BERLIN — Three-quarters of Germans want the neo-Nazi NPD party banned, a poll showed on Friday, after the discovery of an extreme far-right cell believed to have murdered 10 people, mainly Turkish shopkeepers.
The survey, by polling agency Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, revealed that 77 percent of Germans want the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) outlawed, with 19 percent saying it should remain legal.
Four percent said they did not know.
Germany has been stunned by the discovery of a small neo-Nazi group believed to be responsible for the unsolved murders of eight men of Turkish origin and a Greek between 2000 and 2006 as well as a policewoman in 2007.
The case has sparked allegations that the country may have turned a blind eye to the threat posed by right-wing extremism, despite Germany’s deep-seated shame over its Nazi past.
Meanwhile in Russia:
The Russian Duma has drafted legislation that would outlaw Nazi imagery, including symbols and gestures, in the country.
The bill defines “what Nazism, Nazi rehabilitation and criminals are,” RT reported on November 15. “It will also clarify what symbols and gestures are considered Nazi “or similar” and, therefore, cannot be used within the country.”
Scientific literature and fiction will not be part of the ban, legislators have said.
[…]
The legislation was drafted in response to November 4 Unity Day rally that was taken over by neo-nazis, who openly waved swastika banners and gave the Roman salute to police.
Because the issue of Nazism has not been addressed in Russia for the last 20 years, Russian patriotism and neo-nazism have become mixed, said one of the authors of the legislation, Konstantin Dobrynin.
Russian ultra-nationalists, fascists and neo-nazis have been holding parades on November 4 every year.
According to Wikipedia
Many Russian neo-Nazis openly admire Adolf Hitler and use the German Nazi swastika as their symbol. Russian neo-Nazis are characterized by racism, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and extreme xenophobia towards people from Asia. Their ideology centers on defending Russian national identity against what they perceive as a takeover by minority groups such as Jews, Caucasians, homosexuals, Central Asians, Roma people and Muslims.
In addition to the groups noted here, many Russian far right propagandists also see the US, Western Europe and East Asia as enemies, frequently depicting Russia as being attacked from all sides by the European Union, Israel/Jews, Muslims, China, Japan and the US. Wikipedia continues:
Russian neo-Nazis have made it an explicit goal to take over the country by force, and have put serious effort into preparing for this. Paramilitary organizations operating under the guise of sports clubs have trained their members in squad tactics, hand to hand combat and weapons handling. They have stockpiled and used weapons, often illegally.
Observers have noted the irony of Russians embracing neo-Nazism, because one of Hitler’s ambitions at the start of World War II was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all Slavs from central and eastern Europe (i.e., Russians, Ukrainians, Poles etc.). At the end of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, over 25 million Soviet citizens died. In a 2007 news story, ABC News reported, “In a country that lost more people defeating the Nazis than any other country, there are now an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 neo-Nazis, half of the world’s total.”
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused great economic and social problems, including widespread unemployment and poverty. Several far right paramilitary organizations were able to tap into popular discontent, particularly among marginalized, lesser educated and unemployed youths. Of the three major age groups — youths, adults, and the elderly — youths may have been hit the hardest. The elderly suffered due to inadequate (or unpaid) pensions, but they found effective political representation in the Communist Party, and generally had their concerns addressed through better budget allocations. Adults, although often suffering financially and psychologically due to job losses, were generally able to find new sources of income.
Russian National Unity (RNE), founded in 1990 and led by Alexander Barkashov, has claimed to have members in 250 cities. RNE adopted the swastika as its symbol, and sees itself as the avant-garde of a coming national revolution. It is critical of other major far right organizations, such as the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). Historian Walter Laqueur calls RNE far closer to the Nazi model than the LDPR. RNE publishes several news sheets; one of them, Russky poryadok, claims to have a circulation of 150,000. Full members of RNE are called Soratnik (comrades in arms), receive combat training at locations near Moscow, and many of them work as security officers or armed guards. The National-Social Union, led by Viktor Yakushev, wants to establish a national state and an economy emphasizing Aryan values, and aims to stop Zionists from establishing global hegemony.
