GERMANY 2003-4
There was a steady growth in the number of extreme right
organizations and groups in 2003, but a decline in overall membership. Violence
of the extreme right increased, especially in Berlin.
Thirty-eight acts of antisemitically-motivated violence were reported in 2003, compared
to 22 in 2002. A CDU member of the Bundestag, Martin Hohmann, compared the mass
executions in Soviet Russia, allegedly by Bolsheviks of Jewish
descent, to the murder of Jews in the Holocaust. In December 2003 the German
Bundestag unanimously approved a declaration against antisemitic tendencies.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Germany's Jewish community is the world's
fastest growing, having tripled over the past twenty years as a result of
immigration from the CIS. Germany now has a Jewish population of over 100,000,
the third-largest in Europe, out of a general population of about 83 million.
The largest Jewish centers are Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg, but
Jewish communities are active in most other large urban areas. Religious,
cultural, and social support is provided to a total of 83 communities. In many
cities, especially those in former East Germany, newcomers from the former Soviet
Union account for the majority of Jews.
The Zentralrat acts as the roof
organization of German Jewry, with headquarters in Berlin. There are synagogues
in most cities, and the larger communities have Jewish schools as well. The
weekly Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung is the most prominent of a
number of publications which serve the Jews of Germany. The Frankfurt-based Tribüne
is the leading Jewish scholarly journal.
On 11 July 2003 the German Bundesrat ratified a treaty (Staatsvertrag) on cultural and social
cooperation, signed on 27 January 2003 (the 58th anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz) by the Federal Republic and the Zentralrat. The treaty guarantees
a sum of 3 million euros (three times the amount provided in the past) as a
fixed part of the annual federal budget to the community. The two main
churches—Catholic and Protestant—also have similar federal contracts. As a
result, cooperation between the German government and the Zentralrat is now regulated
under a formal agreement, which Chancellor Gerhard Schröder referred to as
an encouraging sign for Jewish religious and cultural life in Germany.
THE EXTREME RIGHT
In 2003 there was a steady growth in the
number of extreme right-wing organizations and groups (2003: 169; 2002: 146),
although overall membership decreased by 8 percent, from 45,000 in 2002 to
41,500 in 2003, according to the Federal Office for the Defense of the
Constitution (BfV). The number of neo-Nazis increased by 15 percent to 3,000
compared to 2,600 in 2002, as well as the number of groups belonging to this
scene (from 72 in 2002 to 95 in 2003). Out of 10,792 extreme right-wing crimes
perpetrated in 2003, 759 belonged to the category of violent acts.
Since the 1990s, a growing
number of extreme right-wing groups, mainly neo-Nazis and skinheads, have
justified violence as a legitimate means to achieve their ends. Ties of
interdependence exist between militant activists of extra-parliamentary groups
and political parties of the extreme right (see below). Police frequently
confiscate weaponry; youngsters increasingly carry personal weapons, and
guidelines for constructing explosive devices circulate on the Internet. An
estimated 10,000 extreme right-wingers are prepared to use violence motivated
mainly by racism and/or antisemitism, according to the BfV, compared to 10,700
in 2002 (a decrease of 7 percent). This parallels a decline in extreme
right-wing violent incidents, from 772 in 2002 to 759 in 2003. These numbers
describe an overall trend which is not representative of most eastern states or
of Berlin, where violence of the extreme right increased (from 42 acts in 2002
to 70 in 2003, according to the Berlin police authorities). According to
statistics, published on 20 February 2004 by the Opferberatungsstelle (Victims'
Advice Center), Berlin, a total of 550 (2002: 522) attacks by extreme right
perpetrators were registered by the authorities in Berlin and in east Germany
in 2003 but the real number is thought to be much higher. Non-violent criminal
acts of the extreme right decreased slightly (from 946 to 944).
