Bachmann: only joking, honest THE march on January 19th in Dresden by Pegida, or “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident”, would have been its 13th. But it was cancelled because the police had “concrete” information of plans to assassinate its organiser, Lutz Bachmann. On January 21st Mr Bachmann was exposed in German tabloids for posing as Hitler on his Facebook page. He called it a joke, but later resigned his position. Pegida plans to resume its marches next week.Among its followers, despite Mr Bachmann’s antics, neo-Nazis are a small minority. The typical marcher is a middle-aged, middle-class Saxon man who, says Hans Vorländer at the Technical University of Dresden, is alienated from politics and the liberal media, and yearns for a homogenous fatherland. The marches may have “passed the peak”, adds Dieter Rucht at the Berlin Social Science Centre. Yet there will be political fallout. Nine-tenths of Pegida supporters back the Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded only in 2013 and represented in three eastern state parliaments.The AfD began with an anti-euro message. Some leaders, such as Hans- Olaf Henkel,…