On August 15, 2007, Russian authorities arrested a student for allegedly posting a video on the Internet which appears to show two Muslim migrant workers being beheaded in front of a red and black swastika flag. Alexander Verkhovsky, the head of a Moscow-based center that monitors hate crime in Russia, said, “It looks like this is the real thing. The killing is genuine … There are similar videos from the Chechen war. But this is the first time the killing appears to have been done intentionally.” A Russian neo-Nazi group called the Russian National Socialist Party claimed responsibility for the murders.
Another wikipedia article states
Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by Russians towards people who are not considered ethnically Russian. Traditionally, this included antisemitism, as well as hostility towards various ethnicities of Caucasus and Central Asia. The director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Alexander Brod, stated that surveys show xenophobia and other racist expressions are prevalent in 50 percent of Russians. In 2006, Amnesty International reported that racism in Russia was “out of control” and estimated the number of Russian neo-Nazis at around 85,000 in 2008.
That article goes on to say
On 15 December 2008, Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky were sentenced to penal labour for 10 years each for the murder of 19 foreigners. They were placed on the list of people banned from entering the United Kingdom, remaining the only Russians on the list. The reason given is that they are “Leaders of a violent gang that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the internet. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts.” A judge, who conducted the trial, Eduard Chuvashov, has been gunned down on 12 April 2010, four days after he added two years to the 20-year prison sentence of a member of their gang.
On 20 April 2011, Konstantin Poltoranin, spokesman for Federal Migratory Service was fired after saying the “survival of the white race was at stake.”
[..]
In recent survey, Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy found that over half of Africans in Moscow had been physically attacked in the past. Attacks in Moscow Metro are common, and “Monkey” insults are so frequent that students have ceased reporting them.[…]
On 21 April 2001, there was a pogrom in market in Moscow Yasenevo District against merchants from the Caucasus. Racially motivated attacks against Armenians in Russia have grown so common that the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, raised the issue with high-ranking Russian officials. […] In 2006, Georgia–Russia relations crisis resulted in deportation of Georgians from Russia. Russian side explained the process as law enforcement towards illegal immigrants, whereas the Georgian government accused Russia of ethnic cleansing.
Richard Brodsky writes in Huffington Post
In Greece there’s Golden Dawn, using the economic downturn and immigration fears to become the fifth-largest party in the Greek parliament, and using street tactics reminiscent of Brownshirts. In the Baltic states there are parliamentary and government officials trying to give state pensions to surviving members of the Waffen-SS. Within Russia, Ukraine, Moldova there are voices and political parties raising familiar complaints about ethnic minorities within their borders, and in neighboring nations. In Norway, there is mass murder in the name of extreme right-wing politics.
German Interior Intelligence Service aren’t going after the nazis because the nazi ranks are full of their agents and the intelligence services are crawling with nazi sympathizers and undercover nazis. Many double agents playing both sides and both making a living at it and/or using it to fulfill their fantasies.
The Interior Intelligence of Germany is not really looking into the roots of the Neo-Nazis. Let me put it this way: There is an army commanded by a general, if you take the general away, his second in command will take over, and there is still the army. But if you take away all the footsoldiers, the general would have no one to command over. Therefore I would like to direct the German Interior Intelligence Service at going after the little guys, nas there are quite a few of them literally in the thousands, and most of them from the former East Germany, actually most of them from Poland having married East Germans, then divorcing the east German, but retaining the name of their “Ex”, specially if it is German sounding, and no one will suspect them to be associated, or even beeing members, or supporting members of the Neo-Nazis, Myself I know of at least four such people, one of which in fact hid in canada for almost six years, and is presntly living in Berlin-Tempelhof/Kreuzberg, and even has made contact with Neo-Nazis in the USA. name of the person witheld, till I get a clear answer from the German Interior Intelligence Service. I have all the data here.
