With towering church spires, a thousand-year-old town centre untouched by World War II bombings or graffiti, and the snow-capped Alps in full view in the distance, Bavaria’s Kaufbeuren has a lot to offer.
Unemployment is in the low single digits, the German air force has scrapped plans to move its training school for Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jet technicians elsewhere, and crime rates are at an all-time low.
But as voters prepare to elect a new European Parliament next month, deep-seated insecurity is gripping a significant share of voters in the wealthiest region of Europe’s largest economy, leading them to cast their ballots for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The bond between the party and its voters seems unshakable despite a string of recent scandals. Maximilian Kura, the AfD’s leading candidate in the election, is Italy’s La Republica He argued that not all members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization that ran the extermination camps, were criminals and should be tried only on the basis of their “individual guilt.”
Previous comments by Cra, an admirer of Donald Trump, proved too far-fetched, with France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party announcing it would sever ties with the AfD in the European Parliament after June’s elections. The populist political group Identity and Democracy in the European Parliament then moved to expel the AfD delegation “with immediate effect.”
Kula was already in the spotlight for his alleged ties to China and Russia after one of his aides was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. Observer He called the accusations “simply an attempt to divert attention from our political debate” and threatened legal action against the accusers.
Polls suggest the AfD goes into the EU elections with between 14 and 18 percent of the vote, well down from its peak of 23 percent in October but up from 11 percent in 2019. Despite the harsh criticism, Mr Kula is all but certain to win a seat in the next European Parliament.
Appearing at a rally in Kaufbeuren last week wearing a blue suit and his trademark pocket handkerchief, Kula posed for selfies with dozens of fans, including young people with short hair. Lederhosen.
To the surprise of many, the AfD has continued to spread beyond its impoverished, former Communist eastern heartland into Germany’s prosperous south and west with its more radical views on immigration, the Ukraine war and national atonement for the Holocaust. But the right’s rise has also spawned a vibrant local pro-democracy movement that seeks to learn lessons from the town’s horrific Nazi past.
In Kaufbeuren, where nearly one in five voted for the AfD in the last state elections in October, about 200 people gathered in the quaint old town square in the pouring cold rain, waving large German flags, to join an AfD rally. 300 meters away, an equal number of peaceful counter-demonstrators, led by the Omas Gegen Rechts (Grandmas Against the Right) movement, were joined by Mayor Stefan Bosse and a brass band.
Mr Klahr’s supporters said they were disgusted with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left led coalition government and worried about the future of their children.
“This is a disaster. This is the worst government ever,” said Manuela, a 55-year-old civil servant from a nearby town who, like most AfD supporters, did not give her surname. She brought her teenage daughter to the rally. Although violent crime rates are low, she said her family no longer feels safe on the streets because of “Islamists.”
As Kula spoke at the rally, anti-AfD activists booed and whistled nearby. “They call us Nazis just because we are patriots. The world laughs at us because there is no country more tolerant and diverse than Germany. For decades they have been telling us that we should bear this sin, so we should save the whole world and become an unemployment office,” Manuela said.
A shocking report in January revealed that AfD leaders had attended a meeting at a lakeside villa to discuss plans for mass deportations of German citizens of immigrant origins. The revelation sparked anti-extremism demonstrations across the country, including in Kaufbeuren.
Doreen, 53, who works in hospital catering, said she was attracted to the “re-immigration” scheme: “I have friends and acquaintances who have emigrated here and they all agree that those who want to integrate should be able to stay and those who just want to abuse the welfare system should be told to go home.”
Elke, a 54-year-old nurse, said the AfD’s opposition to the excesses of Berlin and Brussels was a good thing. “I want to drive a combustion car and I want gas heating. I don’t want a war with Russia,” she said. “If that money hadn’t gone to Ukraine, it would have been over a long time ago.”
Some AfD voters are in Germany Military support They fear that condemning Ukraine and standing up to President Vladimir Putin could lead to catastrophe across Europe.
After newsletter promotion
As Kula took the stage, local party leaders released eight white doves into the cloudy sky in prayer for peace, drawing eruptions of applause from the crowd.
Father-of-eight Kula said he feared his 21-year-old son would become “cannon fodder on the eastern front” if Germany reinstated conscription, a proposal made in a limited form by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius to address looming security threats.
Kula warned that Swabia, the region around Kaufbeuren, is “one of the richest in Germany” but is under threat from politicians who want to take away its security and prosperity with climate protection measures and “mass immigration”. He positioned the AfD as defenders of the “traditional family” and said its opponents believe there are “53 genders”.
Mayor Bosse said, Observer Kaufbeuren’s AfD base is largely made up of ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union who moved there in the 1990s, many of whom harbor pro-Putin views. Anti-vaccination protests have also been active in the region during the pandemic and now oppose NATO’s support for Ukraine.
Speaking in his wood-paneled office overlooking the town’s clean-cut main street, Mr. Bosse, who has led the city for 20 years, said he was “ashamed” that the far-right has regained ground despite efforts by people of all political stripes to weaken its support.
“I also feel shame for the British, the French and all the peoples who suffered so much under the Third Reich. In Germany there are rising political forces which want to erase these horrific crimes,” he said.
Bosse, of the conservative Christian Social Union, said he was troubled by a particular chapter of the Nazi past in Kaufbeuren, which under Adolf Hitler was home to a dynamite factory employing forced laborers, a satellite concentration camp of Dachau and a psychiatric hospital where the Nazi regime orchestrated the extermination of more than 1,500 men, women and children.
[BossesaidthehospitalcontinuedtooperateundertheNaziregimeontheoutskirtsofthetownafteritwas”liberated”byAmericantroopsonApril271945Another100helplesspatientswerekilledbeforeAmericansoldiersfinallytookcontrolofthehospitalonJuly2[1945年4月27日にアメリカ軍によって町が「解放」された後も、病院はナチス政権下で町外れで営業を続けたとボッセ氏は語った。7月2日に米兵がようやく病院を掌握するまでに、さらに100人の無力な患者が殺害された。
“I can’t believe that even after World War II ended, no one in Kaufbeuren told the Americans what was going on and said, ‘We have to go in there and liberate them,'” he said.
Speaking at a counter-protest, Mayor Bosse noted that July 2 marks the day the town holds an annual memorial for the victims as a reminder of the need for citizen courage. “We have to stand together for our democracy,” the mayor said.
