BY SOPHIE SOLOWAY ’23
Thuringia, an East German state, held its regional party elections on Sunday, Oct. 27. The country’s socialist party, Die Linke, won, and the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), came in second place. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU) placed third. Die Linke was the first left-wing party to ever win a regional election of this caliber in Germany, according to Al Jazeera.
AfD’s second place victory follows upward trends of nationwide hate-based crimes. According to the New York Times, anti-Semitic and xenophobic hate crimes in Germany have each risen by approximately 20 percent within the past year. A German right-wing shooter attacked a Halle synagogue on Yom Kippur just three weeks ago.
Sophie Schempp ’23, who has family living in Germany, says that this bigotry is not new.
“Looking at the election results in Thuringia, it is apparent that anti-immigration sentiments are skyrocketing,” Schempp said. “The AfD was founded in 2013, but has been gaining massive ... support recently, reaching 23.4 percent support in Thuringia. When East and West Germany were divided, East Germany was trading with Eastern European countries and was very competitive in that market.”
“When Germany reunified, they began trading with western countries, switching to western currencies and many were left financially devastated,” Schempp said. “They were bombarded with western goods but most had no money to buy them. Around the same time, more people from countries including Russia, Turkey and Poland began to immigrate to Germany, so many Germans began to blame the immigrants for their monetary difficulties.”
A nearby city, Dresden, declared a “Nazi Emergency” on Nov. 2, citing the same spikes in discriminatory crime, namely anti-Semitism and Islamaphobic violence. According to Al Jazeera, the city sees weekly anti-immigrant protests after a recent election with similar results to Thuringia’s. The resolution behind this declaration, which aims to limit hate speech within the bounds of Dresden, was not widely supported by the AfD or CDU party but was approved by the city council.
In the U.S., 2018 also saw an increase in hate crimes. There was a 23 percent rise in general religion-based attacks and a 37 percent hike in anti-Semitic crimes, according to The Guardian.
Both Smith College and the University Massachusetts, Amherst found graffitied hate symbols on their campuses in recent weeks.
“That’s really where the extremist anti-immigrant sentiments come from — misplaced anger towards innocent people — which I feel is the case in the U.S.” Schempp said.
Three days after Thuringia’s election results shocked German and international audiences, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel publicized her plans to expand restrictions on both gun ownership and public hate speech. While physical manifestations of racially violent hate speech are already outlawed in Germany, Merkel’s plan would apply similar standards to social media platforms, forcing them to alert authorities to reported hate speech.
While Germany is historically known for its strictness in firearms sales, the country may soon implement more rules. Background checks prior to firearm purchases would be crafted to track buyers’ racially charged sentiments, according to Germany’s national news company, Deutsche Welle. While the resolution has not yet been passed by Congress, most politicians have pledged their support, and it is predicted that it will be passed with little hesitation.