partially identified as Wassim Al M., is said to have seriously injured the 30-year-old man at the landmark in the German capital in February. It was one of a series of attacks blamed on foreign nationals that fueled a bitter debate about immigration in the run-up to Germany's general election. The suspect 'shares the ideology of the foreign terrorist organization [ISIS]' and has 'radical [extremist] and antisemitic views', federal prosecutors said in a statement. He had travelled from the eastern city of Leipzig, where he had been living, to Berlin to target 'alleged infidels, whom he regarded as representatives of a Western form of society that he rejected', prosecutors said. Shortly before the stabbing, the suspect, who was 19 at the time, sent a photo of himself to ISIS members so the group could claim responsibility for the attack, they said. The tourist, from the Basque Country in northern Spain, was wounded in the neck during the attack at Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a somber grid of concrete steles located near the Brandenburg Gate and the US embassy. The suspect, who was arrested shortly after the attack and is in pre-trial detention, has also been charged with causing serious bodily harm and attempted membership of a foreign terrorist organization. Officials said previously he had arrived in Germany in 2023. The attack was one of several which shocked Germany ahead of the general election, which saw a doubling in the vote-share for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD). The election was won by the center-right CDU/CSU, which has since taken power at the head of a coalition and moved swiftly to introduce stricter curbs on immigration. The new government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has signaled it is trying to resume deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.
DW
a day ago
- Politics
- DW
Germany updates: Merz meets Jordan's King over Gaza airlift – DW – 07/29/2025
Chancellor Merz is hosting King Abdullah a day after he unveiled plans to airlift aid into Gaza with Jordan's help. Meanwhile, a survey shows most Germans want the government to put more pressure on Israel. DW has more. Friedrich Merz is meeting King Abullah II of Jordan in Berlin on Tuesday, a day after the Chancellor said his government would work with Amman to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Israel has been facing mounting international pressure to ease restrictions on aid supplies amid growing concerns that starvation is spreading in the besieged enclave. According to a new survey, nearly three-quarters of Germans believe that the government should apply more pressure on Israel to address the devastating humanitarian situation and end the conflict in three-quarters of Germans believe that thier country should exert more pressure on Israel to address the devastating humanitarian situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip. According to a Forsa survey commissioned by magazine published on Tuesday, 74% of respondents would like to see the federal government take a tougher stance towards Israel over its conflict against Hamas in Gaza. The survey reveals a clear divide in opinion based on political affiliation: some 94% of Left Party voters and 88% of Green Party voters are in favor of exerting more pressure on Israel. Among supporters of the ruling center-right CDU/CSU and center-left SPD (Social Democrats) parties, 77% want the German government to do more to force Israel to ease the catastrophic humanitarian situation and end the war. The strongest rejection of increased diplomatic pressure against Israel comes among supporters of the right-wing extremist AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, with 37% against applying more pressure. Still, a majority of 61% of AfD voters are in favor of Germany taking a tougher stance towards Israel. Germany is one of Israel's staunchest international backers, and defending the security and existence of the State of Israel is one of Germany's "reasons of state." Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz is hosting Jordan's King Abdullah II in Berlin on Tuesday. According to Jordanian authorities, they will focus on strengthening the two countries' bilateral ties, as well on discussing "the most pressing developments in the region." The meeting is being held the day after Merz said Berlin wants to set up an airlift to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, with the support of Jordan. "We know that this can only be a very small help for the people in Gaza," Merz said Monday, adding it is "a contribution we are happy to make." Jordan has acted as a hub for deliveries of aid and supplies, parachuting food into the Strip over the past two days since Israel announced a "tactical pause" in fighting against Palestinian militant group Hamas. Calls from the international community have been growing for Israel to do more to address the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where many civilians are facing starvation, according to the United Nations, the World Health Organization and aid groups. While Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Sunday that "there is no starvation in Gaza," a day later US President Donald Trump contradicted the Israeli leader, saying there is "real starvation" in the besieged enclave and that "we have to get the kids fed."To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video from a rather gray Bonn! We will bring you the latest as Chancellor Friedrich Merz meets Jordan's King Abdullah II in Berlin, with the pair expected to discuss their plans to airlift aid to Gaza. As international pressure grows on Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, the German government is also facing mounting pressure domestically to do more to force Israel to allow more supplies into the Palestinian enclave and end the conflict. Follow DW for reports, analyses and explainers on these and other stories to keep you up-to-date with all the topics currently making the news in Germany on Tuesday, July 29.
