THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The Jewish community has more than doubled since 1989, when mass immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union began, and is now about 100,000. The largest Jewish centers are Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg, but Jewish communities are active in most other large cities. Very few of the German Jews who survived World War II or their descendents returned to Germany.

The weekly Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung is the most prominent of a number of publications which serve the needs of Jews in Germany. The Zentralrat, the umbrella organization of German Jewry, has moved its headquarters to Berlin.

In November 2000, Germany’s first rabbinical school since the Holocaust was established in Potsdam. The Abraham Geiger Rabbinical College is affiliated with the Jewish Studies Center at the University of Potsdam, and is only the second rabbinical seminary in continental Europe. In September 2001, the new Jewish Museum in Berlin, housed in a building designed by architect Daniel Liesbeskind, was opened.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

In 2000 the estimated number of extreme right activists (members of political parties as well as extra-parliamentary groups) rose only slightly, from 50,400 in 1999 to 50,900. According to the security authorities, however, their potential to commit violence had increased drastically.

There was a decline in the electoral achievements of the three main extreme right parties in 2000. This is in marked contrast to the growing attraction of violence among far right individuals and groups (see below). While not always expressed openly, all three parties remain xenophobic and antisemitic in their outlook.

The Deutsche Volksunion (German Peoples’ Union – DVU), led by the millionaire publisher Dr. Gerhard Frey, has been the most successful in the polls in recent years and is currently represented in both the Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg state legislatures. Founded in 1987, the DVU is today the largest extreme right-wing political party in Germany, with about 17,000 members. Its chairman provides the funds required to organize expensive propaganda campaigns (see ASW 1989/9). Its organ, the weekly National-Zeitung/Deutsche Wochenzeitung, has a circulation of 45,000. Xenophobia, antisemitism, questioning the Holocaust and National Socialist (NS) apologetics (“Was Hitler the only one responsible for the outbreak of World War II?”) are important components of their ideology. Besides Norman Finkelstein’s controversial Holocaust Industry (see below), books offered for sale on the DVU homepage include Helden der Wehrmacht (Heroes of the Wehrmacht), KZ-Lügen (KZ-Lies), Verbrechen an der Wehrmacht (Crimes against the Wehrmacht), Die Wehrmacht als Befreierin (The Wehrmacht as Liberator), and Freispruch für Deutschland (Verdict Not Guilty for Germany).

In 1964 Adolf von Thadden, Friedrich Thielen and Waldemar Schütz founded the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German National Democratic Party – NPD), which had some brief electoral gains in the 1970s. Under Udo Voigt – who has been a member of the party since 1968 (when he was 16-years-old) and became chairman in 1996 – the party began attracting young skinheads and neo-Nazis and focused its activities in the former GDR. Most members are now under 30.

The NPD and its youth organization Junge Nationaldemokraten (JN; see below) have been classified by the Federal Office for the Defense of the Constitution (BfV – Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) as a threat to democratic values. Since 1998 they have intensified their struggle to mobilize the street. Most of the violent demonstrations which took place throughout Germany in 2000 were organized by the NPD or the JN. Their aim is to enlarge the “NAPO” – Nationale Ausser- parlamentarische Opposition (National Extra-Parliamentary Opposition).

Lawyer Horst Mahler, a former left-wing activist of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction – RAF), joined the NPD in August 2000 and was appointed to handle its defense during the debate over banning the party (see below). Mahler himself was expelled from the professional association of lawyers of Berlin in February because of his racist and antisemitic activities, but is still able to practice law.

The NPD organ, Deutsche Stimme, has a circulation of about 10,000, while its Internet site has become the party’s electronic mouthpiece, providing links to the 15 NPD state (lander) organizations, the online edition of Deutsche Stimme and the neo-Nazi news service Nachrichten-Informationen-Theorie (NIT).

According to the BfV, membership of the NPD youth organization, Junge Nationaldemokraten (JN), founded in 1969, rose from 350 to 500 in 2000. Der Aktivist, the JN organ, sells 1,000 copies per edition. The NPD has close links to right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi organizations worldwide (for its relationship to the FPÖ, see Austria), including to the US National Alliance leader William Pierce. Proceedings to ban the party have been initiated by the federal government (see below).

Some 13,000 members were registered in 2000 compared with 14,000 in 1999. The youth organization is the Republikaner Jugend (RJ). The REPS use the Internet extensively, and their website provides links to the FPÖ as well as to the Partei für die Einheit Tirols (Party for Unity of the Tyrol). Der Republikaner, the party organ, with a circulation of 20,000 copies, also appears online. Subjects treated include the struggle against the Euro, which allegedly threatens Germany’s economy and society, opposition to the erection of a Holocaust memorial and the party’s campaign to build a memorial for German victims of World War II.

