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Germany: A No-Go Area?
New Wave of Hatred for Foreigners, immigrants, Black Germans, and German Jews
Nevertheless, the incidents of racism and anti-Semitism within soccer stadiums can no longer be dismissed as marginal outbursts of post-adolescent intoxication or macho sport excesses. The National Democratic Party (NPD), a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic political party, has scored a series of regional election victories in the now-defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR). The NPD secured 9 percent of the vote last year in the state of Sachsen and is represented in the parliament there. A close political ally of the NPD, the German People’s Party (DVU), won enough votes to serve in the Brandenburg government (also a federal German state) in 2005. This past September the NPD entered its second state government in Mecklenberg-Vorpormmern, where 60,000 Germans (over 6 percent of voters) aligned themselves with a neo-Nazi party.
The NPD and a fellow right-wing party, the Republicans, also won enough votes to be represented in five local city council assemblies in Berlin. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU, the Party of Democratic Socialism-the Left Party (PDS), the Green Party, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) reached an agreement to reject any legislative initiatives from the NPD.
However, Angela Merkel, the first women chancellor of Germany, rejected a recent attempt to legally ban the NPD. “We must encourage the people so that they will not be taken in by simple and populist messages,” said the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Chancellor Merkel. In contrast, the openly gay mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, voiced his support for outlawing the NPD: “We would admittedly not remove extreme right-wing thought with a prohibition. But it is intolerable that neo-Nazis, thanks to the privileges of all parties, appear with a brazenness not to be undone. They collect public monies from election campaign cost refunds which are used for offices and infrastructure.”
In 2003 the German constitutional court rejected the government’s suit to declare the NPD an anti-democratic party and therefore illegal. The court based its denial of the government’s claim of tainted information supplied by state informants disguised as NPD party members. In this environment, German intellectuals, politicians, and the media are consumed with the question: How should German society address the existence of the NPD?
A leading NPD politician, Udo Pastörs, a watchmaker, campaigned in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern against the “New Yokerisierung” of Germany—a rather transparent message of anti-Semitism. In the NPD party program in Sachsen, an alleged parallel to Native Americans in the U.S. was invoked to justify xenophobia. Pästor exploited the Native American comparison on flyers as part of his campaign in Lübtheen. Likewise, a mainstream CDU governor, Roland Koch from the West German federal state of Hessen, said, “Germany is not an immigration land like America where the native culture is no longer present. You could simply say, ‘We are more than the Indians’.” Koch was jockeying in early 2005 to become the next Chancellor of Germany.
A section of the German left argues that there is a commonality regarding overlapping party platforms between the CDU and the NPD. Merkel’s party played the anti-immigrant (and race) card by waging its “Kinder statt Inder” (Children instead of Indians) campaign in 1999-2000 to promote German procreation and restrict the entry of highly skilled workers from India.
The NPD’s anti-immigrant campaign culminated in organizers blanketing entire towns with campaign posters blasting immigrants and the social welfare state policies of the previous government (RedGreen). One poster showed traditional Turkish women with headscarves carrying large bags. The text above the women read: “Have a nice trip home.” The NPD also tapped into the anger of many voters who are unemployed or fear the loss of their job. The previous Red-Green government had introduced its Agenda 2010 program, which slashed unemployment benefits and forced strict controls over those receiving public assistance aid. Hartz IV is the name of the reduced benefit program and was the brainchild of Peter Hartz, the former director of labor for Volkswagen, who confessed to issuing illegal payments for prostitution and business trips in Brazil.
Pastör, the newly-elected NPD representative in the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, organized around the rising level of voter economic and social frustration. He is a fan of Hitler and, like his U.S. counterpart, David Duke, he is attempting to transmit a jacket and tie image of the extreme right. Pastör is keenly aware that shaved heads, jackboots, chauvinistic tattoos, and bomber jackets will not bring the NPD into the mainstream.
Pastör, the newly-elected NPD representative in the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, organized around the rising level of voter economic and social frustration. He is a fan of Hitler and, like his U.S. counterpart, David Duke, he is attempting to transmit a jacket and tie image of the extreme right. Pastör is keenly aware that shaved heads, jackboots, chauvinistic tattoos, and bomber jackets will not bring the NPD into the mainstream.