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
The far-right in Germany wants to soften its image, not its policies
The AfD's new strategy emerged from an internal analysis of its performance in national elections in February. It ran on an anti-elite, anti-immigrant platform that included promises of mass deportations. It also vowed to reignite the nation's industrial economy, powered by German coal and Russian natural gas. The party finished second, winning more than one-fifth of the vote. But the AfD found itself shut out of government, with no other party in Parliament willing to work with it. Unable to cement its place in the Bundestag, the AfD decided that it needed to expand its appeal at the ballot box and in circles of power in Berlin. Enter the new approach, which takes as its starting point the idea that German voters are fundamentally conservative — an assertion that centre-left parties dispute. It is based largely on a surface read of February's election, when more than half of the voters either backed the AfD or the centre-right sister parties of Merz, the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union. Merz's voters broadly agree with AfD's view that Germany needs to strengthen the economy and reduce migration, said Beatrix von Storch, a senior AfD Member of Parliament and an architect of the new strategy. Opinion polling shows that Germans are worried about migration and security above all other issues. The AfD, she said, will try to appeal to centre-right voters through those issues. It will also try to provoke Germany's major liberal parties to move to the extreme left on social issues like abortion and transgender rights, she said, by raising the profile of those matters and of Germany's growing far-left party. 'There is a cultural war in the Western world and we will win it,' she said. She said she hoped for an echo of last year's American presidential election. 'Moderate Republicans voted for Donald Trump, even though they don't approve of everything he says or does,' von Storch said. 'But the divide between moderate Republicans and the progressive Democrats is so deep that these reservations no longer mattered.' There are many reasons why the AfD's effort could fail. Merz's voters disagree with the AfD's stances on several issues, surveys suggest, most notably Germany's backing of Ukraine in its war against Russia. And Germans tend to be consensus builders. While its political extremes are growing, many voters still baulk at supporting any party seen as too far on one end or the other. 'You could say that the political centre is a kind of ideal in Germany, which is why I believe that, despite the potential for polarisation, there is no great desire for division among the German population,' said Johannes Hillje, a political scientist who has studied the new AfD strategy. Some voters have also been turned off by the AfD's sharp rhetoric, particularly on immigration. German intelligence has formally declared the AfD to be extremist over what the Government called an unconstitutional campaign to treat migrants differently from other German residents. The extremism designation could someday lead to the party being banned from German politics. The force of many voters' distaste for the AfD helped prompt the other part of its strategy, the effort to soften its image without retreating on policy. In May, AfD drafted penalties for members who had acted uncivilly in parliament, including fines of up to €5000 ($9760) and a three-month ban from giving speeches in the chamber. Earlier, it dissolved the Junge Alternative, the party's notoriously radical youth wing. The AfD is now polling around 25% nationally, but it has lost ground to the centre-right since Merz took office in May. His party gained support after loosening government borrowing limits, cutting some taxes and tightening border controls. The Chancellor has rallied Germans around increased military spending, as long-standing American security guarantees for Europe have faltered. Until recently, he had avoided the sort of coalition bickering that brought down former Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Government last year. To rattle Merz's coalition, the AfD needed a controversy — one that combined hot-button social issues and hot-tempered political infighting. This month, Merz's Government provided both. A progressive law professor named Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf had been nominated for a seat on the nation's constitutional court by Merz's centre-left coalition partner, the Social Democrats. But Merz's party was baulking at supporting her. The far-right had helped provoke the dispute. The AfD and social conservatives had been attacking Brosius-Gersdorf, claiming without evidence that she supported legalised abortion to the ninth month of pregnancy. Such a stance would have been far outside the German mainstream, were it true. Abortion is illegal in Germany, but there are no penalties for the procedure through to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Brosius-Gersdorf had worked on a commission to change the law to decriminalise those early-term abortions, but she never publicly supported late-term abortion. The AfD, which opposes abortion, cares little about that distinction. When Merz took questions in Parliament this month, von Storch asked whether he could in good conscience vote to seat Brosius-Gersdorf. After verbally attacking von Storch, Merz said yes. Soon, an edited version of the exchange raced across social media. Outrage built among conservatives, who fumed that Merz had effectively endorsed legalised abortion. Some Catholic bishops warned against confirming the nominee. Merz's governing coalition had to postpone the vote, fearing Brosius-Gersdorf had insufficient support. The nomination remains unresolved, though Merz has refocused his attention in recent days onto foreign policy. Government aides say the best way for Merz to thwart the AfD is to stay out of culture wars and stick to solving problems that rank high among voters' concerns. That includes restarting economic growth, reducing migration and restoring German leadership on the global stage. And doing so while projecting unity inside the government. Some AfD leaders agree that policy wins would be Merz's best weapon against them. Von Storch said AfD voters could flock to Merz if he effectively adopted the party's platform on immigration, including blocking new migrants from crossing the German border and deporting millions of asylum-seekers from Syria and elsewhere. Merz has tightened border controls and stepped-up deportations, but there is no indication he would support anything close to the full AfD migration agenda. Even as she stressed the importance of culture wars to divide the Merz coalition, von Storch said that for the AfD to grow in popularity, it must sell Germans on its plans for their wallets. 'Voters want a government that can lead the economy out of crisis, secure prosperity and ensure sound public finances,' she said. 'The AfD will gain massive acceptance and support if we aggressively stake out these areas.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Jim Tankersley and Christopher F. Schuetze Photograph by: Lena Mucha ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Is being a Nazi ‘hip'? Germany's youth increasingly embrace far-right ideology
Germany is moving to the right again. This was not only made evident by February's election results, but it's also becoming more visible among ordinary folks, especially young people. February's snap vote, brought after the collapse of a centre-left administration, saw the conservative bloc come out on top ahead of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which garnered its best-ever result in a federal vote amid discontent over immigration and the economy. The soaring support for the AfD, in a country where being far-right was long considered a no-go in light of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, appears to be going hand in hand with a wider willingness to openly voice racist views. Thanks to social media, the far-right scene is able to better target young people, some of whom the irony of chanting Nazi slogans in a country that is responsible for the Holocaust appears to be lost. Domestic intelligence officials in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate say that right-wingers nowadays express their views more openly than they used to and are increasingly present on social media.
