Botched arson attack in Germany targeted planned accommodation for refugees

GENEVA

A planned shelter for refugees in Dresden, eastern Germany has been targeted in a botched arson attack, police said Saturday.

The perpetrators allegedly climbed over a fence onto the grounds of a former school on Alexander-Herzen-Strasse in Dresden's Klotzsche district on Friday night, said a police statement.

There they are said to have poured out a flammable liquid on the facade and laid down a trail to ignite, but the fire reportedly went out before it reached the building.

The Police Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Center in the state of Saxony has taken over the investigation, according to police.

Online, security forces are urging possible witnesses to come forward. The botched attack is the second recent attack on a building in Dresden after the door of a former school was damaged in mid-September.

The building, which is currently still empty, is set to house refugees, but the plan has met with local opposition.

As daily Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten reported on Saturday, the district council in the Klotzsche rejected the plans. However, this vote is not binding for the city of Dresden.

Friday's attempted arson attack is further evidence of the rising number of right-wing extremist-motivated acts in Germany. According to figures released by the Domestic Intelligence Service, the number of politically motivated crimes last year reached a new record high.

In 2021, it counted a total of 945 acts of violence, 783 cases of bodily harm, and 11 acts of arson. In 2022, there were 1,170 acts of violence, 1,013 cases of bodily harm, and 18 acts of arson. In a 10-year comparison, politically motivated crimes have actually doubled, according to the agency.

Recent cases of right-wing extremist violence include threatening letters against a mosque in the Osnabruck district. In mid-August, the congregation got letters saying that they wanted to do to the congregation "what we did to the Jews."

The letter was signed “NSU 2.0.” The National Socialist Underground (NSU), a right-wing extremist terrorist group, committed 10 murders in Germany between 2000 and 2007 for racist motives, and officials in Türkiye and elsewhere say the full story of the racist conspiracy has never been told.

Earlier this month, an arson attack was carried out on a restaurant near a mosque in Hanover, followed by the mosque getting a letter saying, "Your snack bar is just the beginning."

At the end of July, two masked men entered an apartment building in Dresden through the back door and attacked two Afghan housemates, age 16 and 18, shouting xenophobic slogans.

A Sept. 28 poll by public broadcaster ARD found that 78% of Germans think the integration of refugees into society or the labor market is rather poor or very poor.

Eight out of 10 said the deportation of rejected asylum seekers is done rather or very badly. Some 64% said that Germany should take in fewer refugees.