Germany: Aschaffenburg attack prompts political blame game

With federal elections on the horizon, German politicians on Thursday were assigning blame to opposing parties following the fatal stabbing of two people, including a two-year-old boy, on Wednesday.

Police took a 28-year-old Afghan man into custody. He is suspected of having attacked a kindergarten group in a park in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, killing a 2-year-old Moroccan boy as well as a 41-year-old passerby who had attempted to intervene. Three others were wounded, including a 2-year-old Syrian girl. 

 A court on Thursday ordered the suspect to be temporarily placed in a psychiatric hospital.

The attack came just one month after a deadly car-ramming attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg and six months after similar knife attacks in the western cities of Solingen and Mannheim.

And with just one month to go until Germany's federal elections, the incident has further enflamed an already heated immigration debate in the country.

AfD backs CDU demands for deportations, border checks

Friedrich Merz, leader of the center-right opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) and favorite to become Germany's next chancellor, vowed on Thursday to order permanent controls at all German borders on the first day of his term in office, if elected.

"We are faced with the ruins of a 10-year-long misguided asylum and immigration policy in Germany," he told reporters, criticizing European Union migration rules as "dysfunctional" and insisting all "illegal immigrants" should be turned away at the border, including those seeking protection.

"There will be a de facto ban on entry into the Federal Republic of Germany for all those who do not have valid entry documents," he said.

Merz's suggestion received support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, currently polling second behind the CDU.

In a social media post, AfD co-chairwoman and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel called for "border closures and the deportation of illegal [immigrants]" and demanded "no more firewall deaths."

With that, she was referring to the conventional refusal of Germany's other parties to enter into coalitions with the AfD, known as the Brandmauer, or firewall.

Merz has also ruled out forming a government with the AfD, that's a step the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) hopes will bring it back into the government. Traditionally, the FDP has been a natural coalition partner for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. Demands from the FDP were at the heart of what broke up a three-party coalition government in November, prompting February's snap election.

"Merz is calling for a radical change, of course," FDP leader Christian Lindner wrote on social media. "But he won't be able to do that with the [ruling SPD] or [the Greens]."

On the other side of the political spectrum, Sahra Wagenknecht of the self-titled, left-wing, migration-sceptic, populist  Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) also called for a "real U-turn in refugee policy." She told Welt TV that the authorities had "lost control" over those traveling to Germany.

Scholz government blames Bavarian authorities ...

While opposition parties tried to position themselves as the best potential candidates for a post-election coalition with the CDU, the country's governing parties have also been apportioning blame, as have the relevant security authorities, at Bavarian state leaders, especially since the Aschaffenburg suspect was already subject to a deportation order.

"There are clearly enforcement deficits, especially within the Bavarian authorities in this case, which are a massive problem," Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a Social Democrat (SPD) campaign event in the eastern German city of Erfurt. He insisted that his federal government had taken measures to facilitate deportations.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, also of Scholz's SPD, pointed out that deportations were the responsibility of Germany's 16 states and said Bavarian authorities needed to "explain why the attacker was still at large despite [having committed] several violent crimes."

"The continuing investigation must quickly show why this criminal was still in Germany and how the police and justice system on the ground have been dealing with him," Faeser said. "The rule of law must show strength, and that includes authorities, police and courts."

... while Bavaria blames Berlin

However, the state of Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann of CSU, blamed Berlin and accused the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) of "failure."

According to Herrmann, the suspect should have been deported to Bulgaria in the summer of 2023, but the relevant order was issued to the Bavarian authorities several weeks too late, by which point the legal deadline to enforce the deportation had expired.

Herrmann claimed it then took until December 2024 for BAMF to process the man's asylum application.

"The responsibility lies solely with BAMF," he said, calling on Scholz to "concern himself with his own [federal] authorities."

Bavarian Premier Markus Söder (CSU) also looked to absolve his state's authorities of blame.

"That's enough, that's enough, that's enough," said Söder said in Munich. "How many more? Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg. What's next?"

He also pointed his finger at the federal government, "These aren't coincidences but the result of a chain of bad immigration policies over years."

"Immigration is overwhelming our country," he added, agreeing with Merz that "the guidelines of any future immigration policy must be zero-tolerance and no compromises."

Greens' Habeck: 'Clearly something went wrong'

Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck called for a "self-critical" evaluation within Germany's administrative bodies.

"Self-critical doesn't mean that every department says: 'Well, we did everything right,'" the Green Party's chancellor candidate said. "Because clearly something went wrong. This perpetrator should have either been deported or at least checked up on and perhaps detained. Mistakes have been made."

The thicket of German bureaucracy 

Reem Alabali-Radovan, an SPD lawmaker, said that the case of the Aschaffenburg attacker represented "yet another catastrophic administrative error." He said the deportation back to Afghanistan of an "evidently violent and psychologically instable" person had become entangled in a "thicket" of bureaucracy.

Andreas Rosskopf, chairman of the German Police Union (GdP), said the case had revealed administrative failures and a lack of options for action. In his view, "too many bodies are operating alongside rather than with each other."

mf/sms (dpa, Reuters, AFP)