Long-time anti-Islamism activist Michael Stürzenberger, the main focus of the bloody knife attack in Mannheim on Friday, has long had a target on his back—put there not only by extremist Islamists, but also by the German state. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)—the country’s domestic spy agency—has monitored the campaigner for the past ten years, and a state-funded Bavarian anti-extremism organisation has called Stürzenberger a conspiracy theorist for warning about political Islam getting a foothold in Germany.
Stürzenberger is still lying in a hospital bed as he recovers from his wounds. The 59-year-old man was getting ready for an anti-Islamism rally in the southwestern German city on Friday, May 31st, when 25-year-old Sulaiman Ataee, a failed asylum seeker who had been living in Germany illegally for nine years, went on a stabbing spree, injuring not only Stürzenberger, but five other people, including a police officer who died of his wounds on Sunday.
“He was the victim of a brutal, ruthless killer who, apparently, due to his ideology, saw the police as his enemy, because they defend the free, democratic constitutional state that he wants to abolish,” Michael Stürzenberger wrote in a Facebook post shortly after the news of the death of the young police officer. He added:
Political Islam is the greatest threat to our security and freedom. If the politicians and the mass media do not finally recognise this, there will probably be many more victims.
Stürzenberger, who was stabbed in the face and leg, has been an outspoken critic of political Islam for many years, and regularly posts videos on his social media pages regarding the spread of Islamism in the Western world. He recently organised a series of anti-Islamism rallies all across Germany, the one in Mannheim on Friday being the latest such event.
He has received numerous death threats in the past from angry Muslims living in Germany, and the knife attack only seems to have invigorated them. The stabbing victim shared a collage of TikTok posts showing users celebrating the attack, saying Stürzenberger “had it coming to him,” and “it’s a shame he didn’t die.” Stürzenberger reacted by posting:
Since 2015, more than 300,000 Afghans and almost two million Syrians have come to Germany. In addition, there are Muslims from Iraq, Somalia, various African Islamic countries, and Turkey. Socialisation there is completely different, and political Islam is often part of everyday life.
Stürzenberger worked as a journalist at TV stations RTL and Sat.1 before becoming a press spokesman for the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria. According to daily Bild, his life changed dramatically when one of his friends died in the Mumbai Islamist terror attacks in 2008. He resigned from the CSU and joined the right-wing Die Freiheit party which dissolved in 2016. As an anti-Islamism activist and member of the citizens’ movement Pax Europa, he fought against the erection of a large mosque in Munich and has warned continuously against the Islamisation of Germany.
“In the hospital, I think a lot of Theo van Gogh, Salman Rushdie, you, and others who had to pay a high price for their criticism of political Islam,” he responded in a Twitter post to Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-Islamist Party for Freedom, who has also received numerous death threats throughout his career. Wilders called the attack in Mannheim a “cowardly act of terrorism.”
However, Michael Stürzenberger is not only being targeted for his outspoken opinions by Islamists, but also by the German state. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), the country’s domestic intelligence agency—which designated the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as a “suspected extremist organisation”—has been monitoring him for the past ten years.
The state-run Bavarian Information Centre against Extremism has compiled several quotes that are supposed to prove the 59-year-old’s hostility to the constitution, writes German publication Junge Freiheit. One of these statements reads: “Every Muslim who comes to Germany from Afghanistan as a supposed ‘refugee’ should first have to be carefully examined for their attitude towards Islam.” This demand, the authority claims, would “violate human dignity” and is likely to “treat Muslims as ‘second-class citizens.’” Stürzenberger also said that supporters of political Islam pursue the goal of “turning Germany into an Islamic country in which Sharia prevails,” which the intelligence services interpreted as being a “conspiracy theory approach”—something they may regret in light of recent demonstrations calling for a ‘caliphate’ in Germany.
The Bavarian authority writes that “Stürzenberger and the Bavarian BPE regional association [Pax Europa] are pursuing anti-Islamic efforts that are relevant to the protection of the constitution and are aimed at abolishing religious freedom for Muslims.”
As conservative publication NiUS puts it: “the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz declared Michael Stürzenberger an enemy of the constitution. Now the Islam critic himself has become a target.”
