“The middle of society is turning away” - asylum frustration reaches a new level: district administrators in the east warn of “wildfire”

FOCUS online “The middle of society is turning away” - asylum frustration reaches a new level: district administrators in the east warn of “wildfire” Article by By FOCUS-online-Göran Schattauer • 7 hours Overwhelmed, desperate, disillusioned: the migration crisis is causing more and more anger in eastern Germany against the traffic light government in Berlin. The established parties could be mercilessly punished in the 2024 state elections. The AfD rubs its hands. The federal government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) is losing more and more popularity in eastern Germany. A few months before the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, the reputation of the traffic light coalition has reached a new low. The main reason: the catastrophic asylum and migration policy. Many municipalities in the new federal states are groaning under the strain of the ongoing influx of asylum seekers and war refugees. Calls for help and incendiary letters to those in power in Berlin either went unanswered or had little effect. Many people feel betrayed by the politicians in charge. District administrators warn of disastrous consequences of asylum policy The responsible district administrator Martina Schweinsburg (CDU) made it clear last week in an interview with FOCUS online how tense the situation is in the Thuringian district of Greiz. She raged against the “government in woke Berlin” and its “sometimes very quixotic, ideological policies.” People have the impression that Chancellor Scholz has “forgotten” the East. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) is “not credible”. Read here: Criticism of the traffic light's asylum course - The people are seething: East district administrator rages against the "government in woke Berlin" Now other district administrators from eastern Germany are following suit - and are warning of disastrous consequences of the traffic light government's "business as usual" asylum policy. “People are experiencing a daily increasing dominance of refugees in social meeting spaces,” explains Werner Henning (CDU), district administrator in the Thuringian district of Eichsfeld since 1994, to FOCUS online. If citizens do not recognize a willingness to integrate in foreigners and a willingness to adapt to the rules that apply here, “feelings of alienation grow”. “The distance to those in power is becoming increasingly larger” Most people would reject the “helpless, often moralizing attempts at explanation” by federal politicians, said Henning. “The resident and working population feel badly treated by politicians, taken advantage of and, on top of that, thwarted in their own criticism of these circumstances.” The CDU man, who was re-elected as district administrator in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018: “The distance to the The rulers are getting bigger and bigger.” Henning emphasizes that the people in his region expect “that the government will not pass on the population for its largely self-inflicted problems.” But that is exactly what has been happening for a long time. “That creates frustration.” More and more citizens are turning away from the seemingly helpless government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP – towards the AfD. “For a long time, this development was just a defiance reaction, but there is currently growing hope that even with an AfD that is not particularly liked, new approaches could emerge that lead further,” said Henning. “The increasing strength of the AfD is a significant indication of the emptiness in the bourgeois parties.” “The middle of society is increasingly turning away” Kai Emanuel, non-party district administrator of the North Saxony district, is also very dissatisfied with the federal government's asylum course. He told FOCUS online that the proportion of migrants in his region has increased sixfold in the past ten years. The effects can be felt everywhere. “The accommodation capacities are exhausted, so are the people, the center of society is increasingly turning away.” Kai Emanuel speaks plainly to the traffic light government: “We cannot set up emergency accommodation for young men traveling alone in every village. Central solutions are needed, otherwise we risk a conflagration.” The current politics divides the population into two camps: Some “protest and will make this clear in the local and state elections. The others will no longer get involved politically because they are simply tired of having to support a refugee policy that does not take large parts of the population into account.”