The mayor of a small German town has been assaulted and beaten unconscious after receiving threats because he planned to settle migrants in the area.

Joachim Kebschull, the 61-year-old mayor of Oersdorf near Hamburg, was pushing to house migrants in a property in the town of 900.

The attack occurred immediately before a meeting of the town’s urban planning committee where migrant issues were due to be discussed.

According to police, the mayor had returned to his car to retrieve a laptop. As he leaned in, someone approached him and struck a blow to his head with either a club or a plank of wood, knocking him to the ground.

According to NDR, the mayor has received a threatening email following the attack. “Whoever is still unwilling to listen now, will certainly feel better,” it read.

Police spokesman Oliver Pohl explained that he had also been sent numerous threatening letters since July, long before the attack.

The planned migrant house has caused serious tensions in the town before, leading to meetings about the issue to be closed due to bomb threats.

In response, the local voter’s association issued a statement last month, arguing that the village was the perfect place to house migrants.

“Oersdorf is being talked about, and not in a good sense… There is a great effort to intimidate, seemingly because the committee wants to make a decision about housing for asylum seekers,” the association stated.

Adding: “If we could offer a new home in our village for a refugee family, we would gladly seize the opportunity, and in doing so could as a community provide people who had to flee their homeland with new prospects.

“And where would be a better place than in the heart of our village where people live so well with one another?”