Minorities say Germany has been slow to recognize threat of far-right extremism
HANAU, Germany — Ripped by grief and brimming with anger, the message from minority communities hit by Germany’s latest far-right attack was clear: more must be done to address the country’s extremist scourge.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Friday pledged a bigger police presence, particularly at vulnerable sites such as mosques, following the mass shootings that targeted hookah cafes in the town of Hanau.
Nine people were killed in those attacks on Wednesday, with the 43-yearold gunman, Tobias Rathjen, later found dead alongside his mother at home.
“A trail of blood of rightwing extremism goes through our country to this day,” Mr. Seehofer said, describing it as “the greatest security threat” to the country.
Muslim and Kurdish community leaders complained that the awakening has come too slowly, with security agencies long distracted by the threat of
Islamic extremism.
Minorities in Germany have watched with concern as the far-right has established a foothold in mainstream politics. The unabashedly anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is now the largest opposition party in the federal parliament and has fared well in regional elections, capitalizing on friction around Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome more than a million refugees in 2015.
Germany also has seen a spike in violence linked to the far-right. Wednesday night’s shooting was the third deadly attack in less than a year, after a politician was shot in June and a gunman attacked a synagogue in Halle in October.
Minority groups are calling not just for more protection, but for the country to confront antiimmigrant, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic attitudes.
“We’re very sad about what happened, but also very angry,” said Leyla Acar, co-chairwoman of Kon-Med, an association of Kurds in Germany, adding that at least five of Wednesday’s shooting victims were Kurdish. “What are the politicians doing? They always say they are against racism, right-wing extremism, but what do they do?”
While German and European leaders have rallied to condemn what happened in Hanau, and anti-right wing demonstrations have taken place in cities throughout Germany, the reaction from U.S. officials has been muted. President Donald Trump and his outgoing Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, have remained conspicuously silent.
In Hanau — a small yet diverse city where many residents either were born abroad or are the children of migrants — Mayor Claus Kamisky called for unity among his shaken constituents.
“Our city has just gone through its grimmest hours in peacetime,” he said Friday.
“We know where racism and hatred once led,” he added, referring to Nazi rule.
At an Islamic center a short drive away from the Midnight hookah bar, where Rathjen opened fire at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday night, Muslim community leader Khurrem Akhtar, 43, said that while most Germans were not racist, he was worried about the breakdown of red lines in recent years.
“There’s an us-versusthem mindset that can be felt sometimes,” he said. His community was resisting attempts to separate them from the rest of German society, he said. “We’re part of Germany, and we’re part of Hanau.”
It’s the far-right’s attempts to cleave divisions that German security officials say is of a particular concern. But Mr. Akhtar said mainstream political rhetoric — for instance, debates about whether Islam can be part of Germany — has contributed to the current climate.
“The AfD is a product of ... an accumulation of many things that went wrong,” he said. “Everyone has to question whether one’s actions perhaps stoked hatred.”