Tensions In Germany Rise Amid Flood Of Asylum-Seekers

As a local lawmaker in the east German city of Magdeburg who regularly speaks out against the far right, Soeren Herbst has endured years of animosity. But the sight that greeted him outside his home last week made the Green Party politician realize that the abuse had reached a new level.

 

Someone had sprayed a gallows on the front of his house, along with Herbst’s name and the word “Volksverraeter” – traitor to the German people.

 

“Now we indeed have a new situation,” Herbst said in a telephone interview the day after the incident. “You start worrying about your safety and that of your family.”

 

The incident reflects a growing public tension in Germany, where far-right groups were quick to seize on the Paris terror attack as evidence of a need to curb immigration. While it’s the extremists on the far right who are grabbing most of the headlines, mainstream Germans are increasingly being drawn into inflammatory rhetoric – and at times anti-foreigner sentiment. The country’s normally staid – some might say dull – political debates have in particular become inflamed with vitriol amid the influx of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in recent months.

 

Read More: News from The Associated Press