“Firstly, why put white in quotes? It’s a real group: a race. ”
No, it’s a fake concept with no basis. For example, the US census designates me as white; nazis and their ilk do not.
“Whoa! This thread took a serious turn for the worse!”
Yep, racists and nazi sympathizers (probably just one, judging from rant style) stumbled on it through search engines. Big whoop.
Whoa! This thread took a serious turn for the worse!
Paulie sees non-“white” folks as a scapegoat for economic problems facng youths. Firstly, why put white in quotes? It’s a real group: a race.
Secondly, non-whites (mostly accustomed to being poor) are an extreme problem to white youths! Millions of good industrial jobs have been taken to Maquilladora Mexico, then to China etc. Or blacks and mestizos get hired (willing to work cheap, and firms must follow anti-white laws favoring others in jobs in USA: affirmative action is the Newspeak for this!)
It’s amazing white youths aren’t marching mad every day in every city! Is PC propaganda really so great? Why? I’m not concerend with Hitler. He lived in a different place and situation. Now our youths need a wake-up call. Need to cut crap!
I asked (paragraph 2) why do youths rebel?
This is important and rarely discussed.
Because (as children) they were just young and pampered. Then (quite suddenly) they are seen as adults forced to accept a pile of nonsense from seniors/tradition, with themselves suddenly expected to work hard for little… even to die in DUMB wars that don’t benefit themselves. (USA is really infamous for this since World War II.)
We need to get youth before they’re dumped in this malestrom, and let them be strong and fight to eliminate the old leaders, bankers, political animals, capitalist/marxist instructors. Discover what God actually said to Adam’s (white) race! Adam (“man” translated weakly in Gen 1:26-28) got dominion over all earlier LIVING moving on the earth – including pre-Adamic humans (ones Cain married and built a city of in Genesis 4:17).
PS: a few old folks (like myself) know the story and don’t give a damn about our stocks, pension or other “powers” from rotten regimes. We just want our youths to run Earth as they should… and to be empowered, not victimized! (What more could I want?… as I’ll be leaving soon.) I myself fathered no child, so it’s my race that I’m concerned for. It’s not about having a personal son as a ruler over his brothers!)
Paulie aims at a good point. Nat-Socialism and (Jew-designed) extreme Socialism (Marxism) are both authoritarian; (both are humanist ideas too)
In Marxist states, being NS is rebellion; in a Nazi state, to be Marxist is rebellion. Youths like to rebel! Why? Becausethey we just young and pampered, now face the miserable adult world run by old farts who abuse them as workers for established lords: Marxist or capitalists/facists… or “red capitalists” in China (logic contradiction not withstanding.)
We older folks (I’m now over 60) MUST regard our youths are our pride and joy, not just dumb workers to build us fancies homes, faster cars, serve us in cruise ships (or old foggies homes)!
Now parents usually do treat their children with kindness, but other kids can be suckered. We must broaden our view to all children of our broad family: nationality (a lineage term from word root of “nativity” which is not “citizenship” in multi-ethnic states nowadays) and to our race.
But dirty dull work still needs to be done! So, reserve it for other ones, lower than our own. (Study and you’ll find different human types sprung to existence tens of thousands of years apart… all came before Adam, execpt Adamites. Philippe Rushton, Arthur Jensen, etc show many differnces in racial groups. We are different!)
Failure to wisely discriminate is indisciminate chaos – foisted on us by Marxists & Capitalists! This burdens our children and national youths.
Trotsky invented propaganda word “racist” in his 1930 “History of the Russian Revolution,” to silence his enemies. Later in exile in Mexico, he revived it to rile non-whites to “red” revoltion in USA! (Check this!) Capitalist Queen Ayn Rand also hated “racism.” [She, Marx & Trotsky were all born Jews.] Both want white Adamites to be forced into competing for scraps vs third-world hoardes & world factory output. [That output from cheap labor in China etc. destroyed much industry in USA! Also other white countries.]
