After the attack in Hanau, people take to the streets in many cities and commemorate the victims. Politically, the main discussion is about a party and how to deal with right-wing terror.
Hanau / Berlin (dpa) - In numerous cities in Germany, people commemorated the victims of the alleged racist attack in Hanau on Thursday evening.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the crime scenes in Hanau and met around 20 victims' relatives with his wife Elke Büdenbender in the town hall. He then took part in a memorial service with around 5000 people. Steinmeier spoke of more than fifty cities in Germany, in which people would have gathered for vigils.
After the attack, numerous AfD politicians had complicity. A harder approach to right-wing violence is also required. The investigation after the bloody deed with eleven dead meanwhile focuses, among other things, on the question of whether the alleged perpetrator had any supporters or supporters.
"Today is the hour when we have to show that we stand together as a society, we do not allow ourselves to be intimidated, we do not diverge," said Steinmeier in Hanau. He spoke of a "terrorist act" because it should spread fear and terror. In Berlin, around 500 people, including numerous top politicians, gathered at the Brandenburg Gate and formed a large human chain around the gate.
After the attack, numerous AfD politicians are complicit. "Of course there is a direct connection between the strengthening of the AfD and the increase in right-wing violence," said Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) to the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (Friday). Pistorius complained that foreign citizens were denied human dignity. "This is so dangerous because it only leads some to take action. Here, fatal disinhibition has gotten underway and the AfD is partly to blame."
The Green Party politician Cem Özdemir said on Friday on Deutschlandfunk that he was incredibly angry. "It is enough! We have a massive problem with right-wing terror in Germany and now it is time to start draining this right swamp with the full force of the law, online and offline, please." The year 2020 must go down in the history of the Federal Republic, as the year in which Germany finally got serious about the fight against right-wing radicalism and racism.
In conversation with the "Rheinische Post" (Friday), the FDP interior expert Konstantin Kuhle called for consequences for state security policy. In particular, the dealings with the AfD must be changed. "The pressure to persecute the overlap between right-wing terrorism and AfD must increase significantly after Hanau." The Council President of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, told the "Rheinische Post": "Anyone who covers right-wing extremists in a party shares responsibility if their ideologies are heard."
In "Mannheimer Morgen" (Friday), the Mannheim political scientist Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck described right-wing agitation and the call by AfD politician Björn Höcke for political subversion as a "license for attacks". Numerous AfD politicians had previously made allegations. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) described the party as an arsonist.
AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland rejected the allegations. "I think it's shabby to use something like that during the phase," said Gauland in Potsdam. It is an obviously completely mentally confused perpetrator, "and we do not want to talk about left and right here. It is a crime."
The argument that the perpetrator may have been mentally ill was not accepted by CDU politician Armin Laschet on the ZDF program "Maybrit Illner". "There have always been mentally ill people. But they have not become murderers. They become murderers because this aggression is fueled in a society." Both anonymous hate speech on the Internet and the language of "elected parliamentarians" always "expected" that there would be "a madman", said the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.
On Wednesday evening, a 43-year-old German in Hanau shot nine people with foreign roots from allegedly radical and racist motives. According to the investigators, he later killed his mother and himself. Among the fatalities is a Romanian citizen, as President Klaus Iohannis confirmed on Friday night on Twitter. Romanian media reports say he is a 23 year old man.
The investigators assume that the marksman is "racist". This is indicated by video messages and a pamphlet that the man left on the Internet. According to the responsible district authority, he had two weapons legally. Many questions remain unanswered, including whether the shooter was mentally ill and delusional or whether he might have had supporters. So far, the investigators have published little information about the expiry of the acts of violence, which began around 10:00 p.m. The perpetrator was active in a Frankfurt shooting club, but according to the association, he was never noticed as hostile to foreigners.
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announced on Thursday that it would examine political consequences. Other legislative changes may also be necessary. What has recently developed in the area of right-wing extremism is very worrying. Together with Federal Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht (SPD), Seehofer will speak at a press conference in Berlin this Friday.
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