Right-Wing Extremism in Contemporary Germany PDF
Preview Right-Wing Extremism in Contemporary Germany
NewPerspectivesinGermanPoliticalStudies General Editors: William Paterson OBE is Honorary Professor in German and European Politics at the University of Aston and Chairman of the German British Forum. CharlieJefferyisProfessorofPoliticsattheUniversityofEdinburgh. Germany remains a pivotal country in Europe. It is Europe’s biggest economy, continuestoplayacentralroleintheEuropeanUnion,andhasagrowingsignificance ininternationalsecuritypoliticsbasedonitsstrategiclocationatthecentreofEurope anditsevolvingroleasaproviderofsecurityinEuropeandbeyond.Allthisisnuanced by the legacies of a turbulent recent history: the two World Wars, the Holocaust, Germany’sdivisionafterWorldWarTwoanditsunificationin1990. New Perspectives in German Political Studies has been designed as a platform for debateandscholarshiponcontemporaryGermany. Itwelcomescontributionsfrom politicalscience,internationalrelations,politicaleconomyandcontemporaryhistory. It follows on from the success of the earlier series on New Perspectives in German Studies,co-editedbyWilliamPatersonandthelateProfessorMichaelButler. Titlesinclude: WilhelmHennis POLITICSASAPRACTICALSCIENCE AlisterMiskimmon,WilliamE.PatersonandJamesSloam(editors) GERMANY’SGATHERINGCRISIS The2005FederalElectionandtheGrandCoalition Y.MichalBodemann(editor) THENEWGERMANJEWRYANDTHEEUROPEANCONTEXT TheReturnoftheEuropeanJewishDiaspora AnneFuchs PHANTOMSOFWARINCONTEMPORARYGERMANLITERATURE, FILMSANDDISCOURSE ThePoliticsofMemory CarolinePearce CONTEMPORARYGERMANYANDTHENAZILEGACY Remembrance,PoliticsandtheDialecticofNormality AxelGoodbody NATURE,TECHNOLOGYANDCULTURALCHANGEINTWENTIETH-CENTURY GERMANLITERATURE TheChallengeofEcocriticism BeverlyCrawford POWERANDGERMANFOREIGNPOLICY EmbeddedHegemonyinEurope DanHough,MichaelKoßandJonathanOlsen THELEFTPARTYINCONTEMPORARYGERMANPOLITICS RogerWoods GERMANY’SNEWRIGHTASCULTUREANDPOLITICS ChristianSchweiger BRITAIN,GERMANYANDTHEFUTUREOFTHEEUROPEANUNION KarlChristianFührerandCoreyRoss(editors) MASSMEDIA,CULTUREANDSOCIETYINTWENTIETH-CENTURYGERMANY MatthewM.C.Allen THEVARIETIESOFCAPITALISMPARADIGM ExplainingGermany’sComparativeAdvantage? GuntherHellmann(editor) GERMANY’SEUPOLICYINASYLUMANDDEFENCE De-EuropeanizationbyDefault? CharlesLees PARTYPOLITICSINGERMANY AComparativePoliticsApproach RonaldSpeirsandJohnBreuilly(editors) GERMANY’STWOUNIFICATIONS Anticipations,Experiences,Responses JamesSloam THEEUROPEANPOLICYOFTHEGERMANSOCIALDEMOCRATS InterpretingaChangingWorld MargareteKohlenbach WALTERBENJAMIN Self-ReferenceandReligiosity HenningTewes GERMANY,CIVILIANPOWERANDTHENEWEUROPE EnlargingNATOandtheEuropeanUnion Wolf-DieterEberweinandKarlKaiser(editors) GERMANY’SNEWFOREIGNPOLICY Decision-MakinginanInterdependentWorld GerardBraunthal RIGHT-WINGEXTREMISMINCONTEMPORARYGERMANY NewPerspectivesinGermanPoliticalStudies SeriesStandingOrderISBN978–0–333–92430–3 hardcover SeriesStandingOrderISBN978–0–333–92434–1 paperback (outsideNorthAmericaonly) Youcanreceivefuturetitlesinthisseriesastheyarepublishedbyplacingastanding order.Pleasecontactyourbookselleror,incaseofdifficulty,writetousattheaddress belowwithyournameandaddress,thetitleoftheseriesandoneoftheISBNsquoted above. CustomerServicesDepartment,MacmillanDistributionLtd,Houndmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS,England Right-Wing Extremism in Contemporary Germany Gerard Braunthal ProfessorEmeritusofPoliticalScience UniversityofMassachusettsAmherst,USA ©GerardBraunthal2009 