Destroy both indisciminate “rightist” capitalist and “leftist” Marxist dialectical propagandists!
Get back to your family, your kind, your nation, your race. Then locally organize to produce all you need… with other types playing secondary, tertiary, and quaternary roles (for oldest race seen in Africa). Throw out “politics” and “voting” (a sham as major media largely de facto control who gets to win) and other “humanism.” Return to God’s Bible Law which is about lineages! (But commercial “churches” teach nothing on race.)
PS: modern “Jews” have a core of Edomites whom John Hyrcanus defeated 112 BC at Tel Maresha and forced to follow judaism. Jesus rejected them as his type: John 10:22-31. (Real chosen people became Christian long ago!) And Jews were later joined by Turkic Khazars around 740 AD when Kagan Bulan adopted that religion
The burning question, the elephant in the room, how many of these “Germans” are actually of German heritage and of German culture? I am betting the numbers are way off the mark as immigration is a noted problem and has been all but an outright attack on German ways and means to protect what is theirs and only theirs.
One point to consider is that although nazism is an authoritarian ideology, participating in nazi activities under a liberal democracy or in a Soviet system can have an anti-authoritarian feel to it. That may be why some non-nazi punk rockers such as the Sex Pistols sometimes use(d) nazi imagery.
Likewise, Communist activity can have the air of anti-authoritarianism in a nominally capitalist society, which is why communism was embraced by some elements of the counterculture and various subcultural movements.
Just to clarify, in Germany it is already illegal to reorganize the National Socialist Party or to display a swastika. This law was invoked to outlaw the Socialist Reich Party in the early postwar period, and then the German Reich Party which formed as a successor to the SRP.
The same law originally banned the Communist Party also, but that provision was thrown out by the Constitutional Court in 1968.
The current issue is whether to invoke that law to ban the National Democratic Party. The NDP was formed in the mid 1960s by people who were all veterans of the National Socialist German Workers Party. In several elections NDP members won seats in state parliaments, but they never made it into the federal parliament.
Now the NDP is a marginal organization that is very close to being explicitly Nazi, and it maintains relations with neo-Nazi groups in several countries, including The National Alliance in the US.
NDP is explicit enough in its nostalgia for the Germany of the late 1930s that the federal government almost was able to ban it; the courts stopped the ban because of questionable actions by government agents within the organization.
NDP rarely contests elections in a serious way, but it is making appeals to violent skinhead elements, much as the National Front in the UK did, and that is why banning the NDP is being discussed again.
There are people out there in this country who’d like to outlaw the Libertarian Party. I’ve run into a few of them over the years.
Outlawing the Nazi Party could actually backfire in certain ways. How? It could give the Nazis a talking point, as in they could say to their supporters and potential supporters, “You see, the system is rigged. We tried to change things peacefully but they won’t allow us to compete.” This could cause them to get more extreme.
I would think that given what happened the last time the Nazis ran Germany that the majority of the German people would not want to go through something like that again. Even though a lot of people living today were not alive when the Nazi Party ruled Germany, I think that everyone knows that it caused a lot of bad things to happen.
The best way to handle Nazis would be to allow them to have their own space and let them secede, or at least separate themselves voluntarily from the rest of society.
New Federalist said: “Nah… that’s too easy. Make ‘em petition to get on the ballot like the LP and others have to do!”
There actually are some states that require even Democrats and Republicans to petition to get on the ballot. These requirements are usually easier than the ones for minor party and independent candidates, but there are a few of these states where the requirements are about the same in difficulty.
Depends on which people.
Ayn Rand, Vaclav Havel, etc.
The failure of socialism leads people tO look for alternatives. So some politicians offer fascism.
The deeper problem is that people always fall for a statist approach and rarely consider that statism is the problem.
There’s something to that.