Extreme
Right-Wing Political Parties
While all three far right parties fared
poorly in the September 2002 general election, failing to win any seats in
parliament, 2003/4 saw the beginning of what threatens to be a more successful
struggle for the parliaments. Under the banner “Nationales Bündnis
Dresden” (National Dresden Union), right-wing extremists, led by Holger
Apel (NPD), successfully united in the city of Dresden, to campaign for the
local elections held on 24 April 2003. The coalition consisted of the NPD, the Republikaner
and the DVU (see below), as well as the newly created (in 2003) Deutsche
Partei-die Freiheitlichen and youth groups of the extreme right, such as the
Ost-Preussen Jugend Landsmannschaft (East Prussian Youth). They gained about 4
percent of the vote and three seats.
Several elections took place
in Germany on 13 June 2004: the European Parliament elections (which are the
only nationwide elections between the two federal general elections); state
parliamentary elections in Thuringia; and communal elections in 6 of the 16
German federal states. In the communal elections, right-wing extremists won
seats in the parliaments of Baden-Würtemberg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheinland-Pfalz,
Saarland, Sachsen-Anhalt (and in Saxonia, in 2004). They also succeeded in the
Thuringia state election and improved their results in the European Parliament
elections. As a result, for the next five years they will receive millions of euros
in state money to finance election campaigns for the Bundestag in 2006, and as
elected representatives of the people their parliamentary delegates will have
immunity before the law (Der Rechte Rand, 89/04). General
dissatisfaction with government policy and the absence in many areas of a
campaign by the left-wing were factors contributing to their gains.
The attempts to ban the Nationaldemokratische
Partei Deutschlands (NPD) as an unconstitutional party proved unsuccessful in
2003. The outlawing process began on 3 November 2000, after more than 350
complaints had been filed against members and sympathizers of the party and
material was published proving that NPD officials were calling openly for a
take-over of power in Germany, by force “if necessary.” The federal government,
the federal parliament and the assembly of the Land governments applied
to the Federal Constitutional Court to declare the NPD unconstitutional. In
January 2001 the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe confirmed that an
application to outlaw the NPD – comprising 73 files – had been lodged. Two
years later, on 18 March 2003, the court rejected the government's case against
the NPD, after it was proven that at least five NPD witnesses were agents
working for one of Germany’s four secret service agencies (see ASW 2002/3). (For a brief historical
survey of the NPD, see ASW 2001/2).
The NPD blame foreigners for
Germany's socio-economic difficulties, believe Germans have been made to feel
too much guilt regarding the Holocaust, and express vehement racist, antisemitic
and anti-American views. Having won a reprieve, the NPD has been able to
further its aims, based on the following strategy:
- Kampf
um die Strasse (struggle for the street), a very successful campaign,
marked by weekend parades, demonstrations and meetings throughout Germany,
but mostly in the east, the former DDR, together with sympathizers from
the neo-Nazi scene, the Kameradschaften and often with a guest from
abroad (see below);
- Kampf
um die Parlamente (struggle for the parliaments), which has been
especially successful in 2004);
- Kampf
um die Köpfe (struggle for minds), a tactic which many analysts
fear has already led to, or will lead to, mainstream acceptance of extreme
right ideologies.
Nevertheless, the NPD, which
is led by Udo Voigt (who replaced Günther Deckert as chairman in 1997 when
the latter was indicted for incitement and Holocaust denial), suffered a
decline in membership in 2003, to 5,000 compared to 6,100 in 2002. It seems
that younger members, in particular, have preferred to join loose extremist
groupings that are more ‘action oriented’.
The party organ, Deutsche
Stimme (ca. 10,000 copies and an aggressive Internet presence) is intensely
xenophobic and antisemitic and incites against the enlargement of the EU to the
east to include non-Christian nations. Their discourse is often interspersed
with antisemitic keywords as can be seen from an extract from their home page
as follows: “Germans defend yourselves! No to admitting Turkey to the EU… 97
percent of Turkey belongs to Asia, 99 percent of Turks are Islamists. But if
the politicians of the EU and of the American east-coast [Jewish bankers] get
their way, Turkey will be threateningly near.”
Domestically, they have
taken a stand against banning the head scarf (of Muslim girls and women) at
public schools because, according to Deutsche Stimme, it underlines the
difference between Orientals and Westerners.
During the last decade the
NPD has intensified its links with right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis abroad.
