Another German politician attacked as fears of violence rise

Franziska Giffey, Berlin's top economic official, speaks to media.

By Kirsten Grieshaber

May 8, 2024 11:16 AM PT

BERLIN — A prominent Berlin politician was violently assaulted and suffered injuries to her head and neck, police said Wednesday, in the latest attack on elected officials that raises concern over rising political violence in Germany.

Franziska Giffey, the city’s top economic official, a former mayor and an ex-federal minister, was attacked at an event at a Berlin library on Tuesday by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard device, police said.

Giffey was taken to a hospital and treated for head and neck pain, police said. A 74-year-old man was detained and police searched his home, police said. They said the suspect was known to police, but did not give any indication for a motive.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner strongly condemned the attack.

“Anyone who attacks politicians is attacking our democracy,” said Wegner, according to German news agency dpa. “We will not tolerate this. We will oppose all forms of violence, hatred and agitation and protect our democracy.”

Giffey wrote on Instagram that “we live in a free and democratic country in which everyone is free to express their opinion ... and yet there is a clear limit. And that is violence against people who hold a different opinion, for whatever reason, in whatever form.”

“They are a transgression of boundaries that we as a society must resolutely oppose,” she said.

On Wednesday, Giffey, protected by several bodyguards, told reporters at a public event in Berlin that she was feeling fine but that “we also have to make it possible for us to live in a country where those who bear social and political responsibility can move freely.”

Last week, Matthias Ecke, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was beaten up in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning for next month’s election for the European Parliament and had to undergo surgery.

Police detained four suspects, ages 17 and 18, and said that the same group had apparently attacked a Green party worker minutes before they attacked Ecke. At least one of the teens is said to be linked to far-right groups, security officials said.

Also on Tuesday, a 47-year-old Green party politician was attacked by two people while putting up election posters in Dresden, dpa reported.

The incidents have raised political tensions in Germany.

Both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months. They called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

In February, the German parliament said in a report there were 2,790 attacks on elected representatives in 2023. Representatives of the Greens were disproportionally affected in 1,219 cases, those from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, in 478 cases and representatives of the SPD in 420 cases.

The country’s vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, who is a member of the Green party, was prevented from disembarking a ferry for hours by a group of angry farmers in January, and the vice president of the German parliament, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also from the Greens, was prevented from leaving an event in the state of Brandenburg last week when an angry crowd blocked her car.

Germany’s federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said after a special meeting of the country’s 16 state interior ministers on the issue of violence on Tuesday that possible measures included tightening Germany’s criminal law in order to “punish antidemocratic acts more severely,”

Many of the incidents have taken place in the formerly communist eastern part of the country, where Scholz’s government is deeply unpopular. The Interior Ministry in the state of Saxony said it had registered 112 election-related crimes so far this year, including 30 against elected officials or representatives.

Mainstream parties have accused AfD of links to violent neo-Nazi groups and of fomenting an intimidating political climate. One of its leaders, Bjoern Hoecke, is currently on trial for using a banned Nazi slogan.

Alternative for Germany, which campaigns against immigration and European integration, is expected to make gains in the European polls as well as in elections in Saxony and two other eastern German states in the fall.

Grieshaber writes for the Associated Press.