GERMANY 2004

 

The German authorities reported a rise in antisemitically motivated offenses from 1,199 in 2003 to 1,316 in 2004. Thirty-seven were violent acts. Right-wing extremists increased their vote in the 2004 European Parliament elections, the communal elections and the state elections. Far right ideologies have been gaining a foothold in schools, where an increase of 25 percent in antisemitic incidents was reported. The findings of various surveys conducted in Germany indicate that antisemitic attitudes are spreading from the fringes of society to the mainstream. The success of anti-fascist groups and concerned individuals in countering extreme right and neo-Nazi demonstrations illustrates the strong desire among large segments of the population to fight this phenomenon.

 

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 total 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 with communities, 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. The Jewish Museum in Berlin, opened in 2001, has become an important cultural center of the capital.

 

the extreme right

A study of the University of Leipzig conducted in 2004 by Prof. Elmar Brähler revealed that extreme right wing sentiments were still widespread in Germany despite a slight decrease since 2002. However, there was an increasing tendency for persons with a higher level of education to hold extreme right sympathies, and more west Germans were inclined toward antisemitic and extreme right views than their compatriots in the east. This does not contradict the fact that extreme right and antisemitic manifestations have been reported mainly in the former GDR. Most recruiting by neo-Nazis − principally through music and entertainment (see below) − is done in rural areas (coined ‘village fascism’ − Der Spiegel, 23 May 2005).

According to the Federal Office for the Defense of the Constitution (BFV), despite a drop in the number of right-wing extremists in Germany in 2004 to 40,700 (from 41,500 in 2003), the number of their groups rose from 69 to 76. Far right (politically motivated) crimes escalated by 11.7 percent to 12,051 in 2004, and the number of far right violent acts increased slightly (by 2.2 percent) from 759 in 2003 to 776. According to extreme right insiders, the real number of right extremists, including sympathizers, is close to 300,000 (Mathias Adrian, ex-NPD member in Donaupost, 8 Dec. 2005). Interior Minister Otto Schilly claimed, on 17 May 2005, that the number of neo-Nazis in Germany in 2004 rose by more than 25 percent, from 3,000 in 2003 to 3,800.

 

Elections

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. The total potential of extreme right parties in Germany is about 9 percent. 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. They were also successful 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 enjoy 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 were factors contributing to their gains.

In the September 2004 state elections the NPD (see below) obtained 9.2 percent of the vote in Saxony (where it will receive 120,000 euro monthly in tax money) and the DVU (see below) received 6.1 percent in Brandenburg after they had signed a no-competition agreement. Both parties are antisemitic and xenophobic. It should be noted that the extreme right faction Pro Koln gained 4 seats with 4.71 percent of the vote in the municipal elections. About 16,500 persons voted for Pro Koln.

 

Extreme Right Parties and Extra-parliamentary Groups

Membership of the main extreme right parties, National Democratic Party (NPD), German People’s Union (DVU) and the Republikaner (REPS), declined slightly to 23,800 from 24,500 in 2003. However, while the REPS and DVU continued to lose members, the NPD gained more than 300 (700, according to the NPD press release) new ones, thus increasing its ranks to over 5,000.

Of the 18 founders of the NPD in 1964, eight, including Adolf von Thadden, Friedrich Thielen and Waldemar Schütz, were former members of the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP), banned in 1952. Since Udo Voigt became chairman of the NPD in 1996, it has attracted increasingly younger skinheads and neo-Nazis. Moreover, since it began propagating the notion of a deutsche Volksfront (German popular front), it has opened its ranks to leading neo-Nazis. Shortly before the September state elections, neo-Nazis such as Thorsten Heise and Ralf Tegethoff appealed to their comrades to join them in the party in order to intensify the “struggle for the parliaments.” Michael Regener, former lead singer of the banned neo-Nazi Landser band, and Norman Brodin, leader of the Kameradschaft München, became members after the successful elections in Saxonia, where the NPD received 12 seats (9.2 percent). On 31 October 2004, Heise was elected to the federal executive of the NPD.

