In our second article of the week covering the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, following the German Government’s admission that it is debating banning the AfD, a leading AfD member in Bavaria was brutally assaulted and beaten by a group of migrants in what seemed to be an organised act of violence against him.
On Sunday 13th August, Andreas Jurca, Chairman of the AfD in the District of Augsburg in Bavaria – and who is also a party candidate in the state legislature – was walking home with a fellow colleague from the party when they were both approached by a group of men who then proceeded to ask Jurca if he was the same man who was also featured on several AfD posters put up around the area. Before Jurca could even respond to the men, the group then began attacking both Jurca and his colleague, focusing their attention on Jurca, punching and kicking him, causing severe facial and head injuries to him. During the beating, the group had also reportedly been shouting the words “F*cking Nazi” at Jurca during the assault. Following the attack, Jurca, who bore the brunt of the attack, was rushed to hospital, and on Monday, his condition was described as “stable”. While Jurca is, thankfully, on the road to recovery, images of his injuries have appeared online, and the extent of his injuries are shocking, to say the least, and give us a very clear indicator as to how severe his beating was – two black eyes, multiple facial cuts, severe bruising and large swelling, leaving the man almost unrecognisable from his normal appearance.
In statements during his time recovering in hospital, Jurca also brought up the suspected background of his attackers, stating that they were indeed of a foreign background. In Jurca’s own words, “I don’t mean Spaniards or Italians”. One can only make assumptions based on these words, as a police investigation into the attack is ongoing. In an interview with the German magazine Deutschland Kurier, Jurca also stated that despite the severity of the attack, he will not be deterred from his political campaigning.
It must be noted here that it is ironic that Jurca was attacked by migrants for being – to quote the migrants directly – a “f*cking Nazi”, considering that Jurca himself is not ethnically German, but is actually Romanian. Jurca was also not even born in Germany, but is in fact an immigrant himself in the country, having been born in his native homeland of Romania, then migrating to Germany when he was a child. Such is the violent ignorance of these attackers that they would happily beat a man within an inch of his life for simply harbouring conservative and anti-immigration views, when he himself is an immigrant.
Unfortunately, this incident is not the first time that an AfD representative has been attacked by ideological opponents. Other AfD figures have been harassed and physically assaulted by both people of migrant backgrounds and ethnic Germans belonging to leftist groups such as Antifa. In 2019, the AfD leader in Bremen was attacked and severely beaten by a group of suspected members of Antifa. Anti-AfD violence is also a common occurrence at the party’s events across Germany.
In a separate incident on Tuesday, in Chemnitz, Saxony, a young German man was attacked by masked members of Antifa in a local park. During the attack, one culprit brandished a machete and proceeded to hack off three of the victim’s fingers. Even more disturbingly, the attackers then fled the scene with the man’s severed fingers. For what reasons – whether as sick “trophies” or just preventing the man from having his fingers reattached in hospital – nobody yet knows. Similarly to the attack on Andreas Jurca in Bavaria, the attackers had reportedly been shouting slurs at their victim, accusing him of being a neo-Nazi. This suggests that the attack was premeditated, and that the attackers knew their victim in advance. However, we do not know for certain the victim’s exact ideological leanings. Regardless, it does not matter, for nothing justifies attacking and mutilating a person for their political beliefs. Police investigations into the incident are still ongoing.
Politically motivated attacks such as these are, unfortunately, on the increase not only in Germany, but across Western and Northern Europe, with people of right-wing ideological leanings being the victims of physical assaults from both foreign migrants and left-wing members of their own respective nations. On the other hand, it is also a trend that will serve to galvanise the right in Europe, pushing more and more people of a conservative mindset into supporting and voting for right-wing nationalist movements and parties, seeking more radical solutions to the migrant and left-wing issues plaguing our continent today.
Stefan Brakus
ETN Board Member (Serbia)