New Wave of Hatred for Foreigners, immigrants, Black Germans, and German Jews
Nevertheless, the incidents of racism and anti-Semitism within soccer stadiums can no longer be dismissed as marginal outbursts of post-adolescent intoxication or macho sport excesses. The National Democratic Party (NPD), a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic political party, has scored a series of regional election victories in the now-defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR). The NPD secured 9 percent of the vote last year in the state of Sachsen and is represented in the parliament there. A close political ally of the NPD, the German People’s Party (DVU), won enough votes to serve in the Brandenburg government (also a federal German state) in 2005. This past September the NPD entered its second state government in Mecklenberg-Vorpormmern, where 60,000 Germans (over 6 percent of voters) aligned themselves with a neo-Nazi party.
The NPD and a fellow right-wing party, the Republicans, also won enough votes to be represented in five local city council assemblies in Berlin. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU, the Party of Democratic Socialism-the Left Party (PDS), the Green Party, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) reached an agreement to reject any legislative initiatives from the NPD.
However, Angela Merkel, the first women chancellor of Germany, rejected a recent attempt to legally ban the NPD. “We must encourage the people so that they will not be taken in by simple and populist messages,” said the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Chancellor Merkel. In contrast, the openly gay mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, voiced his support for outlawing the NPD: “We would admittedly not remove extreme right-wing thought with a prohibition. But it is intolerable that neo-Nazis, thanks to the privileges of all parties, appear with a brazenness not to be undone. They collect public monies from election campaign cost refunds which are used for offices and infrastructure.”
In 2003 the German constitutional court rejected the government’s suit to declare the NPD an anti-democratic party and therefore illegal. The court based its denial of the government’s claim of tainted information supplied by state informants disguised as NPD party members. In this environment, German intellectuals, politicians, and the media are consumed with the question: How should German society address the existence of the NPD?
A leading NPD politician, Udo Pastörs, a watchmaker, campaigned in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern against the “New Yokerisierung” of Germany—a rather transparent message of anti-Semitism. In the NPD party program in Sachsen, an alleged parallel to Native Americans in the U.S. was invoked to justify xenophobia. Pästor exploited the Native American comparison on flyers as part of his campaign in Lübtheen. Likewise, a mainstream CDU governor, Roland Koch from the West German federal state of Hessen, said, “Germany is not an immigration land like America where the native culture is no longer present. You could simply say, ‘We are more than the Indians’.” Koch was jockeying in early 2005 to become the next Chancellor of Germany.
A section of the German left argues that there is a commonality regarding overlapping party platforms between the CDU and the NPD. Merkel’s party played the anti-immigrant (and race) card by waging its “Kinder statt Inder” (Children instead of Indians) campaign in 1999-2000 to promote German procreation and restrict the entry of highly skilled workers from India.
The NPD’s anti-immigrant campaign culminated in organizers blanketing entire towns with campaign posters blasting immigrants and the social welfare state policies of the previous government (RedGreen). One poster showed traditional Turkish women with headscarves carrying large bags. The text above the women read: “Have a nice trip home.” The NPD also tapped into the anger of many voters who are unemployed or fear the loss of their job. The previous Red-Green government had introduced its Agenda 2010 program, which slashed unemployment benefits and forced strict controls over those receiving public assistance aid. Hartz IV is the name of the reduced benefit program and was the brainchild of Peter Hartz, the former director of labor for Volkswagen, who confessed to issuing illegal payments for prostitution and business trips in Brazil.
Pastör, the newly-elected NPD representative in the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, organized around the rising level of voter economic and social frustration. He is a fan of Hitler and, like his U.S. counterpart, David Duke, he is attempting to transmit a jacket and tie image of the extreme right. Pastör is keenly aware that shaved heads, jackboots, chauvinistic tattoos, and bomber jackets will not bring the NPD into the mainstream.
Pastör, the newly-elected NPD representative in the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, organized around the rising level of voter economic and social frustration. He is a fan of Hitler and, like his U.S. counterpart, David Duke, he is attempting to transmit a jacket and tie image of the extreme right. Pastör is keenly aware that shaved heads, jackboots, chauvinistic tattoos, and bomber jackets will not bring the NPD into the mainstream.
