On June 2, 2019, Walter Lübcke was shot and killed by a rightwing extremist. The shock has worn off, the danger remains.
It is now the fifth anniversary of the murder of Walter Lübcke and one can have these thoughts again in these days and weeks because at the moment an increasing number of politicians are being attacked who are committed to democracy and an open society. And one has to discard these thoughts again just as quickly, because the life story of Walter Lübcke does not read like someone who wanted to spare himself from anything.
Lübcke was a member of the CDU in Hesse since 1986. He was a professional solider, later a member of state parliament and, until his death, district president in Kassel. From an early age, he committed himself to youth causes and in education work and later for refugees. He was an empathetic conservative, a man of the middle.
On the evening of June 2, 2019, Walter Lübcke was shot and killed by a rightwing fanatic on his terrace. In court, the perpetrator later said that it was Lübcke’s engagement for refugees that led him to commit the act.
The impact of the attack has two dimensions: one is very personal, the other is highly political. The consequences for the family members are personal. Lübcke had a wife and two sons, the younger of which found his father on the terrace and tried to reanimate him. Still today, the family barely speaks about the attack in public. The pain of such a loss can scarcely be expressed in words anyway.
The second dimension, the political, ranges far beyond Hesse and continues to include the entire country until today. The murder of Walter Lübcke was not only an attack by an individual fanatic against a private individual, but instead also the result of the enduring agitation by anti-democratic groups against the state and its representatives, the result of sentences like “We will hunt them”.
The act is part of series with the attacks in Halle, Hanau and the series of murders by the NSU. Lübcke was shot because he opposed the hate against everything seen as foreign and the racism in society. Lübcke stood for something.
In 2015, Lübcke spoke at multiple events about planned accommodations for refugees. During one of these speeches, detractors were in the audience who continually interjected. Lübcke replied at length to them at one point, which was also filmed. Only the final word were shared on the internet, without the context of the previous insults. They were: “It is worth living in our country. Here, one has to acknowledge values and whomever does not accept these values can leave this country at any time if they are not in agreement. That is the freedom of every individual German.”
Even this shortened statement itself is not yet especially problematic. It was, however, especially in the Pegida circles that were still very active at the time along with their local branches, deliberately presented as an expulsion fantasy. From that point on, Lübcke was seen as an enemy by the extreme rightwing.
It was the murder of Walter Lübcke that first led the CDU to make a public statement about the so-called firewall. Never, it says in the statement, will there be a collaboration with the AfD, whose meetings and events the perpetrator continuously attended, by the way.
The firewall, however, has long-since grown porous and become cracked. Politicians continue to approach the AfD. It may come to intense debates in eastern Germany after the communal elections. Martina Schweinsburg, who is a CDU candidate in Greiz commented on the resolution of the presidium thusly: “They really should have asked those in the east before writing something like that.” She said that she would never cooperate with extremists. But she does think: “You can’t apply an isolated incident to all.” She means the murder of Walter Lübcke.
A dangerous omen.
