Kassel (dpa/lhe) - The son of the murdered Kassel district president Walter Lübcke is convinced that his father's murder could have been prevented. "If right-wing extremism had been given as much attention back then as Islamist terror, for example. But the state was blind in the right eye," said Christoph Lübcke in an interview with the news portal "t-online" (Friday).
The CDU politician Lübcke was shot dead by right-wing extremist Stephan Ernst on the night of June 2, 2019 on the terrace of his house in the Kassel district. In 2015 he presented plans for refugee accommodation at a citizens' meeting and said in response to abuse: "It's worth living in our country. You have to stand up for values. Anyone who doesn't represent these values can leave this country at any time if he doesn't agree. It's the freedom of every German." Lübcke's statements are said to have been the trigger for his later murder.
After the citizens' meeting, a video was circulated on the Internet in which Lübcke's quotes were abbreviated and taken out of context. The district president then received numerous threatening emails and was temporarily under police protection. There were always new hostilities against his father, reported Christoph Lübcke. "When Erika Steinbach or the AfD agitated against my father with the video, the comments often included sentences like "Die Walther does the rest". The pistol was meant." That was a clear call to murder his father. "But nothing happened. These requests were not punished in any way at the time. They stopped."
Lübcke also commented on a controversial contribution that the Hessian SPD recently published on social media. In their post, the Social Democrats had asked: "Could the murder of Dr. Walter Lübcke have been prevented? The responsible Interior Ministers Bouffier, Rhein and Beuth were obviously overwhelmed with the political leadership of the LfV." LfV stands for State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The collage shows, among other things, the former Prime Minister of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, the incumbent Prime Minister, Boris Rhein, and Hesse's Minister of the Interior, Peter Beuth (all CDU).
Of course, Lübcke said it wasn't appropriate to exploit his father's death for campaign purposes. "But I also say clearly: For us as a family, clarification is the top priority. The question of where there were omissions and mistakes that my father had to die is therefore legitimate."
