The number of election-related crimes in Germany appears to have increased significantly since the last general election. Leading politicians have reported hostility and physical attacks
Graffiti on an election poster accusing the Green party's leaders of treasonImage: Jens Koehler/dpa/picture alliance
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A report by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag (WamS) found that Germany's federal election campaign has been particularly aggressive this year.
Politicians also say they have experienced a worsening atmosphere in terms of insults, acts of vandalism and threats.
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What did the figures show?
The newspaper gathered data from 16 state criminal investigation departments which showed more than 4,200 offenses in connection with the election campaign.
In the week before Germany's 2017 vote, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had logged around 3,660 such crimes.
According to the survey of the state criminal investigation offices, the crimes identified were primarily damage to property, especially election posters.
However, there was also many violent crimes and the spreading of illegal content and insults were also significant.
An unusually high number of the 42,000 crimes nationwide were reported in Lower Saxony (900), Bavaria (520) and Baden-Württemberg (448).
The interior minister for the German state of Hesse provided no specific information.
Some of the illegal acts were also related to other election campaigns, such as those for the state votes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, which are also due on Sunday.
Targets vary by region
The degree of abuse faced by particular parties varied from state to state.
WamS' findings corresponded with those of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). An internal situation picture of the authority, which is available to the editors, showed some 4,035 crimes (including Hesse) by mid-September.
Among them are also 42 violent crimes. Authorities were unable to attribute almost two-thirds of the crimes (2,590) to any political direction. The remaining offenses appeared to come mainly from the extreme left (1,170) and extreme right (273).
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A German government needs a 50% majority in parliament, but no one party can get so much voter support. So they agree on coalitions — and the next government will be no exception. Here is an overview of the options.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Hörhager
Deciphering the color code
The center-right Christian Democrat CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU are symbolized by the color black. The center-left Social Democrat SPD is red, as is the socialist Left Party. The neoliberal Free Democrats' (FDP) color is yellow. And the Greens are self-explanatory. German media often refer to color combinations and national flags, using them as shorthand for political coalitions.
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Black, red, green — the Kenya coalition
A coalition of center-right Christian Democrats (black) and center-left Social Democrats (red) plus the Green Party would secure a comfortable majority. Such a coalition has been in power in the state of Brandenburg. On a federal level this would be a first.
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Black, yellow and green — the Jamaica coalition
The center-right Christian Democrats have often teamed up with the much smaller pro-free market Free Democrats (FDP) at the state and the national level over the years. Taking in the Greens to form a three-way coalition would be an option attractive to many in the CDU. But the Greens and the FDP do not make easy bedfellows, and a similar attempt failed after the last election in 2017.
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Black, red, yellow — the Germany coalition
The center-right CDU and the center-left SPD plus the business-focused FDP. This combination would easily clear the 50% threshold in parliament, and would be the preferred option for business leaders and high-income earners. But if the SPD takes the lead we'd see red, black, yellow — a less conservative option.
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Red, red, green
The Social Democrats teaming up with the Greens and the Left Party is a specter the conservatives like to raise whenever they perform badly in the polls. But the SPD and Left Party have a difficult history. And the Left's extreme foreign policy positions would likley hamper negotiations.
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Red, yellow, green — a 'traffic light' coalition
The free-market-oriented liberal FDP has in the past generally ruled out federal coalitions sandwiched between the Social Democrats and the Greens. But this year, the FDP has not ruled out any options. Germany's traditional kingmaker party may above all be keen to return to power — no matter in which color combination.
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Black and red, red and black — the 'grand coalition'
A "grand coalition" of CDU and SPD, the "big tent parties," has been in power for the past eight years with the conservatives taking the lead. If the election results allow it, this combination may continue in government ... with the stronger party naming the chancellor.
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Politicians say atmosphere is worse
Health Minister Jens Spahn from the CDU told WamS that the atmosphere in recent months has been heavily charged.
"This is the first election campaign in which I've seen larger groups of often aggressive disruptors appear at virtually every public event," said Spahn.
A kind of "pandemic extremism" has formed in Germany, he said, with certain groups stirring up public feeling against necessary public health measures. "And the cycle of agitation and hatred turns into crimes," Spahn continued.
Free Democrat Bundestag candidate Jan Maik Schlifter from Bielefeld, like other politicians, reported that posters had been set on fire and daubed with graffiti.
"I've also never seen personal slogans like 'off to the gulag' on any of my posters before," he said
The Left Party politician Susanne Ferschl from Bavaria reported broken window panes. "Tuesday night, the window front of the Augsburg party office where I am a subtenant was smashed," she said. "The attack is one in a series of attacks."
Who could succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor?
The three major parties each have a candidate to head the next German government. Only parties who stand a chance of winning the most votes in an election put forward a candidate for the top job.
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Olaf Scholz
Plumbing new depths with each election, the SPD decided to run a realist rather than a radical as their top candidate in 2021. Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former mayor of Hamburg, and Merkel's deputy in the grand coalition, is seen as dry and technocratic. But the 62-year-old has seen a marked rise in opinion polls, as voters crave stability and a safe pair of hands.
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Armin Laschet
CDU chairman Armin Laschet, a long-time supporter of Angela Merkel, heads Germany's most populous state. Conservatives routinely underestimated the jovial 60-year-old, famous for his belief in integration and compromise. During the election campaign he has come across as vague and unfocussed and suffered in opinion polls following gaffes and slip-ups.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
Annalena Baerbock
At the age of 40, Annalena Baerbock has been a Green Party co-chair since 2018. A jurist with a degree in public international law from the London School of Economics, her supporters see her as a safe pair of hands with a good grasp of detail. Her opponents point to her lack of governing or ministerial experience and her occasional gaffes in interviews.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Kappeler
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The Social Democrats' health expert Karl Lauterbach said he had never seen such a toxic election campaign. "Posters are regularly cut up, smeared with insults and Nazi slogans," he said.
Meanwhile, Green party lawmaker Cem Özdemir, a former coleader of his party, also reported a large number of hostilities. In his case, he said, the perpetrators were mainly German right-wing extremists and Turkish fascists.
