After the violence in Aschaffenburg, Weidel wrote a letter to Merz

After the fatal knife attack in Aschaffenburg, AfD leader Alice Weidel apparently wrote an open letter to Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz. According to a report from “Bild”, his suggested “migration policy change of course” is “a good sign”.

The CDU leader presented a five-point catalog on Thursday in response to the violence in Aschaffenburg. In it, he announced, among other things, that he wanted to have all migrants without valid entry documents turned away at the borders on his first day as chancellor. It also expressly included people with a right to protection, i.e. those who want to apply for asylum in Germany. He also advocated detaining people who are caught and obliged to leave the country and deporting them as quickly as possible.

Weidel now wrote, according to “Bild,” that much of what Merz had announced “could have been decided long ago on the basis of initiatives from my group and your group with the majorities that already exist.” Since the majority is in favor, she and her group are ready to talk.

Weidel therefore referred to the Bundestag session next Wednesday, “which must not pass unused”. “As a matter of state political responsibility, I therefore appeal to you: let us, without further hesitation, take the necessary decisions to put into practice what the citizens now rightly expect from politicians,” the tabloid continues to quote from the letter.

She had previously renewed her call for the Union to work with her party on X. There she called for a vote in the Bundestag next week on “closing the borders and rejecting illegal immigrants.” The CDU and CSU would have to show their colors. “There should be no more fire wall deaths!” wrote Weidel.

CDU leader and Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz categorically rules out cooperation with the AfD. He has reiterated this several times. In December 2021 he told “Spiegel”: “With me there will be a firewall to the AfD.” Last year he said not to use this term, but the AfD keeps using it against him and is putting the Union through it under pressure.

Despite free travel in the so-called Schengen area, border controls can be ordered for a limited time. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) initially did this for all German state borders for six months and announced in December that she wanted to extend this beyond March 2025.

A suspected mentally ill 28-year-old Afghan killed two people in a knife attack on a kindergarten group in a park in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, on Wednesday. The victims are a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old passerby. Several other people were injured.