Victim counseling in Saxony-Anhalt: Solidarity is needed for the anniversary

Two golden balloons float on the stage in the spotlight, together they form the number 25. Below them are three bouquets of flowers. The Saxony-Anhalt Mobile Victim Advice Center is celebrating its 25th birthday on Tuesday afternoon. There is non-alcoholic sparkling wine, fries and falafel. Around 100 guests listened to the speeches in a small theater in Halle (Saale). And there is a lot to praise: detailed statistics on right-wing violence, more than 13,000 consultations with those affected. Nevertheless, the mood is depressed.

After the state elections in September, it is unclear how long victim counseling will continue in Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD, which received around 44 percent of the vote in the election, could lead the government from next month. She had already announced in her election manifesto that she would withdraw the financial basis of the Miteinander association, to which Mobile Victim Counseling is a part.

On Tuesday afternoon in Halle, every single speech mentioned this fact. The sociologist Katharina Warda and the writer Manja Präkels also show how the shift to the right in society is becoming visible and what parallels there are to the 90s, to the so-called baseball bat years. And they counteract this with something: solidarity. “As long as there is a we, we win,” says Katharina Warda. “Strictly speaking, defending yourself is a duty,” says Präkels.

Mobile victim counseling in Saxony-Anhalt was born out of these ideas 25 years ago. The employees advise those affected by right-wing violence on how to deal with the experience, accompany them to court during criminal proceedings and try to improve the situation on site so that attacks become less likely. The consultation takes sides and takes on the perspective of those affected.

It's about cases like mid-May 2026, when three men on the tram first racially insulted two young people, then hit them in the face and finally injured them with a broken beer bottle. Or about the case from January, when the organizer of a CSD in a bar was told on the way to the toilet that he should be put in a concentration camp. The Mobile Victim Advice Service collects such attacks in its chronicle and publishes them. The annual statistics make it possible to understand how right-wing violence is developing in Saxony-Anhalt.

At the anniversary celebration in Halle, Susi Möbbeck (SPD) will first give a speech as State Secretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs of the managing state government of Saxony-Anhalt. The results of victim counseling show how necessary their work is. “They listen when others look away,” praises Möbbeck.

But Möbbeck is also worried. “We have to expect that state funding will stop completely in the short or medium term.” In the coming weeks the focus will be on securing funding for at least next year, she says. What she doesn't say: Because financing has not yet been secured, the victim counseling service has had to lay off its employees for the time being.

Shortly afterwards, Elisabeth Kaiser (SPD), the Federal Government's Eastern Representative, appears in the theater via video message. In the past, the victims of right-wing violence were alone and not taken seriously. Today, victim counseling is at their side. In these difficult times, Kaiser wants to use the federal government to support civil society so that victim counseling can continue to work. “Remain a place for everyone who cannot be left alone after an attack,” she concludes by congratulating us on the anniversary.

After two hours of speeches, there will be a short changeover on the stage in Halle and then a discussion round. When asked what would be lost with mobile victim counseling, lawyer Sebastian Scharmer replied: The perspective of those affected still has no significant weight with state authorities. Often the political motivation of attacks is not even recognized.

Antje Arndt, project manager of the Saxony-Anhalt Mobile Victim Advisory Service, contradicts this – at least a little. A lot has changed in the last few years. “We can talk to representatives of the police and politicians on an equal level,” she says. They are worried that such contacts could disappear under an AfD government.

What is needed now, Arndt told the taz a little later, is “solidarity at all levels”. Above all, those who would suffer particularly under an AfD government should not be forgotten: the victims of right-wing violence.