Germany: Deadly knife attack in Solingen triggers hatred against immigration

Last Friday's deadly knife attack in the German city of Solingen has sparked an outbreak of anti-immigration sentiment among German politicians.

At a street festival in honor of the 650th anniversary of the city of Solingen last Friday, a refugee with suspected links to the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) killed three people and injured eight others in a knife attack.

The suspect, 26-year-old Syrian citizen Issa Al H, turned himself in to police and confessed to the crime. He was taken into custody, the public prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

IS has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the terrorist militia's Amaq news site. However, the information has yet to be verified.

Although the political consequences of the incident began immediately, it also occurred in the run-up to the important state elections next Sunday in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, three large eastern German states.

In all three federal states, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party known for its staunch hostility to migration and its partial right-wing extremism, could become the strongest force.

The attack in Solingen raised fears that it could play into the hands of AfD politicians and right-wing radical voters on Sunday.

AfD leader Alice Weidel called on Saturday on ZDF for an “immediate stop to immigration, admission and naturalization for at least five years”.

During an AfD event in Thuringia one day after the attack, Björn Höcke, arguably Germany's most successful right-wing politician, described “those politicians who have always stood up for tolerance and cosmopolitanism” as “intellectual arsonists who have created fertile ground for incidents like the one in Solingen.”

However, it is not only the extreme right that uses such rhetoric.

On Tuesday, Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), held an inflammatory press conference in which he called for a comprehensive reform of Germany's immigration law and proposed declaring a “national emergency” over illegal immigration.

“We can restrict the entry of asylum seekers, and if that is not possible under EU law and Europe is not in a position to change that in the short term, then we have the right and, I believe, the duty to declare a national emergency with regard to refugees. In this case, Germany's national law takes precedence over European law.”

In his speech, Merz also reminded the media of the EU's Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that while asylum seekers are not obliged to apply for asylum in the first country they enter, they can, under certain circumstances, be sent back to the country of their first arrival.

Increase in deportations

Merz argued that refugees from Syria and Afghanistan in particular must be turned away because they are the “most problematic groups”.

According to the Geneva Refugee Convention, which Germany has signed, rejected asylum seekers from countries that are generally considered unsafe may not be deported. Due to the ongoing civil war in Syria, very few deportations have been carried out from Germany to Syria in the last twelve years.

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However, German conservative politicians, including Merz, claim that Syria is now a safe country, despite evidence that the claim that Syria is “safe” is a deception. A UN report released on Wednesday revealed that nearly 17 million people across the country – more than 70 percent of the population – are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Syria also has the highest number of displaced people in the world.

Merz also called for a strengthening of the federal police.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, chairman of the traditionally center-left SPD party, shared the concerns.

“The federal government will therefore continue its efforts to further curb irregular migration,” Scholz announced. The measures to do so include “making returns even easier.”

In January, the German Bundestag passed a bill that would allow for simpler and faster deportations. The number of deportations from Germany has steadily increased in recent years. In the first half of 2024, the number of deportations in Germany rose by more than a quarter compared to the previous year. In 2023, around 16,400 people were deported, the highest number since 2020.

Even Scholz's coalition partner, the neoliberal FDP, has signalled a willingness to compromise after having previously resisted changing the law.

“The FDP is prepared to make cross-party efforts to consistently implement a new realism in migration policy at federal and state level,” FDP party leader Christian Lindner told journalists. Merz's proposals “are entirely in line with those of the FDP,” he added.

Political shortsightedness

In an interview with Die Zeit, the Greens’ domestic policy spokeswoman, Lamya Kaddor, accused Merz of “hasty and ill-considered demands” and “shortsightedness.”

“Many Muslims and people with a migrant background say that they are now afraid. Afraid of becoming victims of an attack themselves. And also afraid that the same debates will flare up again. That they will be stigmatized and placed under general suspicion,” said Kaddor.

“Most of those who have recently carried out or planned attacks were not smuggled in”

– Lamya Kaddor, spokesperson for the Green Party

When a person with a migration background commits a serious crime, Kaddor continues, a mechanism is set in motion: “Politicians formulate hasty, ill-considered demands without considering that they are thereby making an entire group jointly responsible.”

Merz has since slightly scaled back his demands and, after a meeting with Chancellor Scholz, spoke in a letter to him of a “de facto admission freeze”.

Kaddor also accused politicians of a lack of knowledge about “extremist Islam” and pointed out that “violent Islamism can hardly survive by allowing people to immigrate to countries to carry out attacks there. Most of those who have carried out or planned attacks recently were not smuggled in.”

Instead, groups like IS in Western countries are increasingly relying on the radicalization of young people, Kaddor argued. He added that money and resources should be invested in preventing radicalization rather than imposing blanket immigration bans on asylum seekers.

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She suggested contacting the operators of online platforms directly to control the content circulating on the Internet. In addition, educational opportunities should be improved and Muslim associations should be involved.

Kaddor also warned of the threat the far-right movement poses to vulnerable communities such as migrants and Muslims.

If the AfD wins a clear victory in Sunday's election, Kaddor warned of a situation similar to the far-right riots that rocked Britain this month, when false claims and misinformation about the murder of three children in Southport were spread online and by prominent politicians, leading to a wave of racist and Islamophobic mob attacks.

“The Muslim and migrant community is very afraid that conditions like those in Great Britain will arise here, that the situation will escalate and that there will be street battles.”