The German establishment has long known that mass migration from more antisemitic and misogynistic countries could result in an increase in—no prizes for guessing—antisemitism and misogyny. But they were “too optimistic that it would resolve itself.”
That is according to Georg Maier, interior minister of Thuringia and member of the left-wing SPD, who has done a better job of exposing the naivety of the political mainstream—to put it very lightly—than any government opponent ever could:
We believed that people who had experienced oppression in their homeland would appreciate our free society. That everyone could love whomever they wanted. That women had equal rights. That Jewish people could practice their faith without constantly being confronted with the actions of the Israeli government.
Maier added that “we should have listened” when these problems started presenting themselves in Germany. Yet, such officials still aren’t listening to the right-wing anti-immigration AfD. In fact, Germany’s SPD president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, seems to believe that the anti-immigration party ought to be banned altogether.