German SPD MEP Matthias Ecke was attacked last night in Dresden while hanging posters for his party’s election campaign. Ecke, 41, is the leader of the SPD in Saxony for the European elections in June. According to what was reported to the Bild by the secretary of the SPD in Saxony, Henning Homan, three or four people would suddenly appear and start insulting him and some other Social Democratic militants who were engaged in the hanging. After the homophobic insults, the beating began. Ecke was seriously injured, even losing consciousness. He has several broken bones and will now need surgery. The identity of the attackers is currently unknown, but it is suspected they may have been far-right activists. According to the Dresden police, a few minutes earlier, a group of four people had also attacked a 28-year-old Green militant while he was attacking. The hypothesis, now being examined by investigators, is that they are the same thugs.
The political reactions
While we await the outcome of the investigations into the identity of the attackers, political reactions to the ambush against the Social Democrat MEP are pouring in in Germany. SPD leaders in Saxony spoke of a “warning signal that is impossible for anyone in this country to ignore: the series of attacks by criminals against militants of democratic parties represents an attack on the foundations of our democracy.” And the party evokes the ultra-right matrix of the ambush by writing in X that «violence and intimidation against democrats are the methods of fascists». Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, herself from the SPD, warned of the “new dimension of anti-democratic violence” in the country. While the prime minister of the Land of which Dresden is the capital, Michael Kretschmer, of the CDU, said he was “shocked” by what happened, observing how the attacks against political opponents are something that recalls “the darkest periods in our history”.