Unlike the DVU and the Republikaner (see below), the NPD promotes itself not only as a passionate defender of German national interests but also as the champion of a new social and economic order countering globalization and capitalism. After the party’s electoral success, Udo Voigt explained in an interview with the extreme right Junge Freiheit (Sept. 2004) that the aim of the NPD was to “to dismantle the Federal Republic of Germany the way the people (das Volk) dismantled the GDR 15 years ago… Only after both the vassal states have disappeared can the Germans create a state where they can live freely.” Voigt predicted a putsch by “revolutionary change.”

The monthly publication Deutsche Stimme, which is xenophobic and antisemitic, serves as the party organ, with ca. 21,000 copies. Both the publication and the party’s website incite against enlargement of the EU to the east to include ‘non-Christian nations’. Slogans on the homepage include: “Germans defend yourselves! No to admitting Turkey to the EU… 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.”

The party runs an influential youth organization Junge Nationaldemokraten (JN), with ca. 2000 members, led since 1999 by Sascha Rossmueller, as well as a student union Nationaldemokratischer Hochschulbund e.V. Active in the nationalistically inclined German Employees Union (according to Voigt, in an interview with the online nationalist fanzine Final Conflict), it also seeks to infiltrate civil groups and to mobilize the masses with the aim of creating an extra-parliamentary opposition which would mold public opinion and exert pressure on the ruling classes. Together the various branches of the party and its youth organization operate some 90 (2003: 80) web pages. Thus, official membership numbers − 5,300 in 2004 (2003:5,000) − are misleading in regard to its organizational potential.

Party activists work closely with neo-Nazis, violent skinheads and kameradschaften, registering their parades in the NPD name. Moreover, during the last decade it intensified links with right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis abroad. An unprecedented 7,000 young people met in Mücka, Saxonia, on 7 August 2004, at the invitation of Deutsche Stimme (2003: 2,000). The appearance of speakers such as Alexander Kamkin, of Russia’s National Patriotic Front, and the US skinhead band Youngland, which provided entertainment, underlined the international character of the event – which according to NPD sources included visitors from the US, Canada, Spain, Italy, the UK, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and France (see BfV report).

Youth is the declared target of NPD propaganda. In an attempt to increase their influence among pupils, the NPD, together with the JN, began in 2004 to disseminate a new school magazine, Der Rebell (The Rebel), on the Internet. The publication Nationalistisches Informationsblatt für Schülerinnen und Schüler (National Information for Pupils) appeals to its young readers to conform to the slogan “Steht auf und wehrt Euch!” (Get up and defend yourself!), reminiscent of the Nazi slogan “Deutsche wehrt Euch.”

The NPD blames foreigners for Germany’s socio-economic problems, believes Germans have been made to feel too much guilt regarding the Holocaust, and expresses vehement racist, antisemitic and anti-American views. Its strategy includes:

o        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, together with sympathizers from the neo-Nazi scene, the Kameradschaften and often with a guest from abroad (see below);

o        Kampf um die Parlamente (Struggle for the parliaments), which proved highly successful in the 2004 elections;

o        Kampf um die Köpfe (Struggle for minds), a tactic which many analysts fear has already led to, or might lead to, mainstream acceptance of extreme right ideologies;

o        Kampf um den organisierten Willen (Struggle for the organized will), added in 2004 by Voigt during the party convention. The attempt to achieve power through the unification of all nationalist groups.

The Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) (German People’s Union), founded by publisher Dr. Gerhard Frey as an informal association in 1971 and established as a party in 1987, is based in Munich. Financially, it is largely dependant on Frey who remains the party leader. The DVU is the largest extreme right political party in Germany, with about 11,000 members in 2004 (2003:11,500). Its chairman provides the funds required to organize expensive propaganda campaigns.

Despite its dramatic electoral gains when it ran alone in 1998 (see ASW 1998/9), the DVU entered a non-competition agreement with the NPD for the state November 2004 elections in Brandenburg and Saxony (see above).

The DVU weekly National-Zeitung/Deutsche Wochenzeitung has a circulation of 45,000. Xenophobia, antisemitism, anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism, as well as questioning the Holocaust and NS apologetics, are still major themes. However, the party effort during 2004 focused also on anti-Turkey issues as part of their xenophobic and anti-EU election campaign.

