Turks in Germany anxious after AfD wins in Saxony-Anhalt

The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's 43.8% share of the vote in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt has prompted nationwide alarm. People of Turkish origin are especially worried.

Gökay Sofuoglu, the co-chair of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD), told DW that business owners he has spoken with in Saxony-Anhalt have been especially alarmed. "After the AfD's success, some were thinking of shutting up shop and leaving, first Saxony-Anhalt, then Germany," Sofuoglu said.

He said that initial response was emotional. "We've had a chance to speak to some of them again since," Sofuoglu said. "They're going to wait and see: They're waiting for the formation of a government ."

Sofuoglu said people of Turkish descent in Saxony-Anhalt regard the rise of the AfD "as a problem for Germany as a whole ." He said the party's election win was a threat to the stability of democracy in Germany.

Although the AfD campaigns heavily against migration, Sofuoglu said he believed that the party's true target is Germany's constitution. He said many people of Turkish origin were inclined to see the party's election win as an immediate threat to their communities rather than look at the AfD's wider aims.

"Much as the rise of the AfD affects us, this is a generally anti-democratic development, and we, along with all democratic forces, must act to counter it," he said.

The AfD's victory has also raised concerns about an increase in nationalist violence within Germany. "There's a fear that the coming days could see more attacks like the ones carried out by the National Socialist Underground , and that there will be no clarification of what's behind them," Sofuoglu said, referring a yearslong neo-Nazi terror spree in Germany.

A feared increase in nationalist violence is only one part of the discussion. "I don't think that just being concerned achieves anything," Alaz Sümer, a lawyer who works with a nongovernmental organization in Berlin, told DW. "You have to think about the causes. I don't think the established parties have sufficiently addressed the problems that allowed the AfD to become so strong."