After AfD's Saxony-Anhalt win, migrants in eastern Germany ask: should we stay?
MAGDEBURG — Not a day passes without Ola Akhras and her husband discussing whether to return to Syria.
The couple live in Magdeburg, in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, with their two young daughters. On September 6, the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) recorded its strongest regional result yet there. The state's 83-seat legislature was due to convene for the first time on Tuesday, October 6, to elect its Speaker — a post traditionally held by the largest party, which the AfD hopes will hand it an early symbolic victory. The state's next Governor is unlikely to be chosen before December.
"It's bad — we've built our lives here, we really loved being here, but now we don't feel welcome anymore," said Ms. Akhras, who fled the Syrian city of Homs and arrived in Germany in 2018. She speaks fluent German and works as a doctor at a local hospital, where she is completing specialist training in internal medicine.
Ms. Akhras, who wears a hijab, said she feels appreciated at work, but has lately encountered hostility while shopping and no longer feels safe leaving home in the evening. "Our children will never be recognised as Germans here," she said.
The mood in Germany has shifted since 2015 and 2016, when the country, under Chancellor Angela Merkel, took in more than a million people fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many learned the language, found work and built new lives. As economic conditions weakened — slow growth, high inflation and rising energy costs — public sentiment turned. The AfD and other critics of immigration have blamed migrants for the country's problems, although economists generally trace the slowdown to structural and global factors, including energy prices after the war in Ukraine and weak industrial demand.
The AfD, founded 13 years ago, has grown fastest in the formerly Communist and economically weaker eastern states, though it also performs strongly nationwide. It is the largest Opposition party in the Bundestag and leads recent national polls. Its Saxony-Anhalt result underlined its ability to capitalise on discontent beyond its core theme of curbing immigration, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz's national government struggles to revive growth. The party's rise has unsettled migrants and also many Germans who believed the country was immune to nationalism after the horrors of the Nazi past.
It remains uncertain whether the AfD can form a government in Saxony-Anhalt. It finished three seats short of a majority, and other parties have so far ruled out governing with it. Even if it did lead the state, it would be Germany's first far-right-led regional government since the Second World War — and it would operate within the country's federal structure and constitutional limits. Much deportation and asylum policy is decided at the national level, not by the states.
Migrants and refugees nonetheless fear that a state government led by the party would try to carry out its campaign promises, which include more and faster deportations and tighter restrictions on the admission of asylum seekers.
No figures yet show whether racist incidents have risen since the election. But "counselling centres are extremely busy, the phones are ringing off the hook, counselling appointments are fully booked, and people are in great need of counselling and support," said Undra Dressler, Executive Director of the Saxony-Anhalt State Network of Migrant Organisations.
"We know of people who have left, people who are considering it, and people who have made a conscious decision against it and say: 'I'm staying. I won't accept these conditions. Now more than ever, I'm going to get involved,'" Ms. Dressler said.
Among those determined to stay is Mohamad Aldabagh, a pharmacist from Homs who fled to Germany in 2015, at the height of Syria's civil war.
For others, the question remains open. Ms. Akhras said she and her husband have not yet decided what comes next — a decision many families in the region are now weighing as migration remains one of the most polarising issues in German politics.