The Republikaner (REPS) have had no state parliamentary representation since 2001. Led since 1994 by Dr. Rolf Schlierer, its membership has decreased continuously over the past few years, from 14,000 in 1999 to 7,500 in 2004. The youth organization Republikanische Jugend (RJ), which operates under the motto “Deutsch ist Geil” (German is cool[to be German is cool]), appeals to nationalist conservative youth to distance themselves from neo-Nazis as well as from the DVU and the NPD: The slogan “DVU/NPD-Nein Danke [No, thank you]” appears on the site of the REP affiliated Union of Public Employees (Der republikanische Bund der öffentlich Bediensteten) The party attempts to dissociate itself from the NPD and DVU by assuming a ‘respectable’ image, under the slogan “Socialist – Patriotic – Ecologic.” Other party organizations include: Republikanischer Bund der Frauen (REPS Union of Women) and Republikanischer Hochschulverband (REPS High School Association).

The REPS use the Internet extensively, and their online quarterly Zeit für Protest reaches a large public. Der Republikaner (circulation, 10,000 copies) also appears online. Central themes include ‘the foreigner threat’ and the so-called Africanization and Islamization of German society. Despite the decline in membership due mainly to internecine disputes, the Republikaner have in fact been the most successful party electorally. In the European elections of 13 June 2004 their share of the vote rose from 1.7 percent in 1999 to 1.9 percent. In Saxony they received 3.4 percent, in Baden-Wuertemberg 2.8 percent and in Rhineland-Palatinat 2.7 percent.

The Nationale Bündnis Dresden (Dresden Right-Wing Union − NBD) of extreme right parties (NPD, DVU, Republikaner) was created for the local elections of 13 June 2004. Holger Apfel, a NPD leader and head of the union, received 4 percent of the Dresden votes. At least 6,800 people voted for the union.

 

Extra-parliamentary Groups

The 160 extra-parliamentary Kameradschaften continued to attract young members. Aktionsbüro Norddeutschland (Northern Germany Action Bureau), which is representative of these groups, is openly neo-Nazi. Its main activity is running its Internet website (http://www.widerstandnord.com/aktionsbuero/), which appeals to supporters to take part in neo-Nazi demonstrations and virtually organized campaigns, such as “Social Justice for all Germans (and for Germans only).”

Following a series of attacks on foreigners and asylum-seekers, 17 neo-Nazi organizations have been banned since the early 1990s and many neo-Nazi-related public events have been T forbidden. Thus, members of extra-parliamentary neo-Nazi groups have turned increasingly to the NPD in order to find a legal framework for their activities. This effort was reinforced in 2004 when the NPD opened its ranks to neo-Nazis and skinheads.

 

Music and Entertainment

In keeping with their political agenda and electoral aspirations, recruiting new members and sympathizers is the main activity of the extreme right, with the aim – particularly noticeable in the 2004 election year − of influencing youth to become their future voters. Accordingly, right-wing extremists distributed thousands of free CDs entitled, “Conforming is Cowardice, Songs from the Underground,” in schoolyards on 18 September when Germans voted in national elections. The Justice Ministry outlawed the CDs for disseminating hate messages and thousands were confiscated. However, the distribution and dissemination of hate music has continued despite the ban. As of November 2004, the Die Schulhof-CD (the schoolyard CD) was offered as a free download by the operators of the NPD home page. In response, the Brandenburg Anti-Rightist Association began producing a ‘music of tolerance’ CD.

According to figures released by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), most of the 137 (2003:119) live concerts in 2004 took place in the east German states of Saxony and Thuringia. Nazi culture has become almost omnipresent here, with some young people using Adolf Hitler’s voice as their cellphone ringtone and Nazi symbols as their screen savers. For some sociologists of youth culture, such as Wolfgang Bergman, Nazi glorification is not ideologically based but seems to be the ‘coolest’ and most effective way of shocking parents and teachers, and in part may be regarded as a revolt against western values.