For example, under the slogan “Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly for
Germans,” an unprecedented number of some 3,000 young people met in Meerane
Saxonia on 9 August 2003, at the invitation of Deutsche Stimme. The
youth were attracted to skinhead bands such as Nordfront, Sturm und Drang and
Swedish Saga. According to the NPD press release, they came from the US, Canada,
Sweden, Norway, Spain, Italy, the UK, Ireland, Slovakia and Flanders. One
week later, on 16 August, the anniversary of the death of Hitler's deputy
Rudolf Hess, more than 2,600 right-wing extremists from all over Germany as
well as from Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Switzerland,
Slovakia and Bulgaria gathered in Wunsiedel, where Hess is buried. Holger
Apfel, deputy chairman of the NPD, was among the speakers at the meeting, which
was accompanied by the skinhead band Sleipnir. Posters with the slogan “Rudolf
Hess – Martyr of Peace” were distributed.
Youth is the declared target
group of the NPD propaganda campaign. In an attempt to increase their influence
among pupils, the NPD, together with their youth
organization JN, began in 2004 to disseminate their new school magazine Der
Rebell (The Rebel) on the Internet. The publication, Nationalistisches
Informationsblatt für Schülerinnen
und Schüler (National Information for Pupils) appeals to readers to
act, under the slogan “Steht auf und wehrt Euch!” (Get up and defend
yourself!), reminiscent of the Nazi slogan “Deutsche wehrt Euch.”
The Deutsche Volksunion
(DVU) is the largest party with an extreme right-wing agenda. Its membership,
too, shrank from 13,000 in 2002 to 11,500 in 2003. The DVU has been dominated
for almost 30 years by its founder and uncontested leader, the publisher
Gerhard Frey, who made his fortune with war novels, brochures on the ‘truth’
about concentration camps, weekly newspapers, video tapes and Nazi memorabilia.
Frey founded the DVU in 1971 in order to market his publications and in 1987
it became a political party. Its biggest success was the 1998 election in east
German Sachsen-Anhalt, where it received almost 13 percent of the vote (see ASW 1998/9).
In 2003 the DVU had members
in two state parliaments, Bremen (1) and Brandenburg (5), and gained 8.1
percent of the municipal vote in Bremerhaven on 28 September 2003, thus increasing its electoral strength by almost 3 percent, mainly because of first-time
voters. Like all political parties of the extreme right in Germany, the DVU
disseminates massive anti-foreigner, antisemitic and anti-Roma propaganda.
Their party organ, the weekly National-Zeitung/Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung (NZ)
(circulation approx. 45,000, as well as an Internet edition), incites against
Jews and Israel, as demonstrated by the following titles: “How much power does the
Israel lobby have?” “Is Israel dictating German TV programs?” “Haim Saban's
take over [of Germany's Kirch Media group and a large slice of Germany's private
TV market] and its implications”; “More Jews to Germany?” “Lies about the
German people”; “Dachau – what is
right?” “Endless Atonement?”
An anti-EU stance is common
to all extreme right parties. The DVU describes the enlargement of the EU
eastwards as an “attempt to realize an old Wahn [obsession] of a
multinational monster (including Turkey) instead of order through national
states.”
The DVU has increased its
dissemination of propaganda among pupils and youth. Referring to the Wehrmacht
exhibition, for example, leaflets were distributed to pupils stating, “Mein
Opa war in Ordnung” (My grandfather was OK). Pamphlets entitled “Working
Circle for History and Politics,” in which World War II is described as a
defensive war, were distributed to pupils on 19 September 2003 at the entrance to the Museum for Art and History of Culture, misleading visitors into
thinking that these guides were connected to the Wehrmacht exhibition that was
on show there.
The Republikaner (REP),
founded in 1983 and led by Rolf Schlierer, continued their electoral decline
which began in the mid-1990s. Membership fell by 60 percent, from 23,000
members in 1993 to 8,000 in 2003. In the early and mid-1990s, the REP gained up
to 10 percent of the vote in a few European and Land elections but
failed to overcome the 5 percent threshold at the national level. In 2003 the
REP took part unsuccessfully in the state elections, obtaining 1.3 percent in Hesse,
0.4 percent in lower Saxonia and 2.2 percent in Bavaria.
