The number of verbal and physical attacks on politicians and party offices has increased compared to the second half of 2022. In the first six months, 739 attacks on representatives of the parties represented in the Bundestag were registered nationwide. In the second half of the previous year there were only 392 cases.
This emerges from the answers of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to two parliamentary inquiries from the AfD, which are available to the German Press Agency and about which the “Junge Freiheit” first reported. Accordingly, the number of attacks on party facilities rose from 214 to 281 in the same period.
The growth in the governing parties of the traffic light coalition is particularly striking. The number of attacks on Green politicians rose from 75 in the second half of the previous year to 301 in the first half of 2023. In the SPD, the number went up from 95 to 153, in the FDP there was a fourfold increase to 80 cases.
Most of the time it was just insults and threats. Insults on the Internet and rants at campaign stands included topics such as the war in Ukraine and German immigration policy. In addition, there were also several cases of bodily harm. In February, for example, an AfD councilor was injured in an attack in Leipzig, and in Fürth at the end of April an AfD employee was punched in the face at the campaign stand.
However, if you exclude the second half of the year from the total figures for 2022, there were 1,059 attacks on party representatives in the first six months of last year – more than in the first half of 2023. There are no discernible reasons for these fluctuations. However, the Ministry of the Interior also points out in its answer that “the number of cases from the current year is preliminary and is still subject to change”.