Despite the success of right-wing rock, skinhead bands have begun adopting other music styles such as ballads, ‘gangsta’ rap and hip-hop, and are swapping the neo-Nazi outfit (boots, tight jeans and flying jackets) for sports shoes, oversized clothes and camouflage gear. The lyrics, however, have remained the same: extolling the Aryan race and the myth of the Nordic warriors, and inciting hatred of immigrants and Jews. Dissau Crime, a rap group from Dessau, for example, released a song called “Zyklon D” (Deutsche Welle, 24 Dec. 2005). In Lower Saxonia alone the number of skinhead bands doubled in 2004, from 6 to 12. Most of the hate music can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. Some bands sell their CDs for a symbolic price of 88 cents (the 8th letter of the alphabet, twice, representing HH for Heil Hitler). Extreme right political events “offer bands from the nationalist world the possibility of appearing before the public, thereby aiding the process of national integration” (NPD homepage).

In order to avoid legal investigations and charges, CDs with aggressive antisemitic texts are produced and distributed from abroad or from foreign Internet sites. This was the case with the CD Geheime Reichssache, of the skinhead band of ‘Kommando Freisler’ (president of the Nazi Volksgerichtshof − NS people’s court), who urges, in the song “Judenschwein”: “Jews are only for burning” and “Shoot them and hang them and then burn all of them / and not only here, in other countries, too. / And when the world has no more Jews, our Germany will finally be free again” (BfV).

About 900 websites with extreme right and neo-Nazi content were operating in 2004 in Germany. In order to circumvent the law prohibiting the dissemination of illegal material from German providers or to Germany, right-wing extremists exploit other options available on the Internet. For example, banned songs are spread via music-sharing services. Files are shared via free services such as KaZaA, eDonkey or eMule. On 24 March representatives of the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) searched the homes of 342 persons on 333 properties nationwide. The suspects, mostly youths, had offered ultra-right music containing illegal texts for downloading over the KaZaA file-sharing network (see also ASW 2002/3, 2003/4).

A variety of violent, hatemongering videogames are available free to children over the Internet. These include “The Jew-Rats,” “The Talmud: Jewish Teachings from the Synagogue of Satan,” and “KZ Manager.”

The efforts of neo-Nazis and extreme right-wingers to disseminate antisemitic hate messages among young people appear to have borne fruit. According to the Regionale Arbeitstelle für Ausländerfragen, Jugendarbeit und Schule (RAA) far right ideologies have been gaining a foothold in schools, where an increase of 25 percent in antisemitic incidents was reported in the 2003/4 school year (Jungle World, 18 Aug. 2004).

 

Demonstrations

Demonstrations and parades are used by extreme right-wingers and neo-Nazis in order to draw attention and to mingle among legal protestors. In 2004, a total of 87 (in 2003: 84) far right demonstrations were reported. The number of participants has been increasing steadily since 2001; about 20 percent of them come from abroad. The 2,000−3,800 (2003: 2,600) participants at the Hess memorial march in Wundsiedel, where Hess is buried, constituted the largest demonstration (see also below).

Extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi street agitation in 2004 focused on the ‘Hartz IV’ social reforms of the Federal Republic, (which took effect on 1 January 2005 and affect, inter alia, unemployment benefits). In the second half of 2004 alone, they held 12 officially approved demonstrations under the motto “Weg mit Hartz IV” (Away with Hartz 4).

 

Antisemitic activity

Official sources reported a rise in antisemitically motivated offenses from 1,199 in 2003 to 1,316 in 2004. Thirty-seven were physical attacks on individuals. Police announced in August that over 12 assaults had been made on Jewish tourists in Berlin alone since the beginning of the year. Albert Meyer, chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin, claimed that Muslim attacks by people of Arab origin on citizens wearing skullcaps added a new dimension to antisemitism (Berliner Morgenpost, 31 Aug. 2004).

On 13 March, a skullcapped Jew was hospitalized after being attacked by a ‘Palestinian’ (according to the perpetrator’s self-definition). On 22 July 2004 three men were arrested after shouting antisemitic abuse at Jews outside a synagogue in Hagen and waving a knife at them. On 25 August 2004 a Lithuanian Jewish tourist visiting Berlin from Vilnius was seriously hurt in Kreuzberg by a young Arab, who shouted “Jews must be killed.” On 31 August 2004 an Orthodox Jew was knocked down and insulted in Frankfurt. In a village near Wismar, a 51 year old (non-Jewish) man was seriously beaten up and called a “Judensau.”

