CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz has demanded a quick and decisive response from Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his traffic light government following the knife attack in Mannheim that left a police officer dead. “The time for warning and condemning, for downplaying and making announcements is now over,” said the CDU chairman in the Bundestag on Thursday in response to Scholz’s government statement on the current security situation.
“People expect us to act. They expect decisions. They are waiting for a clear, unambiguous answer from politicians,” added Merz. “In concrete terms, this means: Your government, Mr. Chancellor, must act now. You must get this situation under control.”
“It’s about the core of the cohesion of our society, nothing more and nothing less,” Merz said. The murder of the police officer “and the associated further attempted murders in Mannheim come at a time when our society is already very unsettled.”
There are attacks on police officers, emergency services, people who want to help, people with different political views and, increasingly, on local politicians. He also wanted to specifically mention the attack on an AfD local politician in Mannheim on Tuesday evening. These are manifestations of increasing brutality and willingness to use violence in our society. “And we must now react to this together, firmly and clearly,” Merz demanded.
Merz also criticized a commentary by an author from the “Stern” newspaper entitled: “The death of an official is used to make politics”: “That was the headline in the online edition of a well-known political magazine in our country yesterday,” said Merz. The text included the following: “Taxi drivers, psychiatric nurses, rescue workers, teachers, prostitutes and social workers are attacked more frequently on the job. The police profession is not one of the most dangerous jobs either. Statistically speaking, a construction worker dies in Germany almost every fifth day.”
Merz responded: “What will the family of the police officer who was treacherously murdered in Mannheim last weekend think when they read such a text? This headline is another low point in the cynicism that is spreading in parts of the German public, an unparalleled depravity.”
Last Friday, a 25-year-old Afghan injured five participants in a rally organized by the anti-Islam movement Pax Europa and a police officer with a knife. The 29-year-old officer, Rouven L., later succumbed to his injuries.