Chancellor Angela Merkel faced down an aggressive, jeering crowd in Dresden on Monday as fury over her migration policy saw the 26th anniversary of German unity descend into a rained-out miserable day of disunity.
The German leader met the Dresden imam whose mosque was firebombed by unknown assailants last week, with his family inside, saying Germany’s new problems could only be solved through “mutual respect” and “dialogue”.
Both were in short supply on Monday in Dresden, where this year’s host city for unity celebrations just happens to be a hotbed of anti-Muslim feeling and anti-Merkel fury.
As Dr Merkel and other dignitaries arrived at Dresden's rebuilt Church of Our Lady for an ecumenical Mass, some 500 protesters blew whistles while others chanted "Merkel must go" and "Volksverräter" – traitor of the people, a term popularised by the Nazis.
Dark-skinned guests were forced to run the gauntlet into the church, hounded by ape sounds and chants of “deport”.
After last week’s bomb attacks on the mosque and the trade fair, about 2,600 Dresden police were on duty yesterday, turning the city centre into a high-security lock-down.
Inside the church, aware of the new negative headlines from Dresden flashing around the world, Bundestag president Norbert Lammert had sharp words for protesters outside in what, until 26 years ago, was East Germany.
“Those who whistle and scream particularly loudly, and get free publicity for their outrage, have clearly little memory of the state of this city and country before unification,” he said. “Whoever wants to defend the West has to meet our civilisation’s basic standards.”
Though bad weather and the bad mood cast a pall over official celebrations, thousands of people turned out to celebrate peacefully.
“Those few hundred protesters are not representative of our city,” said Dresden local Holger Schinkel.