Skinheads and neo-Nazis were responsible for most of the attacks on Jewish sites in Germany. In 2004, 100 incidents of vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and memorials were reported, compared to 113 in 2003.

Desecration of Jewish cemeteries (overturning headstones, smearing Nazi/antisemitic slogans) continued to be the most common manifestation of antisemitic violence, with several incidents per week being reported mostly in the region of the former GDR. The frequent smearing of Nazi slogans on graves indicated that many of the perpetrators were neo-Nazis. Jewish cemeteries in Düsseldorf, Walldorf/Meiningen, Nickenich, Gotha, Grabow, Walldorf, Bausendorf, Alsbach-Hähnlein, Schwarza, Bochum, Neunkirchen, Perleberg, Werl, Wickede, Jülich, Bocholt and Berlin were all desecrated. Memorials to Jewish victims of the Holocaust and synagogues were also vandalized in Berlin-Schonberg, Spandau, Berlin-Steglitz, Kaltenkirchen, Neuruppin, Berlin-Mitte Kaltenkirchen, Berlin-Schöneberg, Pinnow, Halle, Berlin-Spandau, Wildeshausen (Niedersachsen), Nordhausen, Dachau and Berlin-Tiergarten.

Antisemitic graffiti including swastikas continued to appear at playgrounds, and schools, and on walls and street signs. The wording was usually similar: “Juden Raus” (Jews out!), “Die Juden sind unser Unglück” (The Jews are our misfortune), and “Tötet die Juden” (Kill the Jews). For example, on 23 June slogans such as “Jews out” and “Sharon to the concentration camp” appeared in Schwerin. “Juden raus!” and other such expressions were painted on the bus station in Winterberg, on May 2. The State Attorney’s office was investigating many of the incidents.

Swastikas appeared on many walls throughout Germany, and have become almost part of the landscape in many schoolyards and youth and sport clubs. On 13 October 2004 a large swastika was carved on the lawn of the Gundersheim sports club.

 

 

OPINION POLLS

In response to the unprecedented rise in antisemitism in Europe in recent years, international and national surveys have been conducted to try and evaluate the extent of this phenomenon, as well as pinpoint the perpetrators and their motives. In Germany, data provided by various surveys indicates that antisemitic attitudes are spreading from the fringes of society to the mainstream. Although antisemitism is far from being openly propagated, it is in fact tolerated, according to the CIVIS Media Foundation Report published in 2005.

The many surveys and polls published in Germany in 2004 on antisemitic or anti-Israel tendencies among various sectors of the German population demonstrate the need to understand and fight this trend. Most of the polls clearly indicate that antisemitism is finding its way into bourgeois values, but due to the Hemmschwelle (inhibition level) on openly admitting antisemitic feelings in Germany, mainstream Germans with anti-Jewish tendencies replace the terms ‘Jews’ and ‘world domination’ with legally acceptable codes such as ‘Israel’, ‘the ‘Palestinian problem’ or ‘the settlement question’ (see Hemmungen, 12 Dec. 03). Rather than being stuck with the stigma of Jew-baiting, this kind of argumentation conveys a sort of moral superiority toward those who are considered the perpetrators par excellence, the US and Israel. (see Andrei S. Markovits, “Twin Brothers”: European Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2006). According to Susanne Urban (Being Leftist and Antisemitic in Germany, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2005), one aspect of the ‘new antisemitism’ in Germany is related to changes of attitudes that occurred toward World War II and remembrance of the Shoah: Laying the blame for ‘immoral’ conduct on Israel, and therefore on ‘the Jews’ (secondary antisemitism), shows that ‘they’ have not learned the lessons of the Shoah whereas Germans see themselves as having learned them. Right-wing extremists subscribe to ‘secondary antisemitism’, which accuses Jews of exploiting Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust in order to blackmail Germans into accepting their financial and political demands. The results of a study by Zick and Küpper show unmistakably that in most cases criticism of Israel goes hand-in-hand with clear antisemitic attitudes (A. Zick and B. Küpper, “Transformed Antisemitism: A Report on Antisemitism in Germany,” Journal für Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung/Journal of Conflict and Violence Research 7 (2005), pp. 50−92).

