Authored by Thomas O’Reilly via EuropeanConservative.com,
The chairman of the AfD in the Bavarian district of Augsburg and candidate for state legislature is nursing severe wounds after being set upon in what he describes as a politically motivated attack by migrants.
Andreas Jurca was returning home with a party colleague Sunday when he was approached by a group of foreign males who asked him if he was the AfD candidate featured on nearby posters. Before he could answer, Jurca was punched and kicked to the ground with shouts of “f*****g Nazi.” His party colleague was also assaulted.
After the altercation, Jurca, who is seventh on the AfD’s candidate list for state elections, was rushed to the hospital where his condition was referred to as stable Monday morning. In a post-attack statement, Jurca confirmed that the perpetrators of the attack were indeed of foreign origin. In his own words, “I don’t mean Spaniards or Italians.”
Photos appearing on social media show Jurca with two black eyes as well as facial lacerations. He is currently under observation in hospital due to the head injuries he endured. In an interview with the populist publication Deutschland-Kurier magazine, Jurca said that the assault would only make him redouble his political efforts undeterred.
Acts of violence by left-wing anti fascist groups are a regular occurrence for AfD representatives, as is state-backed harassment from domestic intelligence services, the BfV, which formally placed the party under surveillance last year.
The German political establishment is struggling both to comprehend and to deal with the continued rise of the AfD, which now sits as the country’s second most popular party. This puts the party in a position to potentially break the sacrosanct ‘firewall’ that prohibits mainstream parties from cooperating with them at a national or municipal level.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a thinly veiled warning in favour of banning the populist party at a speech, a move that has been echoed by Berlin head of intelligence Thomas Haldenwang, and even Der Spiegel, which published an editorial endorsing proscribing the AfD.
Many observers have noted an ideological shift to the anti-Altanticist right within the AfD. This was shown by its recent conference in Magdeburg as the party comes under the de facto leadership of Björn Höcke and the East German Thuringian branch of the party.
The attack on Andreas Jurca was not the first physical attack on an AfD official. In 2019, the party’s regional leader in Bremen was beaten within an inch of his life by masked left-wing antifascists. Violent demonstrations outside AfD events have also been common.
