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Germans fear antisemitism is rising in wake of Halle attack

Poll found 59 per cent thought Jew-hate was increasing in their communities

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More than half of Germans think antisemitism is on the rise in their communities, a poll has found after the attack on a synagogue in Halle.

A total of 59 per cent - compared with 40 per cent last year - agreed Jew-hate was spreading, while the number of claimed to have witnessed no increase in antisemitism was 35 per cent, compared with 55 per cent.

The poll was conducted by pollster Intratest on Monday through Wednesday after the fatal attack on the shul in Halle on Yom Kippur, in which a far-right gunman failed to shoot his way through the security door and killed a passerby and a man in a kebab shop.

The likelihood of a person believing antisemitism was rising was linked to party affiliation. Around two-thirds of members of Angela Merkel's Conservatives, the centre-left Social Democrats, the Greens and the former-communist Left said they agreed there was an increase.

But only 47 per cent of members of the rightwing AfD said they the same, compared with 48 per cent who said the opposite.

The Halle attacker, 27-year-old Stephan Balliet, tried to shoot his way into the shul last Tuesday while he livestreamed his attack online.

At the start of his video he gave a short statement blaming feminism for falling birth rates and denying the Holocaust.

He killed one woman outside the shul and then drove to a kebab shop where he killed another man.

After his arrest, he admitted having an antisemitic motive.

German police seized evidence from the flat in Halle that he shared with his mother. The items included a 3D printer with which he is believed to have produced the home-made guns that he used in the attack.

The suspect’s mother said in an interview with Der Spiegel that he had experimented with drugs in his early 20s and emerged as a “different person”, having barely survived the experience.

His father told Bild that his son was a “friendless figure” who lived his life online and blamed others for his own failings.

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