Foreword©PeterH.Merkl2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-23639-4 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedhisrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthiswork inaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2009by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, Hampshire RG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-31446-1 ISBN 978-0-230-25116-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230251168 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgements xi ListofAcronyms xii Introduction 1 1 TheSetting 4 Scholarlyanalyses 5 Furtherscholarlyanalyses 6 Racismandnationalism 8 Xenophobia 9 Anti-Semitism 13 Genderissues 14 Publicsupportforright-wingextremism 16 2 TheGermanRight-ExtremistScene,1945–1990 19 TheFederalRepublic 21 TheGermanDemocraticRepublic 34 Conclusion 41 3 Right-ExtremistParties 43 TheRepublikaner 43 GermanPeople’sUnion 51 NationalDemocraticPartyofGermany 57 Conclusion 75 4 Neo-NaziGroups,Skinheads,andViolence 77 Asplinteredmovement 77 FreeComradeshipGroups 86 Nationalliberatedzones 89 Skinheads 91 EasternGermany:preludetoviolence 96 ViolenceinwesternGermany 103 Anti-Semiticacts 110 Governmentactions 114 Conclusion 114 5 ToolsofPropagandaandRecruitment 117 Newspapers 117 Journals 118 v vi Contents Publishinghouses 119 Culturalorganizations 121 Thevisualmedia 122 Theelectronicnetwork 124 Electronicgames 128 Musicasapropagandatool 130 Fanzinesandyouth 135 Conclusion 136 6 TheNewRight 137 Birthofamovement 138 Ideologicalcomponents 139 Aplethoraofauthorsandjournals 142 TheHeidelbergManifestoandtheThuleSeminar 149 Historians’dispute 151 FrankfurterAllgemeineZeitung advertisements 152 NewRightlinkstoultra-conservatives 153 Comingtotermswiththepast 159 TheMartinWalsercontroversy 160 NationalprideandLeitkultur 163 Anappraisal 167 7 Responses:PublicandPrivate 169 Thelawandthecourts 169 Thepolice 173 Thefederal,Länder,andlocalgovernments 178 Grassrootsactions 185 Anarrayoflocalandregionalprojects 187 Schoolsandstudents 190 Youthandsocialworkers 194 Theexitstrategy 196 Summation 199 Conclusion 201 Right-wingextremism 201 Achallengetodemocracy 203 Immigration:sourceforcontroversy 205 WeimarandtheBerlinRepubliccompared 206 Linksabroad 209 Thepresentandfuture 211 Notes 214 Bibliography 239 Index 252 Foreword Thisbookpresentsawell-balancedanalysisofthepast, present, andfuture of the German radical right by one of the foremost scholars on the history of contemporary Germany. Gerard Braunthal’s reputation rests particularly on his investigations of post-World War Two German Social Democracy (SPD) and civil rights in the Bonn and Berlin republics. His present work focuses directly and implicitly on the contrast between the contemporary Germanradicalrightanditspredecessorundertheill-fatedWeimarRepublic (1918–1933), which gave birth to the Third Reich and the atrocities and power politics associated with it. The comparison takes into account the internationalenvironmentandthedomesticshapeoftheGermanextreme right. TheriseofGermanNationalSocialismandofkindredmovementsafterthe Great War took place under the shadow of the catastrophic German defeat bytheWesternAllies,ofthepainfullossesofGermanterritoryandcolonies, andofthetraumaticcollapseoftwomightyempiresandimperialdynasties, Hohenzollern and Hapsburg. Many German patriots felt humiliated by the TreatyofVersailles,whichrequiredtheadmissionofGermanresponsibility forthewarandthesurrenderoftheGermanemperorfortrial(thiswasnever carriedout),oftheimperialnavyandairforce,andtheimpositionofsizelim- itsonthearmedforces.Manywerehauntedbyparanoidfantasiesofhaving