The REP call for a welfare
state which would grant benefits exclusively to native German citizens. This
political concept has been symbolized in the image of an over-crowded lifeboat
(Das Boot ist voll – The boat
is full), representing a Germany that is overpopulated, mainly by foreigners, a
theme which has played a prominent role in their propaganda against immigrants
and asylum seekers.
Under the banner, “Yes to a
European Union of fatherlands but No to this EU,” the REP direct much activity
toward anti-EU propaganda and the struggle against EU enlargement eastwards.
According to them, the basis of a united Europe must reflect the idea of a
Christian Occident. They demand that the European constitution include a
confession of faith to a Christian Europe.
Another prominent issue on their
agenda is the fight against the Beneš decrees, The Beneš decrees,
which provided a legal basis for the eviction of ethnic Germans – the Sudeten Germans – from Czechoslovakia, were issued by
President Edvard Beneš in 1945 and are often associated with the transfer
(or resettlement) in 1945–47 of about
three million former Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity. The REP demand
that the Czech Republic be denied European aid as long as these decrees are in
force.
Extra-Parliamentary
Groups
The most active, dynamic and fastest growing
extra-parliamentary structures amongst extreme right-wing groups in Germany are
the Freie Kameradschaften (free associations), which doubled in
number in six years to 160 in 2003. The majority can be found in Lower Saxony (in
the west) and in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Saxon-Anhalt and Brandenburg,
as well as in Berlin. The vast majority of neo-Nazis are involved in some way in
Kameradschaften.
The Freie Kameradschaften
emerged in the mid-1990s in response to police investigations and bans on radical
right-wing activity. Operating under the slogan “Organization through
disorganization” and without a centralized structure, they communicate through
the Internet and other electronic means. Over the past four years, the NPD and
its youth organization, the JN (Young National Democrats) are suspected of
having begun to organize the Kameradschaften centrally. In 2003 there
was a total of 67 Kameradschaften websites, mainly mobilizing activists
for parades, demonstrations and other local or nation-wide events.
In 2003 members of the
Bavarian Kameradschaft Süd were suspected of having planned bomb attacks
on various, mainly Jewish, facilities in the region of Munich. On 12 September 2003, Bavarian Minister of Interior Günter Bechstein confirmed that a
police raid had led to the arrest of six neo-Nazis, suspected of having plotted
a terrorist attack against the Jewish community of Munich, which was to have
been carried out on 9 November 2003 during a cornerstone laying ceremony for
the new central synagogue. The guests who were to attend the event included
German President Johannes Rau, Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber and Paul
Spiegel, head of the Zentralrat. Fourteen kilograms of explosives, including
1.7 kg TNT, were discovered during the police raid. One of their aims,
according to the police, had been the “elimination of all subversive and unnatural
processes in our homeland.” Martin Wiese, member of the Kameradschaft Süd,
was accused of being behind the planning of an arson attack on the Jewish community
center in Munich.
Propaganda
The extreme right uses less direct
incitement such as “Auslaender Raus!” (Foreigners out!), publicly,
preferring to appeal to sympathizers in more subtle language, such as “Die
Vielfalt der Völker erhalten – Ausländerstopp!” (Preserve the diversity
of nations – Stop foreigners!). While the essence is the same, the xenophobic
message is masked to attract more mainstream sympathizers. Since slogans can no
longer be easily associated with a specific political agenda, extreme
right-wing activists, and even neo-Nazis, are able to attach themselves to
different political groupings, especially left-wing or mainstream anti-globalization
forums and demonstrations, to disseminate their ideas. Following are examples
of slogans used during demonstrations in 2003 to illustrate this strategy: On 1 May 2003, some 1,200 members of the extreme right marched in Halle under the anti-war banner
“Arbeitsplätze anstatt Kriegsplätze” (Work places instead of
battlefields). On 19 July and on 3 October 2003, about 200 members of the
extreme right, together with neo-Nazis, demonstrated in Leipzig “for freedom to
demonstrate. We are the people” (für
Demonstrationsfreiheit. Wir sind das Volk). Protests against
government policies and against the war in Iraq (see General Analysis 2002/3) have frequently
been joined by extreme right-wingers and neo-Nazis. For example, on 22 February 2003, 200 neo-Nazis joined a demonstration of 500 anti-fascists who were
protesting against the war in Iraq. They declared that it was Tel Aviv that
should be bombed, since Israel ignored UN resolutions. On 24 February 2003, 50 Nazis from Halle tried to take over a demonstration organized by a local peace
alliance. They shouted anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans and distributed anti-American
pamphlets. Similar incidents could be observed all over Germany. Appealing for support
for its “Day of German Labor” march, the NPD called for national resistance – “the duty of all Germans who want to
remain German” – to globalization,
unemployment, the export of capital and jobs and the systematic disintegration
of the social system.
