BERLIN — With visible and vocal protests against foreigners swelling in Germany in recent weeks, Chancellor Angela Merkel forcefully denounc...
BERLIN — With visible and vocal protests against foreigners swelling in Germany in recent weeks, Chancellor Angela Merkel forcefully denounced the demonstrations on Monday, affirming that the country has both a special obligation and a desire to welcome anyone in need of sanctuary.
Nerves were rattled last Friday, when three buildings newly renovated for a few dozen refugees in Vorra, a village of 1,000 near Nuremberg, were burned in what appeared to be arson attacks.
In German City Rich With History and Tragedy, Tide Rises Against Immigration
For the past seven Mondays, people have taken up the battle cry of East Germans protesting their Communist government 25 years ago — “Wir sind das Volk!” (“We are the people!”) — and fashioned it into a lament about being overlooked by political leaders of the present.
Dresden’s demonstrators, echoing the populist fears coursing around Europe, are a motley mix of far right in the National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., youth and ordinary folk who feel their government is ignoring them as foreigners pour into Germany — at least 300,000 this year alone — seeking jobs, freebies or asylum.
First hundreds, now thousands have responded to the summons from a previously unknown activist, Lutz Bachmann, 41, and an organization called Pegida, a German acronym for a title that translates roughly as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.
On Monday, a record 7,500 showed up despite teeth-chattering cold, for an hourlong march through Dresden’s center, a mix of grim Socialist architecture and gems of the pre-1945 past. National flags were flown. One placard said, “We miss our country,” while another demanded, “Protection of the Heimat,” or homeland, “not Islamization.”
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Nerves were rattled last Friday, when three buildings newly renovated for a few dozen refugees in Vorra, a village of 1,000 near Nuremberg, were burned in what appeared to be arson attacks.
In German City Rich With History and Tragedy, Tide Rises Against Immigration
For the past seven Mondays, people have taken up the battle cry of East Germans protesting their Communist government 25 years ago — “Wir sind das Volk!” (“We are the people!”) — and fashioned it into a lament about being overlooked by political leaders of the present.
Dresden’s demonstrators, echoing the populist fears coursing around Europe, are a motley mix of far right in the National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., youth and ordinary folk who feel their government is ignoring them as foreigners pour into Germany — at least 300,000 this year alone — seeking jobs, freebies or asylum.
First hundreds, now thousands have responded to the summons from a previously unknown activist, Lutz Bachmann, 41, and an organization called Pegida, a German acronym for a title that translates roughly as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.
On Monday, a record 7,500 showed up despite teeth-chattering cold, for an hourlong march through Dresden’s center, a mix of grim Socialist architecture and gems of the pre-1945 past. National flags were flown. One placard said, “We miss our country,” while another demanded, “Protection of the Heimat,” or homeland, “not Islamization.”
Read More