Although there is still uncertainty about the existence of a far right terrorist infrastructure in Germany, the number of militant right-wing extremists has doubled since 1994. Since 1995 there have been intense efforts to organize extreme right Freie Kameradschaften (free associations). With no apparent centralized structure, they maintain close contact mainly via the Internet. Over 150 such Kameradschaften exist nationwide.

The BfV differentiates between “neo-Nazis” and “right-wing extremists with a propensity to violence.” In its 2000 report, the BfV calculated that the first group numbered about 2,200 and the second 9,700 (compared to 9,000 in 1999), mostly “extremist right-wing skinheads” who were ready to use violence to achieve their aims. At the end of 2000, 144 (134 in 1999) extreme right-wing groups were registered by theau.

In addition to a steep rise in extreme right-wing manifestations, one of the most serious problems of contemporary Germany, especially east Germany, is the growing acceptability of far right-wing opinions. A survey of young people’s attitudes carried out by the Forsa Institute demonstrated this regional divide: 47 percent of 14–25-year-old east Germans found something positive in Nazi ideology compared to 35 percent of young west Germans. Right-wing views seem to be particularly strong among east German high school students: 61 percent think there are too many foreigners, 62 percent that there was some good in Nazism and 15 percent that the Nazi ideology is “in itself a good idea.” Forty-six per cent of east Germans surveyed said there were too many foreigners in Germany, compared with 40 percent of west Germans. The Forsa Institute also revealed that at least one out of ten Germans favors right-wing ideologies and that 37 percent in the east and 22 percent in the west were prejudiced against foreigners.

For the past ten years, the BfV and the justice authorities have been concerned by signs of an increasing readiness on the part of extreme right-wing activists to use violent means to achieve their aims or to disseminate their message. Since German reunification in 1990, over 100 people have died as a result of right-wing terror.

As in previous years, the president of BfV warned in 2000 of the growing capability of right-wing extremist groups to carry out major terrorist acts. Weapons and explosives, many of which were supplied through foreign contacts or stolen from the Bundeswehr (German army), were confiscated by the police from the homes of far right militants and neo-Nazis. These included (according to the BfV) small-bore rifles, machine guns, pipe-bombs and equipment for laying bombs. According to a report of the BKA (Federal Criminal Office) in 2000, the German far right maintains contacts in more than 40 countries, thus facilitating the transport and production of weapons as well as propaganda material, illegal sound carriers and literature from abroad.

In 2000 the total number of extreme right-wing crimes reported reached 15,951 compared to 10,037 in 1999. This number includes 998 violent incidents (746 in 1999), a peak since World War II. Until July 2000 a decrease in numbers was expected. However, a bomb attack in Dusseldorf on 27 July (see below) inspired many imitators. Also, public discussion concerning the banning of extreme right-wing parties, particularly the NPD (see below), stirred up extreme right feelings. In autumn, the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada (see General Analysis) encouraged militant right-wingers to exploit anti-Jewish sentiment to increase their activities. At the end of 2000 there was a rise of 58 percent in right-wing crimes, mostly directed against foreigners and Jews, while violent crimes motivated by extreme right-wing sympathizers increased by 33.8 percent compared to the previous year.

Neo-Nazi violence against immigrants was highlighted by the murder in June of Alberto Adriano, a Mozambique-born German citizen, in the east German town of Dessau. It should be noted that a high percentage of xenophobic attacks took place in the east. Whole areas of eastern towns have been declared “nationally liberated zones” and some schools are terrorized by extreme right activists.

Parades of extreme right-wing members through the streets of German cities have become a relatively common sight. The Saxonian capital Dresden has turned into a parade center for young and old Nazis: nine pro-Nazi demonstrations took place there in 2000. Although frequently met by anti-fascist counter-demonstrations, police troops or even forbidden by court order, activists of the extreme right, in particular those incited by the NPD youth organization, strive to maximize their presence on the streets. Together with the JN, the NPD alone succeeded in mobilizing skinheads and neo-Nazis in over 50 demonstrations in 2000.

