Second Right Wing Campaigner Stabbed in German City of Mannheim in Four Days

A police officer works at the scene after several people were injured in a knife attack on
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Oliver JJ Lane

An election candidate in Germany was stabbed in the head and stomach on Tuesday night after confronting a gang of men tearing down election posters, the second stabbing of a right winger in a single German city in four days.

62-year-old Alternative for Germany (AfD) council election candidate Heinrich Koch was stabbed in Mannheim on Tuesday. German newspaper Die Welt reports the right-wing campaigner was cut on the ear and stomach by the assailant and was taken to the hospital.

The injuries are not life threatening but required stitches.

The 25-year-old perpetrator was allegedly part of a group of three who had been stealing election posters in the city, it is said, and the activist had given chase. Two managed to escape, but one of the gang is said to have slashed with a box-cutter type knife. He then fled, but was later arrested.

The alleged knifeman was sent to a psychiatric hospital because he was “mentally ill”, it is reported. Playing down a political motive for the knife attack, Welt states “there is no concrete evidence” that the attacker, who had been stealing political posters, even knew the man he was stabbing was a politician.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said the attack was a “horrifying act” and wished her party colleague a fact recovery from both the injuries and the shock of having been so attacked. Party MP Tino Chrupalla said it was AfD members who were the most frequent victims of political violence in Germany, but said such attacks would not stop them from campaigning.

The attack came just four days after another stabbing in Mannheim, where an Afghan migrant attacked the set-up of a political demonstration in a city square. Michael Stuerzenberger, a veteran anti-Mosque and anti-Islamification campaigner was seriously stabbed and a responding police officer, who had the misfortune of accidentally arresting the wrong person, was stabbed to death.

Police were also initially cagey about the potential motive of that attack, but days later admitted the mass stabbing against an anti-extremist Islamism rally was probably an act of of extremist Islamism. The suspect, who was supposed to have been deported years ago, is still in hospital after being shot by police.

As reported, the stabbing of right-wing, anti-Islamification activists in Mannheim last week and the debate around it that has since erupted comes just days before this week’s European Parliament elections and German local elections taking place on Sunday. Footage of the attack, which was inadvertently livestreamed, spread across global social media and talk of deportation policies has intensified in the last days of the election campaign.

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