Berlin – German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday said new “walls of alienation, disappointment and anger” had replaced the physical wall that divided Germany until 27 years ago.
According to a transcript of his speech for German Unity Day, Steinmeier said that the country had come a long way since reunification, but “new walls have come into being, less visible ones, without barbed wire and a death strip”.
In an implicit reference to the ascent of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) into parliament in September, Steinmeier said that “behind these walls, a deep distrust in democracy and its representatives is being fomented.”
Steinmeier also spoke about the refugee crisis and Germany’s ability to accommodate asylum seekers, saying that “the realities of the world and the capabilities of our country has be reconciled’’.
“The plight of people must never leave us indifferent,” Steinmeier said at the official Unity Day celebrations in Mainz, which were also attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the outgoing head of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert.
The anti-Islam, anti-immigrant AfD won nearly 13 per cent of the vote in the Sept. 24 election, granting it more than 90 parliamentary seats.
It is the first time a far-right party has sat in the Bundestag for 60 years.