For the first time since 1945, on 29 January 2000, two days after the official Holocaust Day and the eve of the 67th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s assumption of office, neo-Nazis staged a march through Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gate, the traditional parade route of Hitler’s NSDAP. The occasion for the demonstration was the official laying of a foundation stone at the site of the Berlin Holocaust memorial – that “monument of shame in the center of Berlin,” according to Voigt – near the Reichstag building. Some 700 neo-Nazis distributed Nazi propaganda and chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, such as “No cash for memorials,” “Jobs instead of Jewish agitation” and “Holocaust? Don’t let them take the piss out of you.” Although officially organized by the NPD, it was noticeable that the militant Gesinnungs-gemeinschaft der Neuen Front (GdNF), an umbrella organization of neo-Nazi groups, was in fact controlling the event, which was led by Christian Worch, Thomas Wulff and Oliver Schweigert, all leading figures of the GdNF.

An increasing number of neo-Nazis are joining the Bundeswehr. Their aim is to receive military training and to recruit activists and sympathizers from among the ranks of young soldiers. An increase of 45 percent in right-wing incidents in the army registered in 2000, has alarmed the authorities. According to an opinion poll conducted by the Sinus Trend 2000 Institute, 16 percent of potential army volunteers identify with extreme right-wing parties, notably the NPD and the DVU.

According to Bernd Wagner, a leading authority on the German extreme right, neo-Nazis have developed an elaborate prisoner-support network in east German jails aimed at recruiting activists. “The prisons are running the risk of discharging more neo-Nazis than they admit,” he warned. Brandenburg’s justice minister concedes that virtually every jail there contains a hard core of young neo-Nazi offenders who see themselves as political prisoners with a mission to convert other inmates.

Extreme right-wing inmates are assisted from outside by the neo-Nazi Support Association for National Prisoners (known by its German initials HNG), which provides them with access to lawyers, propaganda materials and help in recruiting others. The HNG (see ASW 1998/9) has developed into one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in Germany. One of its leaders is the Berlin lawyer Wolfgang Narrath, formerly head of the outlawed neo-Nazi Viking Youth organization. The HNG’s recruitment tactics include a pen-pal scheme, which enables neo-Nazis to keep in touch with young inmates. The HNG publish HNG-News and have increased their activities on the Internet.

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES AND HATE PROPAGANDA

While during the first quarter of the year 2000, 140 antisemitic incidents were reported, the number in the last quarter more than tripled. The total number for the year amounted to 1,378 – an almost 70 percent rise compared to the previous year – according to the official report of the Ministry of Interior. The dramatic increase during the last quarter is due in large part to the al-Aqsa intifada which inspired radical Islamists to anti-Jewish acts and served as a catalyst for extreme right-wing antisemites (see General Analysis).

An analysis of violent antisemitic attacks in 2000 reveals that the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada coincided with traditional action days of the extreme right, with the Jewish High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), and with the anniversaries of German unification on 3 October and the Reichskristallnacht on 9 November. Common anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist feelings seem to have temporarily united radical Islamists and extreme right-wingers who, in general, are located in opposing camps.

Shortly before Yom Kippur, a crowd of about 100 Palestinian and Lebanese demonstrators tried to storm the Old Synagogue in the German city of Essen, today a Jewish museum and Holocaust memorial center. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer instantly condemned the attack and declared that Germany woulnot permit institutions to be targets of violence. Other incidents during October 2000 included violent attacks on synagogues in Dusseldorf and Berlin and desecration of cemeteries, as well as threats and fake letter bombs addressed to representatives of the Jewish communities. On 27 July 2000 ten persons were injured, six of them Jews, when the Wehrhahn railway station in Dusseldorf was bombed.

Synagogues and Holocaust memorials were also the targets of extreme right violence. The Erfurt synagogue, for example, was torched on 20 April, the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday. Since 1945 Jewish cemeteries and property have been damaged on more than 1,000 occasions.

Hate through Music. The music scene is an important means of disseminating extreme right propaganda and recruiting sympathizers among the young. The Internet offers a range of music for downloading, including the Horst-Wessel-Lied, Black Metal music and neo-Nazi–skinhead music of the Blood & Honour group, which is forbidden in Germany. Also available is the music of the “national bard,” Frank Rennike, a former member of the banned Viking Youth. The music, offered in digital form, is of CD quality.

Skinhead music is aggressive and often serves as a means of indoctrination. The oldest German neo-Nazi website Thulenet offers access to forbidden (indiziert) music through the link “Liable to penalty.” The groups are called Kraftschlag, Kraft und Ehre (Power and Honor), Klansmen, No Remorse, Neo Hate and Rahowa (the slogan of the White Power movement, short for “Racial Holy War”).

