On Sunday, voters in the eastern German state of Brandenburg will vote for a new regional parliament. The anti-migrant far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, could win the most votes. On 1 September the AfD won a major German election for the first time, coming first in the eastern state of Thuringia. In Brandenburg polls show the AfD leading with 28%.
To undermine support for the AfD, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s left wing-led government on Monday introduced checks for migrants on all of Germany’s borders. He also wants to increase deportations of people whose application for asylum is unsuccessful. Opposition conservatives meanwhile want the borders closed to asylum seekers altogether.
This is a very different country to the Germany of Angela Merkel. Almost a decade ago the then-chancellor refused to shut the borders to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution in Syria and Afghanistan. “Wir schaffen das”, or “We can do it”, she famously said.
In 2015 and 2016 Germany took in around 1.5 million refugees and migrants, mostly from the Middle East. They were greeted at train stations with signs saying “welcome” and smiling volunteers handing out food and toys. A new German word was invented, “Willkommenskultur” or “welcome culture”, and many Germans were suddenly proud of the country’s new-found identity as a safe haven for refugees.
Brandenburg election: Welcome Culture sours to Auf Wiedersehen
Migrants who arrived since 2015 say they feel unwelcome in Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany is gaining support.