In February 2004 the Information and Document Center for Antisemitism in Dusseldorf released a report on opinions held by youth on antisemitism. Replies spanned from “not interested,” to “it’s important to deal with it.” Antisemitic potential can be politically mobilized by more than 20 percent of Germany's population, according to the study “Democracy and the Image of the Jew.” published in 2004 by Berlin political scientist Lars Rensmann.

Prof. Wolfgang Frindte of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena presented a report in March 2004 at the University in Haifa about the expansion of antisemitic sentiments from the extreme right fringe to the German anti-Israel left and center. According to his findings, some 20 percent of those polled had manifest antisemitic sentiments while slightly more had latent antisemitic views. Sixty-four percent were found to be antisemitic, according to Frindte’s criteria, after they agreed that, inter alia, “It would be best if the Jews were to leave the Middle East” (38 percent) and “The Israelis treat the Palestinians the way the Nazis treated the Jews” (57 percent). Some 46 percent of respondents rejected responsibility toward the Jews for the Holocaust while among right-wing voters this figure reached 84 percent.

An ADL (Anti-Defamation League) survey published in May 2005 showed that 50 percent of Germans thought it probably true that Jews were more loyal to Israel than to Germany and 24 percent considered that Jews had too much power in international markets (the average in Europe was 32 percent). Thirty one percent said their views on the Jews were influenced by actions taken by the State of Israel and consequently 50 percent of this segment had a poor opinion of the Jews.

In July 2004, the findings of the German Polis Institute showed that 5 percent of German youth admired Hitler, 15 percent of respondents regarded Nazism as good in theory but bad in practice, and 14 percent were convinced that foreigners should leave Germany to the Germans.

Prof. Wilhelm Heitmeyer of the Institut für interdisziplinäre Konflikt-und Gewaltforschung in Bielefeld, who conducted a survey (Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Hg.), “Deutsche Zustände,” Folge 3, Frankfurt/M. 2004) on antisemitic attitudes in 2004, and another by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) produced similar results. According to the former, 57.3 percent respondents compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to that of the Nazis, 20 percent agreed that Jews had too much influence, 65 percent considered the Jews exploited the Holocaust for their own profit, and 52 percent were sure that Jews felt closer to Israel than to Germany. The AJC poll also found that only 22 percent of Germans evinced sympathy for Jews (only Austrians had less sympathy − 18 percent) while the figures for the US, the UK and France lay between 45 and 55 percent. According to the AJC study, 36 percent believed Jews had too much influence.

The results of a survey on antisemitism among youngsters in Berlin districts of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (where most of the population comprises immigrants, including Jews from the CIS states) conducted by students at the Alice Salomon College of Social Work in the fall semester of 2004, revealed that the majority of those polled, 100 Turkish and Arab youth, expressed hatred of Jews, believed they were conspiring to rule the world and considered the word ‘Jew’ an insult.

A DGB (German Trade Union) study revealed that one-fifth of the seven million members of the union had extreme right tendencies. Among east German members the figure rose to 27 percent. The survey also found that right-wing extremism was as strong among unionists (19 percent) as among non-unionists (20 percent) (Welt, 27 June 2005).

 

Responses to Holocaust denial and antisemitism

In October 2004 the Central Committee of Jews in Germany awarded the Leo Baeck prize (given annually since 1956 for contribution to the Jewish people) to Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer for his attempts to solve the Middle East conflict and fight antisemitism. During the international Berlin Conference on antisemitism held in May 2004, Fischer had warned of the danger antisemitism posed to the democratic community. “Every physical attack on a Jewish citizen,” he said, “every desecration of a Jewish cemetery and every antisemitic comment not only threatens Jewish people and Jewish communities in Germany and elsewhere, but also our open and democratic societies in their entirety.”

Hundreds of governmental as well as non-governmental groups and organizations including tens of thousands of activists from all democratic ideological backgrounds are involved in the fight against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism throughout Germany. Holocaust education is mandatory in German schools.