Production of White Power music flourishes, both on and off the Internet. A central figure is Torsten Lemmer. A former REP, he took over the management of the Nazi skinhead band Stoerkraft. The music label RockNord serves both as the name of a mail-order business for badges, flags, CDs and T-shirts, and a Nazi-skin-music magazine.

In December, 2000 it was widely reported that many illegal neo-Nazi music titles, inciting to murder, were being traded on the Internet music exchange Napster. The German media enterprise Bertelsmann, a new partner of Napster condemned this abuse. The neo-Nazi volume “Macht und Ehre,” for example, instigates a second extermination of the Jews. The text of the lyric of “The Eternal Jew” reads: “Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald / there we kill the Jews again.”

Hate music is also distributed on CDs, thousands of which were confiscated in 2000. In October 2000 the “national bard” Frank Rennike was sentenced in Baden Wurtemberg to ten months imprisonment and his wife fined DM1,000 for collaborating in the dissemination of hate and xenophobia. They were ordered to refund DM70,000 for sales of their CDs.

Concerts by racist and antisemitic bands have become the meeting point not only for neo-Nazis but also for young people without previous contact with extreme right-wing ideology. However, according to the BfV, although the number of skinhead bands rose slightly to 101 (93 in 1999), the number of public performances dropped by over 25 percent to 82 concerts (109 in 1999).

Internet. In 2000 the number of websites operated by German right-wing extremists amounted to 800, compared to 32 in 1996, 80 in 1997, 200 in 1998 and 330 in 1999. Homepages with illegal content are disseminated mainly through US providers. German right-wing extremists thus exploit the freedoms granted by the US First Amendment to circumvent the German law banning the dissemination of neo-Nazi propaganda and denial of the Holocaust on the web (see also below).

There was a marked radicalization of messages on the Internet, including a repeated call on various forums for taking up arms against the Federal Republic. The distribution of hit lists through the net, already observed in 1999, is an indication of the increasing readiness for violent struggle. These lists are sometimes combined with operational plans for preparing explosives.

Other means, such as mailing lists, reaching hundreds of members, are used to disseminate hate messages. In August 2000 NPD member Horst Mahler sent an e-mail message to members of the Bundestag, and to many citizens, appealing to “Citizens of the German Reich.”

Many mainstream publications and parties provide “open forums” for discussing daily issues. However, within a few weeks of their creation these forums are often infiltrated and eventually taken over almost completely by extreme right-wing activists.

In response to the drastic increase in German hate sites and extreme right-wing activities on the web, the German authorities together with the Zentralrat established a link on the Internet that leads surfers who use search terms such as Sieg Heil directly to anti-violence websites (see below).

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

The increase in antisemitic and xenophobic manifestations in Germany has prompted both the Protestant Church and the Evangelical Church to issue statements emphasizing their solidarity with the Jews and admitting their complicity in the Holocaust.

Denial of the Holocaust is a crime in Germany and punishable under paragraphs 130, 185 and 186 of the Criminal Code. Thus, Holocaust denial publications are distributed mostly from abroad, especially Belgium through the international forum for Holocaust deniers Vrij Historisch Onderzoek (VHO). Germar Rudolf (see ASW 1996/7), for example, a leader of the international Holocaust denial campaign, is one of the forces behind the pseudo-scientific journal Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung (VffG), the most influential publication of Holocaust denial in Europe. Translated into various languages, it reaches an enormous public through the Internet. Rudolf, sentenced in 1995 for Holocaust denial in Germany, distributes his publications, as well as those of other deniers, through his publishing house Castle Hill from exile in the UK.

In December 2000 the Federal Court reversed a decision of the Manheim district court, ruling that Holocaust denial, disseminated through the Internet, is a punishable crime. This ruling applies also for material originating from abroad.

Holocaust denier Günther Deckert’s defense lawyer Ludwig Bock was fined DM9,000 for trivializing the Holocaust.

The Berlin school administration authorities took disciplinary measures against a high-school teacher in Steglitz, in December 2000, on the grounds of extreme right-wing statements made in the classroom. Parents filed a complaint against him because of his dissemination of the “Auschwitz lie.”

Norman Finkelstein’s controversial The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, first published in English in the United States, became the subject of a heated discussion even months before its publication in Germany in early 2001, when it became an immediate best seller. Finkelstein claims that the memory and true essence of the Holocaust have been systematically distorted, manipulated and misused by Israel and the US Jewish community to serve their ideological and political aims.

