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POTSDAM, Germany —
For adamantly insisting
there are too many foreign-
ers in Germany from radi-
cally different cultures col-
lecting state welfare ben-
efits, Joerg Quitt has lost
friends — Germans who be-
lieve their country has a duty
rooted in its history to open
its arms to all refugees.
But the xenophobic Al-
ternative for Germany, or
AfD, party that the 58-year-
old engineer has unabash-
edly supported since it was
founded in 2013 could prove
the big winner in two upcom-
ing state elections. Opinion
polls show the far-right pop-
ulists on track to win the
largest share of the votes in
Quitt’s state of Branden-
burg as well as in Saxony —
two states in the formerly
communist east.
If they do, they would al-
most surely not rule either
state because other parties
have refused to form coali-
tions with AfD. Nonetheless,
the results could tarnish the
image of the states abroad
and cause political turbu-
lence within Germany.
“We’re being overrun by
foreigners, and once they’re
here, they won’t ever leave,”
said Quitt, who moved to the
east after German uni-
fication in 1990 and is looking
forward to the Sept. 1 vote.
He is hoping the AfD will
trounce Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Christian Demo-
cratic Union and all other
parties for the first time in
any state election — mainly
on the strength of its rigid
anti-refugee stand.
“Many of the refugees
we’re spending all this mon-
ey on don’t even like us,”
added Quitt, who lives in a
suburb near the Branden-
burg state capital of Pots-
dam. “We’re going to end up
being a minority in our own
country. It’s a joke. The es-
tablished parties just ignore
the whole problem, and
they’re going to pay a price
for that.”
The mood in Germany
has been darkened this sum-
mer by a series of violent epi-
sodes blamed on refugees
who fled to Germany and
Europe and on right-wing
extremists angered by the
flow of 1.5 million refugees
into Germany since 2015.
Though the four inci-
dents took place in western
German states, the turmoil
has contributed to support
for the far-right AfD, accord-
ing to analysts and political
leaders. The AfD is expected
to win 21% to 23% of the vote,
opinion polls have showed.
“There’s a lot of tension in
the air at the moment,” said
Hajo Funke, an author and a
political scientist in Berlinwho studied the tactics of
the far right for his latest
book, “The Struggle for
Memory.” “It’s an explosive
situation. The AfD is clearly
trying to use these horrid
killings to whip up senti-
ment against ethnic groups
in general and minorities in
particular in Germany.”
An 8-year-old German
boy was killed at the Frank-
furt train station on July 29,
and a 40-year-old Eritrean
refugee was arrested on sus-
picion of shoving the boy
from the platform to his
death in front of a train as it
rolled into the crowded sta-
tion. The boy’s mother was
also pushed onto the tracks,
but she survived.
Two days later, a man
was stabbed to death with asamurai sword in broad day-
light in Stuttgart. His former
roommate — a foreigner
seeking asylum — has been
accused in that killing.
Police said the slain Ger-
man citizen had threatened
to inform authorities that
the former roommate was
not, as he had claimed, a Syr-
ian war refugee, but was
from Jordan and came to
Germany with a fake Syrian
passport. Images of the at-
tack were widely circulated
on the internet.
In late spring came a
killing that was attributed to
right-wing violence. On June
2, a prominent local political
leader in Merkel’s conserva-
tive party, Walter Luebcke,
was shot in the head at close
range; the suspect is de-scribed as a far-right ex-
tremist. State prosecutors
have said they believe Lue-
bcke was killed because of
his staunch support over the
years for Merkel’s pro-ref-
ugee policies.
On July 23, an Eritrean
man was seriously wounded
in a drive-by shooting in the
town of Waechtersbach. Po-
lice said the gunman, a 55-
year-old German who later
shot himself in the head, ap-
parently picked out the vic-
tim because of his skin color.
“A lot of people in eastern
Germany are looking for
someone to blame for their
own difficult and frustrating
situation — and foreigners
have become a target,” said
Michael Luehmann, a politi-
cal scientist who has studiedthe issue at the Goettingen
Institute for Democracy.
“There’s a feeling that the
refugees are being handed
everything by the state while
many east Germans strug-
gling to get by are not getting
enough help. It’s an absurd
claim. But the refugees are
easy to blame. The AfD is
trying to ride that wave of
disenchantment to the
polls,” Luehmann said, add-
ing that a strong showing at
the ballot box could frighten
foreign investors and stu-
dents.
Despite the turbulence in
the east, many Germans still
wholeheartedly support the
willkommenskultur, or cul-
ture of welcoming, that ac-
companied the arrival in
2015 of large numbers of ref-
ugees from war-torn Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan and parts
of Africa. The federal gov-
ernment spent $26 billion
last year to help integrate
more than 1 million refugees,
and the total bill is expected
to top $100 billion.
“There are unfortunately
areas in Brandenburg and
Saxony that are not very
friendly towards foreigners,”
said Firas Zakri, a former
English teacher from
Aleppo, Syria, who came to
Germany as a refugee in 2015
and is training in Berlin to
become a software engineer.
“The AfD relies on hate and
ignorance to win votes. You
can feel the rising support
for the AfD and their views in
those states.”
Barbara Richstein, a
member of the Brandenburg
state assembly for Merkel’s
center-right party, is never-
theless confident she can
win her constituency in
Falkensee just west of
Berlin. It’s important to try
to understand the AfD’s
supporters, she said, in or-
der to win them back.
“We’re living in a complex
world, but some people are
looking for simple answers,”
she said in an interview. “It’s
a mistake to assume that
AfD supporters are only the
poor and disenfranchised.
They come from all walks of
life. They’re generally afraid
of everything changing
around them, and they’re
afraid their living standards
will deteriorate.”German tensions boil over into violence
AN ELECTION display in Plessa, Germany, features literature by the Alternative for Germany party, which
could win big in two state elections on Sept. 1. The right-wing AfD takes an anti-refugee stance.Jens SchlueterGetty ImagesBy Erik Kirschbaum
Attacks by far-right
extremists and
refugees darken mood
ahead of elections.