A lawmaker for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was violently attacked on Saturday by two left-wing extremists over the weekend in Germany’s northernmost state – Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Michael Meister, a lawmaker in the State Parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the AfD, had been out for a walk on the streets of Rostock when a pair of violent left-wing extremists approached him from behind and began attacking him, according to a report from Junge Freiheit.
During the attack, Meister said he heard the two men shouting: “You AfD Nazi pig!”
Although the attack by the two extremists came as a complete surprise, Meister, a former police officer, managed to stave off the two men with what he described as a “targeted punch,” which resulted in the two men giving up and leaving the scene. After taking himself to the local hospital, where medical staff treated him for non-life-threatening injuries, Meister reported the incident to authorities.
In a statement, Meister’s colleague Nikolaus Kramer, the AfD’s group leader in the Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania state parliament, condemned the attack, saying: “How did we reach a place in this country where MPs are attacked on the street because of their party membership?”
Kramer then called on Minister-President Manuela Schwesig (SPD) — the head of Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania’s state government — to open an investigation and issue a public statement of condemnation against the attack, saying she needs to send an “a clear signal against such politically motivated violence.”
“Otherwise the impression could arise that the state government is using two standards here because of the AfD membership, which could only motivate the perpetrators to carry out further attacks,” Kramer added, declaring that members of the AfD would never be intimidated or silenced by threats and acts of violence.
State security services have launched an official investigation into the matter, which is thought to have been politically motivated and carried out by activists in the far-left milieu.
Threats and acts of violence against members of the AfD have become a regular occurrence since the party became a growing force in Germany’s federal parliament. Despite the rising violence against AfD members, the trend has gone largely unnoticed by the public, since liberal media in Germany and the international press have not made it a priority to cover.
For years now, members of the AfD have been the main victims of political violence in Germany. Many of the attacks have included vehicle arsons, with many of the top politicians of the AfD having the cars targeted in such attacks.
Although a major party in Germany, the country’s intelligence services have targeted all members of the party in certain German states with mass surveillance, including access to their emails and phone calls.
In February, federal police data which had been released following an information request from the AfD parliament group revealed that a total of 694 attacks on AfD members in 2020, well over three times the number of attacks recorded against the second most frequently affected group – members of the Green Party. Most of the attackers came from the radical left scene, according to the report.
The same report also revealed that party buildings or facilities of the AfD were attacked more often more than any political party in Germany. While last year saw 190 attacks carried out against AfD party offices, buildings connected to the SPD were targeted just 120 times.