Music
As of 1980, tens of right-wing organizations were
banned, especially during the second half of the 1990s. They were replaced, to
a certain extent, by an increasingly popular skinhead music scene, with
concerts that spread xenophobic and antisemitic messages becoming the preferred
meeting point for right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis. The number of such
concerts rose rapidly, and recordings became widely and cheaply available,
especially through the Internet. In 2003 however, there was only a slight rise
in concerts while the number of performing bands did not change. Police
confiscated tens of thousands of CDs with illegal content. The production and
distribution of extreme right-wing music constitutes a major source of income
for the extreme right but its main role lies in recruiting youngsters. Hundreds
of groups and singers disseminate antisemitic, xenophobic and militant racist
messages (see http://www.turnitdown.de/121.html
for lists of right-wing bands). Antisemitic texts include lines such as: “Should
cheeky Jews be our masters? No No No –
WAW [White Aryan Resistance]”; “Does Germany have to pay forever for their
fairytale of the gas chambers.” To avoid prosecution in Germany, these bands
often sell their music under foreign labels.
In 2003 hatecoretk.com was
the leading extreme right-wing music portal in German. The site offers news
from the scene, new CD information and fanzines. The links lead to the websites
of extreme right-wing bands and to mail-order services. Hatecoretk plays a
major role in cross-linking the extreme right-wing music scene on the Internet.
In 2003, 119 skinhead
concerts were reported to the BfV, which noted a total of 95 bands. Many
concerts were prevented from taking place by police intervention and anti-fascist
activities. Tens of thousands of CDs with inflammatory messages were
confiscated. A hero of the extreme right music scene almost worldwide is Rudolf
Hess, glorified as the martyr of the movement. Hess appeared first in 1980 in
the lyrics of an English punk band, Angelic Upstarts, as the “Lonely Man of Spandau.”
In 1985 another British band, the neo-Nazi cult band Skrewdriver produced “Prisoner
of Peace,” which became a hit among the right-wing rock scene.
A cooperative of 56 Kameradschaften,
skinhead groups, music labels and extreme right-wing mail order companies was planning
to distribute 250,000 CDs free of charge in the vicinity of schoolyards throughout
Germany in 2004. (The idea of Operation Schoolyard has been adopted by US
neo-Nazis (see http://www.nsm88.com/merchandise/project%20schoolyard.html).
The texts disseminated by 20 bands such as Noie Werte, Stahlgewitter, Nordfront,
Intimitation One, H8-Maschine, Spirit of 88, Hauptkampflinie and Frontalkraft
are xenophobic, incite against foreigners as criminals, deny the Holocaust and
protest against a historiography of the Nazi era in which the Germans alone are
seen as perpetrators.
Aware of the fact that youth
and children are the prime targets of hate music bands, the authorities have
been making a concentrated effort to confiscate their CDs and forbid their
performances. For the first time in Germany, on 22 December 2003, three members of the Landser skinhead band were given prison terms for membership in a
criminal organization. The band leader, Michael Regener (39) was sentenced to 3
years and 4 months in prison. The three members of the band, founded in 1992,
come from Berlin and Brandenburg. The group had produced four CDs, some recorded
secretly in a studio in the US. Most of the group’s songs reportedly incite xenophobic
hatred (Deutsche Welle, June 2003).