Some 130,000 copiwere sold in the six weeks, and there was non-stop reportage and commentary in every major German media outlet. Wolfgang Benz, director of the Berlin Technical University’s Center for Research of Antisemitism, sees the debate less as a matter for historians than as a problem of political culture. Whereas in the US the debate took place only within the left camp, Benz is worried about the praise for Finkelstein by the average “armchair warrior” in Germany.

Publication of his book coincided with an opinion poll that showed that 65 percent of Germans totally or partially agreed with Finkelstein’s assertion that “Jewish organizations make exaggerated compensation demands on Germany to enrich themselves.”

Nolte is supported mainly by publications such as Junge Freiheit, which describes itself as a newspaper in Germany for “patriotic right-wingers.” In tones reminiscent of the NSDAP, Junge Freiheit has criticized German politicians as “decadent windbags” who “no longer possess an iota of honor,” and calls for “an end to the self-hatred of Germans” (17 Aug. 2000, World Socialist Web Site).

In April 2000 the German federal government launched a website catalog of over 2,000 paintings, mostly looted from Jews by the Nazis. The Internet is regarded as the last opportunity for the heirs to recover their property.

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM

Germany’s Interior Minister Otto Schilly has announced plans to aid young people quit neo-Nazi and far right groups. The program includes a telephone hotline, help finding work and housing, financial assistance and even the provision of a new identity. “The point is to weaken and destabilize the far right scene,” said Schilly.

In view of the growing threat of right-wing extremism, many initiatives have been taken on the net to counter this phenomenon. NetzGegenRechts (Anti-Right Net), for example, launched on 8 November, is supported by more than 20 of the leading German media outlets in an attempt to inform about right-wing extremism and to promote democratic values. To date, more than half a million Internet users have accessed the site and several hundred firms and private individuals have placed the NetzGegenRechts logo on their homepages. One month later, six German states launched a joint Internet site against right-wing extremism.

Mut gegen rechte Gewalt (Courage in the Face of Right-Wing Violence) is an initiative of the news magazine Stern, which has donated 2 million marks to support centers for victims of right-wing-violence and community groups by donating equipment and providing access to the Internet.

Under Germany’s Basic Law, the Constitutional Court may ban a party if the government demonstrates that it pursues anti-democratic goals. This process may take several years. When West Germany promulgated the Basic Law after World War II, it sought to eradicate Nazism and disassociate itself from any political party espousing the same or similar goals and values as those of the Nazi Party. “Parties which, by reason of their aims or the behavior of their adherents, seek to impair or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany, shall be unconstitutional” (Basic Law, article 21[2]).

Two parties have been banned in Germany in the postwar era. The neo-Nazi Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) was outlawed in 1952, and the Kommunistische Partei Deutschland (KPD) in 1956. Since 1980, 23 extreme right-wing groups have been declared illegal. In 2000, Hamburger Sturm (in August), and Blood & Honour division Deutschland and its youth organization White Youth were declared illegal.

The increasing radicalism and violence of the NPD and its enthusiasm for Nazi ideology have brought the discussion about banning the party to the top of the public agenda. “We have gathered so much convincing material and recorded so many terrible ideological, aggressive and hateful remarks that we would be negligent to do nothing,” said Interior Ministry official Cornelia Sonntag-Wollgast.

On 3 November 2000, a spokesman of the Federal Ministry of the Interior reported that more than 350 complaints had been filed against members and sympathizers of the NPD. The BfV published 600 pages of material against the party, demonstrating that NPD officials call openly for a take-over of power in Germany, by force, “if necessary.” A wide range of political leaders have called for banning the NPD. On 8 November the federal government decided to submit a request to ban the NPD to the Federal Constitutional Court. In January 2001 the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe confirmed that the application to outlaw the NPD – comprising 73 files – had been lodged.

The liberal Freie Demokraten (Free Democratic Party – FDP) opposed the ban, saying the NPD (whose membership rose considerably in 2000/1) was not a mortal threat to democracy. “We consider a ban the wrong way to fight far right extremism,” said FDP chairman Guido Westerwelle. “It is well-intentioned, but well-intentioned is often the opposite of well done… The NPD is the least successful of all the far right parties... [Its] electoral results do not confirm the presence of this danger,” he claimed.

Banning an extreme right-wing party prevents it from participating in state elections. However, declaring these parties unconstitutional may encourage members and sympathizers of such organizations to affiliate with mainstream groups. Those who oppose the ban also point out that groups that have been declared illegal in the past have continued their activities underground, making it more difficult for the authorities to monitor them. By resorting to high-tech means, for example, extreme rightists, especially those of forbidden organizations, effectively evade surveillance.