In what is increasingly becoming a PR disaster for the far-left German government, the terror knife attack in Solingen, perpetrated by a Syrian national, is highlighting the unavoidable connection between immigration and exploding crime and violence. In the wake of the attack, German police union (DPoIG) chairman Manuel Ostermann slammed the status quo, called the immigration problems a crime problem, and said Islam was the greatest threat to the country in terms of security.
“Yes, our country has changed. Nothing about it is positive. Germany is no longer a safe country. We have a massive problem with knife crime. The migration crisis is first and foremost a crime crisis. And the greatest danger to life and limb of people living in Germany is clearly posed by Islamists. This reality can no longer be ignored or tabooed. Now is the time to recognize reality and implement clear measures in the constitutional fight against precisely this security policy madness,” Ostermann said in a video statement.
As the leader of the second-largest police union in Germany, with nearly 100,000 members, his words carry extra weight with the public and police forces who have to deal with Germany’s surging insecurity.
In an interview, he said that politicians often deliver empty phrases following such attacks, and Solingen was no different. He noted that the Islamist terror attack in Mannheim, which resulted in a police officer’s death showed, there is little concern for what officers have to face.
“It is incomprehensible that budgetary resources for the police are being cut while the threat level is increasing,” Ostermann told Apollo News.
According to Ostermann, asylum policy is failing. The trade unionist said there is a lack of deportation detention centers, bureaucratic insanity, and a lack of action from politicians. The fact that most deportations fail “speaks volumes,” he said.
Ostermann’s stance is a sharp repudiation of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s claims for years that the far right is the country’s biggest extremism threat, despite ample evidence showing otherwise. Now, with record violent crime levels in Germany, record amounts of foreigners committing crimes, an Islamic extremist knife attacker in Mannheim who killed a police officer earlier this year, and the latest attack in Solingen during the Festival of Diversity that killed three, her claims are looking more and more ludicrous.
Meanwhile, Social Democrat (SPD) leader Saskia Esken claimed in response to the Solingen massacre that “I don’t think we can learn much from this attack.”
Notably, the Syrian national responsible was ordered to be deported in 2022 but went into hiding. After reappearing six months later, he was granted protected status.