• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Jewish Groups Voice Fear Over German Far-Right Surge

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/28/19
in Featured, World
Jewish Groups Voice Fear Over German Far-Right Surge

Demonstrators hold up a banner reading ‘Who votes for Höcke votes for fascism’ referring to AfD candidate Björn Höcke. Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Jewish community leaders in Germany voiced alarm Monday over a surge in support for the far-right AfD in a regional election Thuringia state, just weeks after an anti-Semitic attack.

Led by one of its most radical figures, Bjoern Hoecke, the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Alternative for Germany party doubled its score from the previous election in 2014 to 23.4 percent in the ex-communist region, knocking Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s CDU party off second spot.

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said the AfD’s success could no longer be dismissed merely as “protest votes” because there was no denying the hard-right extremist ideology of Thuringia’s AfD branch.

“Anyone who voted for the AfD on Sunday shares responsibility for the gradual undermining of the foundations of our democracy,” Schuster said, adding that the AfD had lured voters “with cheap racist propaganda.”

Far-right AfD surges to second place in German state elections.

Party leader, Björn Höcke, sees the election as a clear no to a "paralysed party democracy".#Thuringia#ltwth19 pic.twitter.com/FHhd2qfCKm

— DW Politics (@dw_politics) October 27, 2019

Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor who heads Munich’s Jewish community, said the fact that the party was able to garner such a strong score, showed “something fundamental has gone off the rails in our political system.”

She warned that voters who had picked the AfD have “backed a party that has for years prepared the ground for exclusion and violence of the far-right.”

‘Terrifying’

Christoph Heubner, deputy president of the International Auschwitz Committee, which represents survivors of the Nazi death camp, also voiced fears over the trend.

“For survivors of German concentration camps, this strong increase in votes for the AfD is a new terrifying sign that raises fear of a further consolidation of right-wing extremist trends and attitudes in Germany,” he said.

The AfD’s strong result came despite widespread criticism after an October 9 attack in the eastern city of Halle, where a suspected neo-Nazi gunman tried and failed to storm a synagogue and then shot dead two people outside.

After the bloody attack, the commissioner for combatting anti-Semitism, Felix Klein, like many other critics, argued that the AfD had trafficked in incendiary anti-Jewish sentiment.

The AfD’s local leader in Thuringia, Hoecke, in particular had been heavily criticised over his radical speeches, and political figures had urged the far-right party’s bosses to cut him loose.

The 47-year-old has labelled Berlin’s Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame” and called for a “180-degree shift” in Germany’s culture of remembrance of the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime.

His main challenger in the tensely fought Thuringia vote, CDU candidate Mike Mohring, called Hoecke “a Nazi” on the campaign trail.

Germany's far-right #AfD could capture a quarter of votes in Sunday's #Thuringia election that's seen as a key test for Merkel's CDU. The AfD’s top candidate there is known as a nationalist firebrand – but just who is Björn #Hoecke?pic.twitter.com/9NaTnwrCFH

— DW Politics (@dw_politics) October 25, 2019

A triumphant Hoecke told supporters late Sunday that, 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Thuringia had voted for a second revolution, a “Transition 2.0”, and delivered “a clear ‘no’ to the ossified party landscape.”


More on the Subject

Germany Security Agency Steps Up Watch of Far-Right AfD

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

German far-right supporters demonstrate at Cologne`s train station on 9 January, 2016
World

Far-Right Terrorism ‘Biggest Danger’ to Democracy in Germany: Intel Chief

by Staff Writer
March 12, 2020
Supporters of the "Der Dritte Weg/Der III Weg" (The Third Path/The III Path) far-right and neo-nazi party walk through Plauen, eastern Germany, during a demonstration on Labour Day, May 1, 2019
Opinion

Confronting the Mainstream Context of Germany’s Far-Right Extremism

by Aristotle Kallis
March 11, 2020
AfD demonstrators wave German flags
Opinion

Germany’s Left Must Create an Alternative to Far-Right AfD

by Constantin Eckner
February 25, 2020
German far-right supporters demonstrate at Cologne`s train station on 9 January, 2016
Featured

German State Premier Quits After ‘Unforgivable’ Far-Right Vote

by Staff Writer
February 6, 2020
Germany’s AfD Faces Electoral Test After Synagogue Shooting
Featured

Germany’s AfD Faces Electoral Test After Synagogue Shooting

by Staff Writer
October 24, 2019
Merkel Vows To Fight Hate After Attempted ‘Massacre’ At Synagogue
Featured

Merkel Vows To Fight Hate After Attempted ‘Massacre’ At Synagogue

by Staff Writer
October 10, 2019
Next Post
‘Deaths of Despair:’ Why Are US Suicides on the Rise?

'Deaths of Despair:' Why Are US Suicides on the Rise?

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush

Selective Empathy is Far Worse than No Empathy at All

Recommended

Dutch politician Geert Wilders

Xenophobia in the Netherlands? Unpacking the PVV’s Surprising Success

November 28, 2023
Ukraine war

NATO Chief Says ‘No Alternative’ to Helping Ukraine Stop Putin

November 27, 2023
Migrants stranded at the Finland border

Russia Warns of a ‘Crisis’ at Arctic Border With Finland

November 22, 2023
People march against climate change in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on October 13, 2018.

Earth to Warm Up to 2.9C Even With Current Climate Pledges: UN

November 20, 2023
A woman in Singapore checks her mobile

Singapore and Indonesia Launch Cross-Border QR-Code Payments

November 17, 2023
This illustration picture shows the AI (Artificial Intelligence) smartphone app ChatGPT surrounded by other AI Apps in Vaasa, on June 6, 2023

AI Images of White Faces Are Now ‘Hyper-Real’: Study

November 13, 2023

Opinion

Dutch politician Geert Wilders

Xenophobia in the Netherlands? Unpacking the PVV’s Surprising Success

November 28, 2023
Afghan refugees

The Blessed and Cursed Randomness of Our Lives

October 25, 2023
Joe Biden

The ‘Polycrisis’ Challenge: Biden’s Vision for Global Problem-Solving

September 26, 2023
Pro-Trump protester in front of Capitol Hill.

The Ominous (and Irresponsible) Chatter of a Civil War 

September 4, 2023
A bamboo-based design raises family homes safely above water levels to cope with raising water levels in Bangladesh.

The West Owes Climate Refugees Reparations Now

August 14, 2023
President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House.

Boxing Day Comes to South Florida

July 5, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post