In the middle of the week, a video from the Bautzen district administrator caused a stir.

"At this point I want to say to you clearly and unequivocally before Christmas: It is not our intention to let sport - whether school or leisure sport - bleed for this asylum policy," explained Udo Witschas.

He will no longer accommodate refugees in gyms or in decentralized accommodation, i.e. apartments.

Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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The residents "shouldn't worry either that people who first have to learn how to cope with our life, with our society, are now being integrated into our homes and that social peace is endangered." The federal government is forcing refugees on the province, that she didn't want to have in her midst was the message, and the final sentence "I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Blessed One" added another punch line.

Anyone who spoke here like an AfD man is actually a CDU man.

Witschas is 51 years old and was elected district administrator in July.

Now he has sent his first Christmas message and has not only been blamed for it by other parties.

The CDU federal executive also distanced itself “emphatically”.

It was the second time in a week that Witschas and the regional CDU caused a stir.

Before that, the Union had helped an AfD motion to gain a majority in the district council, which called for a reduction in integration funds for rejected asylum seekers.

Both processes are significant in that there is no longer any difference between AfD and Union.

Only one CDU district councilor voted against the application, another later apologized.

The rest of the Union district councils are silent or explicitly support AfD policies.

Merz and the firewall to the AfD

This is a problem for the CDU and its federal and state leaders.

After his election as party leader in January, Friedrich Merz ordered "a firewall to the AfD" and made a "crystal clear announcement" to the state associations, "especially in the east": "If any of us raises our hands to work with the AfD, then the next day there will be a party expulsion procedure.” Saxony's CDU leader, Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, has also been one of those who have decisively opposed AfD representatives, not least in parliament.

Witschas, on the other hand, reacted to the criticism he received with a well-known strategy: he played it down, didn't mean it that way.

The video is "a greatly reduced version" and the "actual thematic context" is left out.

He wanted to address the concerns of sports clubs and tenants in the city of Hoyerswerda after residents and the district council had rejected a planned community accommodation for refugees there.

But the only slightly longer original video doesn't make it any better.

There is concern that gymnasiums and existing, empty apartments in multi-family houses will be used for asylum again.

As everywhere in Germany, more refugees are arriving in the district of Bautzen.

Witschas could have said, for example, that gymnasiums are the very last option so that children and clubs can continue to do sports.

He could have explained that refugee families can be better integrated in apartments and also live cheaper than in collective accommodation.

Instead, he said locals should not "bleed for this asylum policy."

That was no accident, no slip and certainly not an isolated case, just as little as the joint vote with the AfD the week before.

The CDU parliamentary group in the district council justified itself with the well-known argument that at the municipal level it is not about party politics or “kindergarten games”, as the CDU parliamentary group leader put it in the district council, but about the matter at hand.

And Witschas, who had also voted with the AfD, added that he "worked sensibly with all district councils".

So also with those of the AfD.