The message on the advertising billboard in the small German town of Freital is designed to pluck at the heart-strings: “The biggest catastrophe,” it says in giant letters hovering over four refugee children, “is forgetting”.
That challenge–not to forget Europe’s history and its obligation to help the oppressed–is one that Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has laid down to the entire German nation with her decision to welcome at least 800,000 new migrants by the end of this year.
The government suggested that as many as 40,000 could arrive this weekend alone, placing 4,000 troops on alert to “tackle any emergency”.
While much of Germany has risen to that challenge, applauding migrants off the trains at Munich station, the mood is very different in Freital, a mining town of 40,000 people outside Dresden in the former East Germany.
On Thursday night, several hundred demonstrators gathered outside Freital’s town hall, many dressed in the all-black garb of the far-Right, to protest against the presence of 500 migrants who have already been sent here by the government.
As the town’s councillors debated how best to handle the inflow, demonstrators in the square outside waved flags and called for a “new Europe”, with the slogan: “Without us, there is no Freital”.
“We want a rational politics, a Germany where our youth have a secure future without the Islamic State reigning in Germany” ...
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