been“stabbedintheback”bytheirownsuccessorgovernment–especially thecentristandleft-wingpoliticiansinit–whosignedtheVersaillesTreaty ofPeace.Theythoughtofrevenge,againstboththeWesternvictorsandtheir allegeddomesticcollaboratorssomeofwhomwereassassinatedbymilitary conspirators. Therewereunsuccessfulright-wingcoupattemptsagainstthe national government and against at least one state government – Bavaria – where a Workers and Soldiers Council had seized power in imitation of BolsheviktakeoversinSt.Petersburg,Budapest,andVienna.Therewasalso anundergroundborderwaralongsomeofthenewfrontiers,forexamplewith Polandand,aftertheFranco-Belgianinvasionof1923,withtheoccupation oftheRuhrarea.Wemustacknowledgeallthesefactorsinthemindsofthe rising Nazis in the midst of many extreme right-wing organizations at that time; however, nothing similar was in the minds of the defeated Germans after World War Two. The defeat of 1945 was actually far more devastat- ingand,thistime,theGermansreallyadmittedtotaldefeat.TheAllieshad insisted on “unconditional surrender” and imposed years of military occu- pation,denazification,anddemocraticreeducationontheGermans,which alsoinvolvedthesuppressionofanyNazirevivals. vii viii Foreword AnotherimportantaspectoftheWeimarsituationthatenabledAdolfHitler andhismovementtorisetopowerin1933wasthatGermanyinmanyways hadnotmaturedenoughtosupportathrivingdemocracy.Twotellingimages cometomymind,whichshowtheparticularweaknessesofGermany’sfirst attempt at democracy: one is of a session of the Reichstag (Parliament) in 1932, which features a large section of its membership in Nazi storm- trooper uniforms. It was a sign of the Nazis’ contempt for parliamentary democracyandheraldedthecomingofdictatorshipwiththehelpofacom- bined popular majority of Nazis and communists in imminent elections as well as the battles of the militant armies of both in the streets. The second imageemergesfromaninterviewwithFritzSchäffer,theconservative(CSU) financeministerwhohadbeeninthethickofWeimarpolitickingwiththe equally conservative Bavarian People’s Party (BVP). Mr. Schäffer described to me the incredibly hectic and violent election campaigns at all levels, as he raced from one rally to the next, constantly threatened by extremist street violence from the right and the left. There was simply no room for a moderate politics of democratic discussion. At the same time, so many basic structures of German society were coming undone, as the German historianKarlD.Bracherandothershaveexplained:relationsbetweencap- ital and labor, farming, capitalism, civil-military relations, the civil service, the greatly reduced army amidst militant veterans’organizations, the fed- eralsystem;everythingwasintenuoustransitionoroutrightcrisis.Eventhe prewarpoliticalpartiesweresplittingup,particularlyonthemoderateright and left where new radical mass movements such as the communists and Nazisexperiencedexplosivegrowthandthreatenedtotakeovertheunloved republic. The democratic post-World War Two fathers (and mothers) of the West German Federal Republic were determined to base their democratic pol- iticsonstrong, resilientinstitutionsandaconstitution, theBasicLaw, that themajorpartiesvowedtodefend“militantly”againstallextremistsofthe right and left (streitbare Demokratie), unlike their Weimar predecessors who had never defended Weimar’s constitutional democracy. Never again, they resolved, should German democracy be left to the tender mercies of the swornenemiesofdemocracy. Amongothersteps, suchastheelectoralbar- rierstosplinterpartiesdescribedinthisbookandthespecialanti-extremist