There are repeated attacks on politicians. But the brutality of the attack on SPD politician Ecke in Dresden is causing horror across the country. We shouldn’t accept this, said Chancellor Scholz.
SPD MEP Matthias Ecke was attacked and seriously injured while sticking up posters in Dresden. This act of violence caused horror and outrage across the country. Politicians from many parties condemned the attack. Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at a democracy congress in Berlin and called the act depressing. “Democracy is threatened by something like this, and that’s why shrugging it off is never an option,” said Scholz. “We have to stand together against this.”
One should also not accept attacks on Green candidates and local politicians. The fact that something like this happens also has something to do with speeches that are given and the mood that is created, said Scholz.
Attack in the dark
The 41-year-old Ecke was attacked by four masked people while posting posters on Friday evening. He was seriously injured and treated in hospital. According to police, the attackers were young men between 17 and 20 years old. A witness assigned the attackers to the right-wing spectrum, the police said.
According to the SPD Saxony, there were also attempts at intimidation, destruction of posters and insults among other party poster teams.
It wasn’t the only incident that evening: two Green Party campaign teams were also attacked. The police assume that it was the same perpetrators.
The incidents in Dresden are part of a series of attacks on party members in the run-up to the local and European elections on June 9th. It was only on Thursday evening that the Green Party member of the Bundestag Kai Gehring and his party colleague Rolf Fliß said they were attacked after a party event in Essen. Last weekend, members of the Green Party in Chemnitz and Zwickau were attacked while putting up election posters. According to police, a member of the AfD state parliament was beaten at an information stand in Nordhorn, Lower Saxony, on Saturday morning.
“Attack on democracy and therefore on all of us”
Politicians from the SPD, Greens, FDP, Union and AfD condemned the violence. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) announced a tough reaction. If a politically motivated attack on Ecke is confirmed a few weeks before the European elections, then “this serious act of violence is also a serious attack on democracy,” she explained. Faeser spoke of a “new dimension of anti-democratic violence.”
The SPD leaders Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil spoke of a deceitful attack and condemned it “in the strongest possible terms”. “The perpetrators want to intimidate us as representatives of a democratic society. But they will never succeed,” it said in a statement. In conversation with tagesschau.de Klingbeil called for an “unambiguous response from the constitutional state.” “The interior ministers now also have a duty to make it clear very quickly what can be done to protect Democrats in election campaigns,” said Klingbeil.
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) called the attack on X “shocking”. “We know attacks and intimidation from political competitors from the darkest eras of our history.” CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann explained on X: “We democrats will not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the enemies of democracy.”
This outbreak of violence is a warning: everyone who wants to preserve our liberal democracy must now stand together across all parties against attacks and abuses in political competition.
FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner called the act “shocking”. The FDP’s top candidate for the European elections, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, said on
“Violence in the election campaign is an attack on democracy and therefore on all of us,” wrote Green Party leader Ricarda Lang on to urge them to retreat”. They were “attacks on our democracy, on our republic,” he explained.
AfD chairman Tino Chrupalla also condemned the brutal attack: “We deeply condemn physical attacks against politicians from all parties. Election campaigns must be conducted in a hard and constructive manner, but without violence,” wrote the federal party and parliamentary group leader, who himself comes from Saxony, on X. He wishes Ecke “a lot of strength and a speedy recovery.” SPD politicians had previously held the AfD partly responsible for the climate in which such acts of violence occur.
Increased attacks on politicians
Violent crimes against party representatives have recently increased. According to a response from the federal government to an AfD request Green Party politicians were particularly affected: according to preliminary figures, 1,219 cases were recorded in 2023. This is a significant increase; in 2022 there were still 575 offenses.
AfD politicians were also frequently physically attacked. The preliminary statistics record 478 cases. The SPD was hit third most often with 420 crimes.
According to government figures, 10,537 crimes were reported for all parties together from 2019 to 2023.