2018 Chemnitz protests

The city of Chemnitz became a flashpoint of German anti-migrant violence in 2018. Thousands of alt-right protesters gathered in the eastern German city of Chemnitz on Monday, August 27, in a second day of demonstrations after a 35-year-old carpenter was stabbed to death at a street festival on Sunday August 26. They blame Chancellor Angela Merkel for giving unfettered access to Muslim migrants, who had now murdered one of their residents.

Activists of the alt-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and PEGIDA again joined forces with conservatives in a protest march in Chemnitz on September 1. According to police estimates, about 6,000 supporters of the right-wing Pro Chemnitz group were at the scene, along with about 1,500 counterprotesters.

Initial protests

Within 24 hours, after the arrest of Syrian and Iraqi murder suspects, the City of Chemnitz had become the major fault line in Germany’s unresolved refugee debate.

Many of the German protestors had been angered by Angela Merkel's pledge to take in a million refugees to fill the gap in the country's rapidly shrinking population.

According to the Irish Times, an estimated 5,000 neo-Nazis, violent football hooligans and angry locals, joined a “march of mourning” for the dead man. Many of the crowd – mostly men aged 20-50 – held signs reading “Stop the asylum flood”; others with free hands gave the forbidden Hitler salute and chanted: “Germany for Germans, foreigners out.”

"What we have seen is something which has no place in a constitutional democracy," Merkel said on August 28 in Berlin, during a joint news conference alongside Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

On August 30, when Saxony’s state premier, [[Michael Kretschmer, arrived in the city for a meeting with locals, he was booed and jeered. "Locals feel they are being treated unfairly"”, he said afterwards in reference to the billions diverted from welfare budgets to spend on housing and subsistence costs for about 1.3 million muslim migrants who have arrived in Germany since 2015.

Continued protests

Members of the alt-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party again joined forces with conservatives in a protest march in Chemnitz on September 1. According to police estimates, about 6,000 supporters of the right-wing Pro Chemnitz group were at the scene, along with about 1,500 counterprotesters.

Daniel Hillig

On Sunday August 26 at 3.15am near the 7 metre statue of Karl Marx in Chemnitz, Daniel Hillig, a local 35-year-old carpenter with a German mother and Cuban father, was stabbed and died a short time later of his injuries in hospital. Two Russian friends were also injured in the kniffings and, as news spread, locals began laying flowers on the scarlet-splattered paving stones where the attacks took place.

German police fired water cannons and used pepper spray in the city of Chemnitz on Monday September 27, during a second day of protests, as 6,000 alt-right demonstrators, with some (according to Cable News Network) chanting neo-Nazi slogans and giving Hitler salutes, as they clashed with police and counter-protesters over the fatal stabbing of Daniel Hillig.

His widow told Bild that Mr Hillig would not have wanted the protests. "Daniel was neither left nor right," she said. "I looked at the events on Saturday night – this was not about Daniel at all."

A makeshift shrine on the pavement where Daniel was stabbed has become a focal point for the city’s grief — and anger.

Arrests

A 22-year-old Iraqi man and a 23-year-old Syrian were arrested over Mr Hillig's death.

Police say one of the two suspects, a 22-year-old Iraqi man who arrived in Germany with false documents, was due to be deported and had chalked up a considerable criminal record in Germany: fraud, drug possession, damage to property.

Lügenpresse (Lying press)

In the first week of protests, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the anti-migrant protests in the state of Saxony, saying "hate in the streets" had no place in the country. According to a CNN report, Demonstrators on Sunday chased people who looked possibly foreign, videos from the protests show, while German media reported similar cases of intimidation.

The Protesters chanted: "Wir sind das Volk" [We are the people], just as they did in the dying days of the communist regime. Repeated attempts by reporters to interview those in the protests on the main part failed. “We don’t talk to the Lügenpresse [lying press]”, was a typical response.

On September 1, Justice Minister Katarina Barley said parts of the AfD were "openly acting against the constitution". And she added "We need to treat them like other enemies of the constitution and observe them accordingly."

On September 3, German authorities said they were stepping up surveillance of the alt-right Alternative for Germany amid growing concern the third-largest party in parliament was closing ranks with nationalists groups. Andreas Kalbitz , a member of the party's national leadership, accused the German political parties of panicking in the face of AfD's electoral success.

In the first week of September, the President of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, openly expressed doubts about Mainstream media reports that right-wing extremists were chasing down non-Germans during demonstrations in Chemnitz. "I share the skepticism towards media reports of right-wing extremists chasing down [foreigners] in Chemnitz," the German Bild tabloid reported on Friday September 7.