Berlin offers police help after violent far-right protest

Germany’s top security official has offered to send federal assistance to the eastern state of Saxony following violence during a far-right protest in the city of Chemnitz that left at least six people injured.

The protest late Monday, sparked by the killing of a 35-year-old German man in an altercation with migrants over the weekend, erupted into clashes between neo-Nazis and left-wing counter-protesters. Opposition parties criticized police for failing to prevent the violence.

“The police in Saxony are in a difficult situation,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer says. “Should it be requested, the federal government will provide police support.”

Green lawmaker Konstantin von Notz urges Seehofer to consider resigning, accusing him of fanning anti-migrant sentiment over the past year.

Von Notz tells the news portal t-online.de that the violence in Chemnitz recalled events elsewhere in eastern Germany during the early 1990s, when authorities failed to stop far-right mobs from attacking migrants.

The German news agency dpa reports that Chemnitz police acknowledged having mobilized too few officers for the demonstration. Footage showed officers struggling to prevent far-right protesters breaking through police lines and demonstrators performing Nazi salutes and chanting “the national resistance is marching here!”

— AP