 

Legal Activity

The German Penal Code is one of the most advanced and effective in combating Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Public dissemination of Holocaust denial, labeled ‘the Auschwitz Lie’ (Auschwitzlüge), is a punishable offense under the German Penal Code (Strafgesetzbuch). Denial of the Holocaust is considered an “insult to the survivors of the Holocaust,” and punishable under paragraphs 130, 185 and 186 of the Criminal Code. According to paragraph 194, “the Auschwitz Lie” can be prosecuted by the authorities, ex officio (that is, without charges being filed), when disseminated openly in print, at public gatherings or via the electronic media. On 1 December 1994, a Crime Bill was enacted, stipulating a five-year prison term for denying the Holocaust. The statute also extends the existing ban on the use of symbols and signs reminiscent of the Nazi era. (See ASW 2001/2.)

After an inspector in the Munich police referred to the Holocaust as “an invention of Jews to enable them to get higher indemnity payments” at a class for training police officers in May 2003, a court in April 2004 fined him 6,000 euro and suspended him from the force. On 12 October 2004 Rudolf Groskopf, assistant of German Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf (who lives abroad), was released from prison on 300,000 euro bail after having served one month. Groskopf had managed the finances used to distribute Rudolf’s denial pamphlets in Germany. On 18 June 2004 Holocaust deniers Ursula Haverbeck Wetzel, chairperson of the Collegium Humanum, and Ernst-Otto Cohrs, editor of The Voice of Conscience, were fined in the district court of Bad Oeynhausen. Holocaust denial defense lawyer Horst Mahler was present at the trial to show his support for the accused. On 1 December 2004, a Turkish-language newspaper published in German was declared illegal after it published an article by Hasan Karakaya denying the Holocaust: “The truth is that there was no Holocaust, that the gas chambers are a lie.”

Protests by the Central Council of Jews in Germany (CCJG) and others against mounting the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) exhibition “Holocaust on your Plate,” equating animal protection/the slaughter of animals for meat with the atrocities committed against Jews during World War II, which was to open in Germany on 18 March 2004, resulted in its cancellation. Several other animal protection societies also considered the exhibition insensitive to Holocaust survivors.

On 22 January, Bavarian Minister of the Interior Gunther Beckstein outlawed the anti-democratic extreme right Frankische Aktionsfront (FAF) group. The 40-member group had contacts with the Kameradschaft Sud-Aktionsburo Suddeutschland, which had been planning to vandalize the construction site of the Jewish Culture Center in Munich.

On 13 September Federal Interior Minister J. Schoenbohm announced that 9 CDs glorifying violence had been banned. The CDs featured the groups Strength through Blood, Razor’s Edge, Hate Society, The Game that Never Ends and Jonny Rebel. Sixty CDs and 2 DVDs were banned and one thousand confiscated between November 2003 and December 2004. Police raided many homes and investigated hundreds of suspects as part of the effort to fight the illegal distribution of hate material. On 24 March 2004, for example, the BKA searched 300 homes throughout Germany. Federal police in Wiesbaden investigated 342 persons suspected of spreading hate music through the Internet. On 6 August illegal Nazi CDs for distribution in schools were found during a house search in the Stendal community conducted on the orders of the Halle state attorney’s office. A police raid on 26 August 2004 uncovered Nazi propaganda at the house and farm of NPD member Bertram Kohler in Kirtorf. Antisemitic songs by the skinhead band Garde 18, with phrases such as “slip knives into Jews” were sung at his parties. In a September 2004 raid on an NPD publishing house of the Deutsche Stimme in Riesa, police confiscated 800 CDs, including Nazi songs for distribution in schools.

Early in September 2004 a district court fined a football fan from Lower Saxony 600 euros for shouting “Sieg Heil” as he went from the Ruhr stadium (Duesseldorf) to the railway station.

 

Responses to Demonstrations

The success of antifascist groups and concerned individuals in countering extreme right and neo-Nazi street parades demonstrates a strong desire among large segments of the population to fight this phenomenon. On 26 June 2004, for example, 200 NPD members who held a demonstration authorized by the court in Bochum against the building of a synagogue were met by 300 counter demonstrators. On 17 August 2004 hundreds of Wundsiedel citizens, including the mayor, legislators and churchmen, tried to stop the demonstration of neo-Nazis who had come to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess (see above). On 4 September 2004, 100 NPD supporters in Jena were met by about 400 counter demonstrators.