On 24 March 2004, the BKA (federal police authorities) searched 300 homes in 15 provinces for music bearing
rightist and/or Nazi hate messages. The federal police in Wiesbaden have been
investigating 342 persons suspected of spreading hate music through the
Internet.
Internet
In 2003, 910 German homepages (not including
foreign sites in German) with extreme right-wing content were active on the
net. Neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing activists have made intensive efforts to infiltrate
mainstream forums in order to disseminate their ideology. FUN
(Freiheitlich-Unabhängig), a website which sought to become a meeting
place for Conservatives, National Liberals, National Revolutionaries, Freie Kameradschaften
activists, Republicans, young National Democrats and NPD members, was
closed down on 3 June 2003 as a result of pressure on the server from a
students’ Internet forum. One month after the ban, it reappeared as a new
virtual Internet party, called FREUNDE.
According to the 2003 report
of the Jugendschutznet (Youth Defense Net), more than 350 racist and
neo-Nazi sites have been shut down since the year 2000. But because of the of
cross-border structure of the net, with each country having a different
judicial system, action taken against right-wing content on the Internet has
had only a limited effect.
The extreme right Internet mail-order
business is extremely profitable. Deals via the Internet are easier and faster
than through snail mail order cataloging.
Cross-linking on the Internet also makes products available worldwide. Due to
less restrictive legislation, the US and Scandinavian countries offer mail order
products which are prohibited or indexed in Germany (Jugendschutznet, 2003).
ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES
Islamist
Antisemitism
Most violent acts against Jewish persons (or
those considered to be Jewish) - as opposed to attacks on cemeteries and community property - in 2003 were perpetrated by radical Islamists in
the capital and its surroundings, a tendency that appears to be rising.
According to statistics of the Senatsschulverwaltung, the number of antisemitic
incidents perpetrated in the first quarter of 2004 equaled that for the entire 2003
school year.
Some 30,600 (2002: 30,950)
persons were linked to 24 Islamist organizations in Germany in 2003. In
Germany, where a majority of the Muslim population is of Turkish origin (1.9
out of a total of 3.2 million), the issue of Muslim and/or Islamist antisemitic
violence became a central topic in the media after the attacks on two
synagogues in Istanbul (see Arab Countries), and after the European
Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia commissioned a study on antisemitism
the results of which were leaked after they were withheld from publication (see General Analysis 03/4). A study
undertaken by the Zentrum Demokratische Kultur on Islamist influence in the
Berlin Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain region found that hate speeches against Jews
and insults such as “Jewish pig” were part of the norm among Arab youth (die
Zeit). Antisemitism is also on the rise in Berlin schools, where Muslim
pupils are incited in their homes by Arabic TV series with extreme antisemitic
content and by lectures at some Koran schools.
Thirty-eight acts of antisemitically
motivated violence were reported in 2003 compared to 22 in 2002. Most of the
attacks on Jewish persons occurred in Berlin and the perpetrators are suspected
of being almost exclusively of Islamist background. The following examples
illustrate this phenomenon:
- On 27 February 2003, two Muslim youths attacked a person leaving the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
At first they shouted “Jew, Jew” at him, and when he did not react they beat
him and broke his glasses; the man was not Jewish.
- On 23 March 2003, an ultra-Orthodox Jew was attacked on one of the main streets in Berlin.
The man, who was easily identified, was attacked by a group of Arabs and
suffered minor injuries to his face.
- On
11 May, a Jewish passenger alighted from a bus in the Kreuzberg area and
was followed by some youths, apparently Arabs, who shouted “Dirty Jew” and
kicked him in the face.
- On 12 May 2003 , a non-Jew wearing a Star of David on a bus, was assaulted by youths, allegedly
North Africans, who kicked and spat on him.
- On 27 June 2003, two young Jewish women were attacked by four or five young Muslim women on a
bus in central Berlin.