Also, under Communism it was taught that racism was a byproduct of capitalism, so the issue of racism in Soviet bloc nations was never really dealt with because admitting it even existed was contrary to the state ideology.
For many years the population of East Germany was taught that the German Democratic Republic was the antithesis of the Third Reich. So people unhappy with East German Communism would naturally consider National Socialism as an alternative, when they could consider alternatives.
East Germany had its own National Democratic Party, created to recruit former Nazis and veterans of the Third Reich. It was a controlled party in the National Front, under supervision of the Socialist Unity Party.
In the first all-German elections, the Party of Democratic Socialism created a support committee of retired Third Reich generals and bureaucrats under the auspices of the East German NDP, to promote votes for the PDS Left List.
At the same time the international Communist press would always point to the existence of the marginal NDP in the west as evidence that West Germany was full of neo-Nazis.
The lower levels of economic opportunity for young people in eastern Germany and the other former Soviet Bloc areas make them more prone to be recruited by nazis.
The internet has made it easier for them to share music, images, videos etc even in countries where they are banned.
The rise in non “white” population provides a scapegoat for economic problems that many people are experiencing.
So those three factors have led to a rise in nazism, even though it is illegal in Germany (and now Russia as well).
I can second Paulie’s comments RE: German racism. They have an inordinate amount of skinheads and neo-nazis and now the racism is mostly aimed at Turks, who are more easily distinguished from the Europeans.
Germany has long banned explicitly Nazi parties and symbols. NPD is not explicitly nazi, but recent revelations have made it harder for them to deny their affiliations.
I don’t think that attempting to sweep nazism under the rug has put an end to it in Germany. In fact, it has had something of a resurgence after the unification with East Germany and the spread of the internet.
There’s also a lot of racism against immigrants who are considered non-white by most Germans, especially Turks. As with other nations in Europe, immigration from non-European nations has grown a lot in recent decades.
Gene… how about just educating the people about what the Nazis did? My understanding is German textbooks gloss over the period 1933-45. If people don’t know what happened it could be repeated. Banning the NPD is just wrong.
Do you believe Communist parties should be banned also?
And what happens to Communists and Nazis when their parties get banned? Do they go away? Change their views? Or pursue their goals through other means, sometimes involving violence?
It is easy to criticize Germany for restricting or banning the re-creation of the National Socialist Party. But the last time the National Socialists controlled Germany they led it into a war that left Germany in rubble.
It is reasonable to take action to prevent a recurrence of such a tragedy.
Nie wieder Faschismus!
Same principle as with the Nazis. If we outlawed Democrats and Republicans, what other mechanisms would the power brokers behind them find to achieve and abuse power?
“How about outlawing Democrats and Republicans? This sounds like a good idea to me.”
Nah… that’s too easy. Make ’em petition to get on the ballot like the LP and others have to do!
How about outlawing Democrats and Republicans? This sounds like a good idea to me.
I believe banning the NPD is a terrible idea. If they start “winning elections at a significant level” then the SPD, CDU/CSU, FDP and others that have regularly made up the government will have to see what it is about their message that has appeal. If voters are that desperate then clearly the government parties have not been listening. The closest the NPD has ever come to gaining entry into the Bundestag with a 5% vote share was over 40 years ago. They haven’t come anywhere close since.
I don’t think driving it underground is a good idea.
However, what do you think should happen if they start winning elections at a significant level?
Personally I think that if they were to become popular enough for that, they would also have enough strength to credibly try for a military takeover.
Do others here believe as I do that electoral systems should allow for a suicide option, i.e. the election of parties that would do away with elections and free speech if they get elected? Does keeping the threat such groups pose in check work better if they are allowed to operate openly rather than lurk in the shadows?
Irony in this statement: outlaw Nazism!
You can respond in a series of comments. I didn’t want to write several international stories, we try to keep that to a rare minimum.
There is really too much in this article to respond to. It is more like three stories.