Matthias Ecke, member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was attacked on Friday May 3 while putting up election posters. German police announced this Sunday, May 5, that a teenager had surrendered to the authorities.
A 17-year-old teenager surrendered this Sunday, May 5 to the authorities in Germany, claiming to be one of the perpetrators of the violent attack on Friday on a social-democratic MEP in the campaign which shocked the country, German police announced.
The young man went to police in Dresden, eastern Germany, and claimed to be “the attacker who hit the SPD politician”, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, while he was putting up posters for the upcoming European elections, the police said in their press release.
“We must never accept such acts of violence”
Head of the SPD list in the Saxony region for the June election, Matthias Ecke was beaten up by four strangers in a street in Dresden. Seriously injured, the 41-year-old elected official had to be hospitalized and operated on, according to his party.
Just before this attack, a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Green party, in the same street, had also been beaten “with punches and kicks”, according to the police, who suspect the same group of attackers.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the attack on Matthias Ecke, ensuring that the attacks against elected officials “threatened” democracy. “We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.
Thursday evening, two elected officials from the Greens, the party which governs with the SPD, were attacked in Essen, in western Germany, and one was hit in the face.
Last Saturday, a few dozen demonstrators attacked the vice-president of the Bundestag Katrin Göring-Eckardt, an elected environmentalist, after a public event in eastern Germany. His car was blocked and police reinforcements had to be called.
Attacks on elected officials on the rise
According to the daily Tagesspiegel, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser plans to convene a special conference with her counterparts from the country’s regions to tackle violence against elected officials.
According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed in 2023 against political representatives in Germany compared to 1,806 the previous year, but 2,840 in 2021, the year of legislative elections.
