Russian-Germans in election focus amid fears of Moscow propaganda

Record ID: 906617

  • Title: Russian-Germans in election focus amid fears of Moscow propaganda
  • Date: 16th August 2017
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (JULY 26, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF RUSSIAN SUPERMARKET VARIOUS OF RUSSIAN PRODUCTS ON SALE VARIOUS OF HIGH-RISE APARTMENT BLOCKS IN BERLIN'S EASTERN MARZAHN DISTRICT ALEXANDER REISER FROM VISION e.V., AN ASSOCIATION FOR ETHNIC GERMAN IMMIGRANTS TO GERMANY, AND MEDINA SCHAUBER, A CDU MEMBER WHO WORKS WITH THE GROUP, TALKING TO REPORTER RUSSIAN BISCUITS (SOUNDBITE) (German) HEAD OF VISION e.V., AN ASSOCIATION FOR ETHNIC GERMAN IMMIGRANTS TO GERMANY, ALEXANDER REISER, SAYING: "They have fears, and they link them to the refugee crisis, saying 'now another million are coming, where are they supposed to go, that all costs money and then less will be spent on us'. And this is happening in a country that we thought was safe, where there was this idyllic notion of Germany as a safe place where decent people live and nothing is stolen. And suddenly you have these pictures coming from Russian television and they say the country is foundering, it's being flooded, Europe is finished, now these 'barbarians' are coming from the Middle East, people are stealing and murdering and raping, and so on."
  • Embargoed: 30th August 2017 16:54
  • Keywords: Russian Germans AfD German election
  • Location: PFORZHEIM AND BERLIN, GERMANY
  • City: PFORZHEIM AND BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016UEOTAF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: German political parties campaigning for elections next month are competing to attract 2 million voters with roots in the former Soviet Union, amid concerns that Russian propaganda could sway votes in the community.
    Long invisible, the Russian-German population came under the spotlight in January 2016 when an estimated 10,000 of its members hit the streets to protest the alleged rape by migrants of a 13-year-old Russian-German girl.
    German police quickly debunked the story as fake news, but the rapid mobilisation of so many Russian-Germans through social media raised concerns that they were susceptible to influence operations from Russia.
    Alexander Reiser, who moved to Germany from Russia in 1996 and runs a Russian-German support group in Berlin's Marzahn neighbourhood, said Russian trolls set up a fake account on a Russian social network after he challenged the fake rape report.
    It took him nearly a year to get the Odnoklassniki network to remove the fake profile, which falsely portrayed him as gay.
    He said negative stories about German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the one million migrants who arrived in Germany over the past two years are rampant on Russian media, fuelling resentment among some Russian-Germans.
    "The community's biggest concern is the refugees," he said. "The pictures come from Russian television and they say the country is ... being flooded, now these 'barbarians' are coming from the Middle East," he said.
    Medina Schaubert, a CDU member and leader in Reiser's community group, says Russian-Germans should not treat others as they were treated when they arrived as she said her school years had been catastrophic as she remembered being taunted as a "Russian bimbo" after her arrival as a young girl, and once had a teacher come to class sporting a Hitler-style moustache.
    The biggest push for votes has come from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has six Russian-German candidates on its party slate, and whose leaders have had two meetings with the community in recent weeks.
    The party has parlayed similar messages into big gains in local elections in areas of Berlin, Pforzheim in southern Germany, and North-Rhine Westphalia with large Russian-German populations.
    Already present in 13 of 16 state legislatures, the AfD is poised to move into the federal parliament this year.
    Waldemar Birkle, a Russian-German AfD candidate, accused Angela Merkel's CDU of being driven to the left.
    "We are living through an increasing move towards socialism, and we know what that is and we don't want it. We already put that behind us."
    In Birkle's district of Buckenberg-Haidach, the AfD won 54.2 percent of the vote, nearly double the rate of the city as a whole.
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