Cemetery
Desecration
Since desecration of Jewish cemeteries is often
a media item, it is regarded by extreme right-wingers as a means to create
publicity. Repeated desecration of Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials
was reported from all over Germany, with far right ideology, but also vandalism
for its own sake, being the main motivation. Jewish cemeteries and/or Holocaust
memorials were desecrated in 2003 in Lubeck, Dortmund, Gudensberg, Beeskow, Berlin,
Kassel, Bischofswerda, Sprockhovel, Achim, Dortmund, Langenstein-Zwieberge
and Neustadt, among others.
Holocaust
Denial
As denial of the Holocaust and of Nazi crimes
is illegal in Germany, the Internet has become the main means of conveying so-called
revisionist ideas. Holocaust denial websites of various currents of the extreme
right are hosted in countries where denial of the Holocaust is not liable to
prosecution. Easily accessible, quick to download and free of charge, they
glorify National Socialism and deny the mass murder of Jews, Sinti, Roma and
other groups.
Internet platforms and discussion forums targeting youngsters disseminate
statements that question the Holocaust. For example, on communication platforms
such as “uboot” Democracy Online Today (dol2day), discussions center
on questions such as, “How many Auschwitz victims really died. “
On 30 October 2003, Horst Mahler called on the Internet for the foundation of a ‘Verein zur
Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten’ (VRBHV), association
for the rehabilitation of those persecuted for denial of the Holocaust. The
organization was created on 9 November, the anniversary of the Reichsprogromnacht
(Reichs Crystal Night). Most known Holocaust deniers from Germany and
abroad, such as Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson, Jürgen Graf and Germar
Rudolf, are said to have joined the new organization. Swiss Holocaust denier
Bernhard Schaub is chairman and Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel is deputy chairman. The
latter cooperated closely with Mahler in 2003 at events such as a demonstration
in Wartburg/Thuringia on 30 July 2003 during which posters with the slogan: “Den
Holocaust gab es nicht” (There was no Holocaust), were displayed.
The Hohmann Affair
In a speech made to his constituency in
Neuhof on German Unity Day, 3 October 2003, MP Martin Hohmann (CDU), compared
the Jews to the Nazis, defended Henry Ford's antisemitic tract The
International Jew, and said Bolsheviks of Jewish descent had taken part in
mass executions during the 1917 Russian Revolution and later in the Cheka, deeds
which he likened to the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Paul Spiegel, head
of the Zentralrat, called his speech a political disgrace which had reached a
low in antisemitism. On 20 July 2004 Hohmann was finally expelled from the CDU.
General Reinhard Günzel,
commander of the KSK (Special Forces Command), wrote in a letter congratulating
Hohmann: “It was an excellent speech, of courage, truth and clarity that one
seldom hears or reads in our country.” Günzel was immediately fired by Defense
Minister Peter Struck (SPD). In 1997 his predecessor, Volker Rühe (CDU),
was also forced to transfer Günzel from his post after the unit he
commanded had produced neo-fascist videotapes. Helmuth Priess, spokesman for
the Working Group of Critical Soldiers, commented that “the portion of
Bundeswehr [Federal Army] personnel with latent ideological inclinations toward
right-wing radicalism is by no means insignificant… The higher ranks are no
exception” (14 Nov. 2003, World Socialist Web Site).
SURVEYS
According to a survey of the German Polis
Institute published in July 2004, 5 percent of youth admire Hitler; 15 percent think
Nazism was good in theory but bad in practice; and 14 percent believe
foreigners should leave Germany to the Germans.
On 11 December 2003, the University of Bielefeld released a study of rightist and antisemitic
attitudes in Germany. The results showed that rightist attitudes increased among
the population from 19.6 percent in 2002 to 25 percent in 2003. Right-motivated
crime increased correspondingly.
Following Hohmann’s antisemitic
speech, the weekly magazine Stern published a Forsa survey on
antisemitism in Germany, which revealed that 23 percent held antisemitic
opinions, an increase of 3 percent over 1998; 19 percent believed Jews were not
free of guilt for their fate, compared to 17 percent in 1998; 28 percent thought
Jews had undue influence, compared to 22 percent in 1998.
