A 99-year-old Holocaust survivor has said he will return his federal order of merit award to the German state in protest over a parliamentary vote in which support from the far-right was used for the first time to secure a majority.
Germany's main opposition conservatives – the CDU – who are tipped to win a national election later this month, pushed through parliament on Wednesday a motion calling for a drastic crackdown on migration with the help of votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Though the motion is non-binding, the AfD's role in passing it was symbolically important. Critics have accused the conservatives of breaking a taboo among mainstream parties against working with the AfD.
Albrecht Weinberg told Reuters he would return his decoration as a protest against the vote. Born to a Jewish family in 1925, Weinberg spent time during World War Two in the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. He was freed on April 15, 1945, according to the Bergen-Belsen memorial website. He emigrated to the United States after the war but returned 10 years ago to live in Germany. Some six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
It comes as former German chancellor Angela Merkel also hit out at her own CDU party for cooperating with the far-right.
Ms Merkel criticised CDU leader Friedrich Merz over the migration proposal being backed by the AfD, which is polling in second place ahead of the German election on 23 February.
“I consider it wrong to abandon this commitment and, as a result, to knowingly allow a majority with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time,” Ms Merkel said.
The CDU introduced the proposal last week following two terror attacks in Germany.
The non-binding Bundestag vote marked the first time the CDU relied on AfD votes to push through a motion, marking a rupture with Ms Merkel’s centrist legacy.
“Now begins a new era,” proclaimed Bernd Baumann, a senior AfD lawmaker after the vote went through.
The party has seized on the moment as proof that its hardline nationalist stance on migration is gaining mainstream legitimacy.
Former chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to deport criminals from Afghanistan and Syria following the stabbing of a German police officer by a 25-year-old Afghan suspect in May.
The deportations went ahead a week after a deadly knife attack in the town of Solingen in which the suspect is a Syrian citizen who applied for asylum in Germany last year.
Mr Scholz has previously announced measures to remove benefits from refugees who arrive in Germany through other EU countries, leaving them with the bare essentials of “bed, bread, and soap”.
“The aim of this joint effort is clear: to further reduce irregular migration to Germany,” Mr Scholz said.
There has also been debate over immigration ahead of regional elections, set for Sunday in Germany’s Saxony and Thuringia regions.
They are areas where anti-immigration parties such as the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are expected to do well.
In 2023 more than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany. Around 1.2 million Ukrainians have arrived in Germany since Russia’s invasion began in 2022.
