Status: 02.01.2022 11:16 a.m.
After an attack on the constituency office of the former Eastern Commissioner Wanderwitz, politicians from other parties are also outraged. According to his successor in office, Schneider, the attack is evidence of radicalization.
A suspected pyrotechnics attack on the constituency office of the Saxon CDU member of the Bundestag Marco Wanderwitz has triggered a wave of solidarity with the Federal Government’s former Eastern Commissioner. His successor in office Carsten Schneider wrote in the short message service Twitter that the attack was “further evidence of the radicalization and disinhibition of parts of the population”.
Greens federal manager Michael Kellner tweeted: “Full solidarity with colleague Marco Wanderwitz. Violence has no place in the democratic debate.” Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch also expressed his solidarity on Twitter.
Police are looking for witnesses
According to a spokeswoman for the Chemnitz Police Department, the police are looking for witnesses to the incident. This had become known on New Year’s Day. Accordingly, the frame and a window pane of the constituency office in Zwönitz in the Saxon Erzgebirge district were probably damaged with pyrotechnics. According to the police, the property damage is around 2500 euros. The alleged perpetrators did not break into the office.
CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak wrote on Twitter: “There is no justification for it. This attack is not a form of protest, it is simply criminal.” From 2020 until the most recent change of government, Wanderwitz was the federal government’s commissioner for the east.
Lauterbach’s constituency office attacked
The Cologne constituency office of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach was also damaged on New Year’s Eve. The state security has started the investigation, said a police spokesman. Lauterbach told the dpa news agency that due to previous damage to property with slogans and corresponding threatening emails, he assumed that the renewed attack on his office was carried out from among the ranks of radicalized vaccination opponents and corona deniers.
“These people do not represent society, where the overwhelming part is really sticking together and trying to do everything against the pandemic,” said the minister. “They represent a very small splinter group that self-righteously believes that they have to take a different path here and that got lost in the process. That is just sad.”
The office had already been smeared with abuse on December 10th.