After the attack on SPD politician Matthias Ecke in Dresden, Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) has announced close coordination with the parties to protect their campaigners. "We will certainly not be able to protect every single campaigner, that is not possible in terms of numbers alone. But we will try even harder than before to get clever spatial coverage," Schuster told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (Monday).
The aim is to use information from the parties to better identify the campaigns and events that are particularly in need of protection - and not just when party celebrities visit.
Ecke was beaten up by four young men in Dresden last Friday evening when he wanted to put up election posters for his party. He had to be operated on in hospital. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old turned himself in to the police. The attack caused nationwide horror. Several thousand people gathered at demonstrations in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday.
Schuster spoke out in favor of harsh punishment for perpetrators who attack election campaigners. This must be "punished to the maximum". "Because when election posters are torn down, it's not just about damaging property, but about interfering with free elections." Agitation has very concrete effects on the street.
"I believe that many of the attacks are not planned, but spontaneous actions," said Schuster. He did not want to compare the current situation with conditions in the Weimar Republic. "This has nothing to do with Weimar, where clearly defined groups faced each other. I believe it is more a general brutalization that makes such attacks easy and possible at any time. However, this latent threat is more difficult for the police to control than if we had a hard right-left front. The dangerous thing about this situation was predictable, the far right fringe of the parties is increasingly losing control among its members and supporters in many areas."
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