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Briton assaulted by neo-Nazis in Hamburg

Members of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) attacked a dark-skinned British man in Hamburg over the weekend, beating him and dousing him with pepper spray after he tore up their election pamphlet.

Published: 24 August 2009 17:29 CEST

Briton assaulted by neo-Nazis in Hamburg

Apparently the NPD is open to taking money from tourists. Photo: DPA

The man had to be transported to the hospital in an ambulance, according to a police report on Monday.

The 46-year-old had stopped at a bakery with his wife and young son on Saturday, when the three NPD members, aged 20, 33 and 43, were handing out party leaflets. When the Brit tore up the leaflet handed to him, he initially prompted a calm discussion.

But according to information from the police, the trio soon pushed the man against the glass window of the bakery. As one man punched him in the chest, another sprayed pepper spray in his eyes.

After that attack, the three assailants fled the scene, but the police soon caught up with them nearby. The two younger men were already known to police for previous violent acts. The officers took information from them, but then let them go. The city’s state police are now investigating due to the serious injuries caused by the attack.

After another possible xenophobic attack by some 11 men on three foreigners occurred over the weekend in Taucha in the eastern German state of Saxony. The suspects, all young men between 18 and 22 years old, are reported to have attacked the foreigners after visiting a town fair.

After going for their victims, they began shouting xenophobic slogans at them. One 23-year old Lebanese man was thrown to the ground, hit and kicked. When two policemen intervened, the men attacked them as well, smashing up their patrol car.

But the authorities said on Monday they were still investigating the incident.

“The background in this case is still quite unclear,” a spokesperson for the Leipzig state prosecutor’s office told DPA on Monday.

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Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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