RESPONSES TO RACISM AND
ANTISEMITISM
Public/Official
Action
On 11 December 2003 the German Bundestag
unanimously approved a declaration against antisemitic tendencies, which, it
stated, were present not only among fringe groups but in the very mainstream of
society. The parliament acknowledged its responsibility for keeping alive the
memory of the Holocaust, as part of Germany’s national identity. President of
the Bundestag Woflgang Thiese (SPD) said that not only the lessons of the past
but also the threat of an alliance between extreme right-wing activists and
radical Muslims obliged German society to act against antisemitism. The reason
for this unusual step by the Federal German Parliament can be seen in the
growing acceptance of antisemitic trends, in the rising influence of extreme
right-wing parties and their dissemination of antisemitic ideology which has
begun to penetrate the mainstream (see Hohmann affair above), and in the rise
of violent manifestations against Jews.
Thousands of projects and
meetings, sponsored by anti-fascist organizations, churches, government, communes,
the media and concerned citizens have been initiated to fight right-wing
extremism in Germany (see ASW 2002/3). For example:
- On 26 June 2003, a symposium, “Against Antisemitism in the Media,” was held in the parliament
building, attended by journalists, public figures and members of the
federal parliament, who discussed reporting in the written and electronic
press on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. There was
general agreement that the coverage was one-sided. Sponsors of the
symposium were the Moses Mendelsohn Center for European Jewish Studies of
Potsdam University, the Social Democrat Studies Forum of Berlin,
Brandenburg and Mecklenburg, and the Social Democracy cultural forum,
“Honestly Concerned,” represented by Sacha Stawski, a media expert on
Israel.
- On 27 April 2003 Berlin Suburban Rail announced it would not provide NPD demonstrators with
special trains on 1 May, after the group Flag against the Right petitioned
the Federal Chancellery and the Berlin Senate to stop the service.
- At a
forum entitled “Stand Up against Right-Wing Violence,” held in April 2003 in
Berlin, Minister Renate Schmidt said that the federal government would allocate
45.5 million euro to the project Fight Right-Wing Extremism. Since 2001,
2,700 projects have been initiated against right-wing violence.
- The
action program Jugend für Toleranz und Demokratie - gegen
Rechtsextremismus, Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Antisemitismus (Youth for
Tolerance and Democracy – Against Right-Wing Extremism, Foreigner Hatred
and Antisemitism) was founded in 2001, and is made up of three parts: Entimon,
a federal initiative against violence and right-wing extremism throughout
Germany; Civitas, an initiative against right-wing extremism
in east Germany, and Xenos an initiative against racism and
discrimination in society, sponsored by the EU with 12.5 million euro
annually. The program Youth for Tolerance and Democracy alone has aided more
than 3,625 projects. By the year 2006 it will have received 182.4 million
euro.
Court
Cases/Bans
On 12 January 2003 the Islamic Hizb
ut-Tahrir, which was accused of promoting extremism and antisemitism at
universities and calling for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews, was
outlawed. Two other groups were declared illegal: the Bündnis
nationaler Sozialisten für Lübeck on 7 March 2003 and the Fränkische Aktionsfront, on 19 December 2003.
Among those charged in 2003
with antisemitic and xenophobic incitement were Horst Mahler, who repeatedly
denied the Holocaust, published the pamphlet “Call to Resistance by the
Decent,” and disseminated leaflets declaring hatred of Jews (antisemitism) to
be “perfectly normal and a sign of mental health”; an inspector in the Munich
police who referred to the Holocaust as “an invention of Jews to enable them to
get higher indemnity payments,” at a training class for police officers; neo-Nazi
lawyer Jürgen Rieger, who was fined 3,360 euro by a Hamburg court for
denying the existence of gas chambers during the Nazi period, when he defended
a neo-Nazi in a 1996 trial. In addition, extreme right-wing singer Frank
Rennicke was given a 17 month suspended sentence, while his wife received a 5
month suspended sentence. Since 1993, Rennicke, nicknamed the ‘Nazi Elvis’, has
released over 400 CDs and cassettes inciting against foreigners and denying the
Holocaust. On 22 December 2003, members of a neo-Nazi band, the Landser, were
charged with constituting a criminal organization; (see above).