powers of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Bonn government created a Verfassungsschutzdienst (constitutional protection service) which played an important role investigating subversion and, in the 1970s, the terrorist conspiracies of the Red Army Faction (RAF). It publishes annual surveys of political extremism, including the radical right The surveillance and intru- sionofthissecretserviceintoGermancivilliberties,forexamplebytapping telephones,hasalsoattractedmuchcriticismfromGermancivillibertarians andrepresentativesofthepoliticalleft,asBraunthalhasdescribedinhisbook onthesubject. Foreword ix AmajorchallengetoWestGermanstabilitybefore1990wasposedbythe East German Stasi, the communist secret service of the self-styled German DemocraticRepublic(GDR)which,amongotherthings,sentoutandembed- dedspiesinthehighestWestGermanoffices, suchasintheForeignOffice andinChancellorWillyBrandt’sstaff. TheStasialsocompiledvoluminous secret files on many prominent West Germans for potential blackmail pur- poses,andtoembarrassthembeforetheWesternpublicandabroad.German unification in 1990 posed new major challenges including that of integrat- ingthepublicservicesofthecommunisteastintothedemocraticstateand society, especially the schools and universities. This process of systematic cleansingwasnotalwaysfairandeven-handed,andwasoftenaccompanied by dire warnings that the elimination of communist rule would inevitably leadtoarevivalofNazism. TheoldstateCommunistParty, theSED,trans- formed itself into a strong extreme left successor, the PDS (now part of the LeftParty),evenasitsremnantsinthepublicservicesoftheeastwerespotted andremoved.TheStasiarchiveswerenowfirmlyinWesternhands. Because the rehabilitation and development of the formerly communist economyoftheGDRbyWestGermanleadersfellfarshortofthe“blossom- ing” promised by the unification chancellor, Helmut Kohl, the unification leftbehindalegacyoffailuresandresentmentswhichhavebeenreflectedin EastGermanvoting:afterinitiallyfollowingWestGermanpoliticalpatterns, East Germans soon began to distinguish themselves not only by voting for alargesuccessorpartytothecommunistSED(nowPDS),butinrecentelec- tionsalsoingreatnumbersfortheneo-NaziNPDandDVU;however,inall theseelectionsnoextremerightpartyhasbeenable–exceptforafewstealth candidatesinthe1950s–toelectaneo-NazitotheBundestag.EastGermany remainsamajortroublespotinthecontroloftheextremerightintheBerlin Republic. IntheearlydecadesoftheBonnRepublic,perhapsaslateas1970,public opinionpollsclearlyrevealedthespellofNaziopinionsoverthepublic,for exampleonsuchnationalisticissuesasacceptanceoftheOder–Neisselineas theGerman–PolishborderorGermanresponsibilityforWorldWarTwo, as theworkofAnnaandRichardMerritt, amongothers, hasshown. Afterthe endofAlliedoccupation,successivewavesofneo-Nazipartiesundernames liketheSocialistReichParty(SRP)ortheNationalDemocrats(NPD)scored minorregionalvictoriesinspiteofthehostilityofdemocraticgovernments. TheiractivistsandvotersweremostlydiminishingnumbersofoldNazisand theirfamiliesandoffspring.Aslongasthesepartiesweresmallandcouldbe keptundercontrolbylocalandstate-levelmeasuresofharassment,thefirst WestGermanchancellors,andespeciallyAdenauer,avoideddirectconfronta- tion–forexamplebyattemptstooutlaworsuppressthem.Thedemocratic leaderswereprobablyafraidtoprovoketheseelementsintoformingaFronde, a“nationalopposition”thatwouldhaveobstructeddemocratizationashad happenedintheWeimarRepublic.Orperhapstheytoostillheldsomepartial
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