Until three weeks ago, it seemed a foregone conclusion that immigration would not be the central theme of the German parliamentary elections on February 23, as none of the governing parties had any interest in competing with the far right on the subject. But the car-ramming attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg on December 20, 2024, perpetrated by a doctor of Saudi origin who arrived in 2006 under refugee status, which killed six people and injured almost 300, shook up a campaign that was set to be dominated by the economic crisis.

Coming four months after the knife attack in Solingen, which left three dead and eight wounded, and seven months after the one in Mannheim, with one dead and five wounded, both committed by refugees, the Magdeburg attack plunged the country into mourning a few days before Christmas, prompting the campaigning candidates to toughen their proposals on immigration, even though the motives of the perpetrator, radically hostile to Islam, remain unclear.

In an interview with the Sunday edition of Die Welt, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, Friedrich Merz, favorite for the chancellorship, argued on Sunday, January 5, in favor of stripping criminals holding two passports of their nationality. To prevent attacks and other crimes, foreign offenders must be deported after their second offense at the latest, he said, proposing that they be "stripped of their German citizenship" so that dual nationality "becomes the exception" rather than "the rule."

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