German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Ramadan has become a ‘festival that is also native to Germany’ and is ‘part of the religious life of our country’ during an event marking the end of the Muslim fasting month.
In a letter sent to Muslim communities across Germany, President Steinmeier thanked them for their contribution to the country at a time that is ‘unfortunately also marked by concerns about international crises’, referring to the war in Iran.
Concluding his message, Steinmeier once again thanked Muslim communities and mosques for ‘inviting their neighbourhoods’ to celebrate the end of Ramadan, adding that it is a ‘wonderful, generous gesture’ that makes it easier to get to know the ‘traditions of the Islamic religion’ and ‘strengthen cohesion’ in German society.
Steinmeier’s remarks sparked significant outrage online, with many calling the president a ‘traitor’. Users pointed to the fact that Islam cannot be part of Germany, arguing that it claims to ‘stand above all earthly laws’. ‘That has had no place in an enlightened society for over a thousand years,’ one user wrote on X. Others described Steinmeier as a ‘symbol of the anti-German elite’.
German political activist and journalist Janine Beicht accused Steinmeier of ‘capitulation, betrayal and submission’ towards Islam, adding that he is ‘deliberately undermining every clear cultural line’ in Germany.
The president’s statement comes at a time when German public debate has been raging over violent crimes involving perpetrators with an immigration background. Last week, police arrested a 17-year-old Syrian asylum seeker in connection with the murder of a 19-year-old Ukrainian refugee woman, who was reportedly his girlfriend. Maria, who was preparing to report her abusive partner to the authorities, was lured into a forest near Mannheim and beaten to death with a branch.
Just days before the incident, German tabloid Bild reported on a gang rape committed by a ‘group of Arab boys’ in a youth centre in Berlin, which staff were aware of but did not report to authorities out of concern that the suspects would be labelled as ‘typical Muslims’.
Riding on a strict anti-immigration platform, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is gaining support beyond its traditional voter base in eastern Germany. The party more than doubled its vote share in recent local elections in the western German state of Hessen, finishing third behind the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) with 15.9 per cent. AfD is also the largest opposition party nationwide, despite the cordon sanitaire applied by mainstream parties against Alice Weidel’s political force. According to a March poll by INSA, AfD trails the CDU by 25 to 25.5 per cent, meaning the margin between the two parties is statistically negligible.
Steinmeier’s remarks are also similar to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s speech delivered at an iftar event held at the beginning of Ramadan in Westminster Hall, London, illustrating a broader trend among Western European leaders. During the event, Starmer described Muslims as the ‘face of modern Britain’, calling them a ‘success story of diversity’. He also spoke about a ‘wave of hatred’ directed towards British Muslims, attributing it to ‘far-right rhetoric and misinformation’.
Starmer’s remarks equally sparked outrage among Britons, with many accusing the prime minister of pandering to Muslims to court their vote, which could also be the case in Germany. Days before President Steinmeier’s Muslim greeting statement, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was the main advocate of open border policy in the EU at the time of the 2015 migration crisis, said that she had done so to tackle the rise of AfD—by hoping that people with a migration background would eventually vote against them after they obtained citizenship. Basically, importing voters to reverse the loss of popularity of mainstream parties.
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