Far-Right German Party Leader: Jews Have Nothing To Fear
The co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alexander Gauland, attends a campaign event. Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — Jews should not fear the strong election showing by the right-wing Alternative for Germany, a party leader said.
“There is nothing in our party, in our program, that could disturb the Jewish people who live here in Germany,” co-party head Alexander Gauland told reporters Monday, a day after the party garnered more than 13 percent of the vote to finish third in German national elections.
Gauland also said that he was ready to meet with German Jewish leaders “at any time.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday was reelected to a fourth term. She reportedly has the idea of including the AfD in a coalition government.
“Unfortunately, our worst fears have come true: a party that tolerates far-right views in its ranks and incites hate against minorities in our country is today not only in almost all state parliaments but also represented in the Bundestag,” the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dr. Josef Schuster, said in a statement issued late Sunday.
The Anti-Defamation League in a statement called the entrance of the party into the national parliament “a disturbing milestone in modern German politics,” calling the party “proudly extremist, anti-immigrant, and anti-minority.” The party leaders have made anti-Semitic statements and played down the evil of the Nazi regime, the ADL also said.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in cities throughout Germany on Sunday evening to protest the AfD’s election successes. In the Alexanderplatz public square in central Berlin, protesters chanted “Racism is not an alternative,” “AfD is a bunch of racists” and “Nazis out!”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
