The New Nazis
When Menace in Europe was published, no chapter provoked more hostility than the one about Germany, in which I noted that the German band Rammstein's fascination with Third Reich imagery and dramaturgy might not be as innocent as it sounds, especially given that Third Reich imagery and dramaturgy don't sound all that innocent. Comments like these--"Claire Berlinski is just a paranoid little Jew"--were among the more printable. In fact, the Nazis sent me more hate mail than the Islamists and the communists (and that's when I decided to take up the martial arts, but that's another story).
Unlike many who are keen to deny the danger of right-wing extremism in Europe, proposing instead that we focus our alarm upon the menace posed to liberal democracy by Islamic extremists, I'm a dual-direction Cassandra. Europe does indeed have a dangerous ultra-right, and by "ultra-right," I do not mean dutiful Anglicans and devout proponents of market deregulation, I mean Nazis. Call them neo-Nazis or new Nazis if you like, but when they start killing immigrants in the name of racial purity, I see no need for that qualifier.
The so-called National Socialist Underground killed nine immigrants (eight of them Turkish, one Greek). They avoided detection for years because the police were looking in the wrong direction. What's worse, the NSU does indeed appear to have links to Germany's far-right NDP:
The head of Germany's crime squad, Joerg Ziercke, said the arrest this week of a 35-year-old man in Jena in east Germany where the cell was based indicated a link to the anti-immigrant National Democratic Party (NPD).
The man was a senior NPD official in the state of Thuringia.
"I am convinced we will find further links to the NPD," he told a news conference. "But it is up to politicians to decide what to do with the evidence found in our inquiries, that is not our job."
Anyone who didn't see this coming just wasn't paying attention:
“We weren’t surprised at all,” explained Reinhard Koch, director of ARUG, an initiative based in the western city of Wolfsburg that provides counselling for young people exposed to right-wing extremism. “There have long been signs that at some point such groups would form, and not only for us--it should have been clear to the authorities too.”
On top of that, “It can’t be ruled that there are other such groups,” Koch told The Local. “Weapons caches were constantly being found in this scene or that scene--it happened so often that people stopped even wondering what these weapons were for.”
As far as Koch is concerned, the distance between the ‘ordinary’ neo-Nazi scene and the ‘hardcore’ element prepared to commit murder is very small. “You shouldn’t imagine that there are these nationalist gangs like the Kameradschaften, and then there’s a huge gap and then there’s a terrorist scene,” he said. “It all blends seamlessly together.”
Koch’s work with reformed neo-Nazis has taught him that violence permeates all parts of the extremist right-wing scene. This violence does not just take the form of drunken brawling at weekends, but disciplined training with guns administered by ex-servicemen.
“We have people in our programmes who have had weapons training themselves,” said Koch. “They were trained in western Germany, in Lower Saxony, by neo-Nazis who used to be mercenaries, for instance in the former Yugoslavia. Some were part of European training networks and got training in France or Belgium.”
The training takes place in remote country areas, sometimes privately owned, and sometimes rented for the purpose, either in an afternoon or over several days. “They often look for isolated wooded areas,” said Koch.
Dierk Borstel, researcher into right-wing extremism at the University of Bielefeld, was also unsurprised to read the recent revelations about the NSU. “We’ve known that the option of terrorism, the option of militancy, the option of murder has been discussed in the extremist right-wing scene for some time,” he told The Local.
“A few years ago there was a group based in the Potsdam area that went underground that called itself the ‘National Resistance’ who specialized in blowing up Jewish cemeteries,” he said. “We have constantly had weapons and explosives finds, but they were never taken seriously. It was simply massively underestimated. The police just thought they were little boys playing cowboys and Indians.”
The word for that is "denial." Men who look like Nazis, call themselves Nazis, blow up Jewish cemeteries and kill Turkish shopkeepers are not little boys playing cowboys and Indians. They're Nazis.
This problem will get worse. Anyone who doubts me on this might note that where Europe's concerned, I've so far been right about everything else.
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: The New Nazis
Let's start with the general lack of common sense in the region. How can Brevik get an insanity declaration ? Because he was crazy enough to plan things and be suitably equipped to kill lots of people ? Are Europeans so lulled into a sense of relativism that they are defenseless ?
Sep '10
Re: The New Nazis
When Mark Steyn was put on trial by Kangaroo court human rights commissions in Canada, one of the other cases involved a certain individual repeatedly sock puppeting as a Nazi on internet message boards who turned out to work for those self same human rights commissions (conjuring up images of a human rights style GlenGarry Glenn Ross boiler room scheme). The point Steyn and others made at the time was that in Canada (and I assume the United States) Nazis were never the problem they were and continue to be in Europe. They certainly weren't so scarce in Europe that you had to create them out of whole cloth. And, in an interesting aside, note the speech code laws that have been in effect all this time in Europe. They apparently haven't worked.
Just because this development isn't unexpected, doesn't mean its not still alarming.
May '10
Re: The New Nazis
Shouldn't we stop referring to the right when we discuss Nazis? Jonah Goldberg has demonstrated the common left-wing roots of communism, fascism, and national socialism in LF. All the isms above (and Islamism) are totalitarian and want to control every individual. Conservatives trusts individuals and leaves it to each and everyone to decide how to run their own lives.
Flownover asks. " Are Europeans so lulled into a sense of relativism that they are defenseless ?" I would say yes. I left Sweden 15 years ago and I think it is irreversible in Europe. But it is scary to see US approach positions commonly held in Europe some 20-30 years ago. I hate to see that timing is the only difference.
Apr '11
Re: The New Nazis
Well I think Brevik is probably certifiably insane. I mean its not like they have the death penalty so declaring him insane gives them grounds to keep him locked up indefinitely. People often assume that if you are declared insane in a legal matter you get to walk. Actually you are thrown in a maximum security sanitarium and never see the light of day. It is essentially sentencing him to life in prison. At least in the US it is.
Aug '10
Re: The New Nazis
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Europe does indeed have a dangerous ultra-right, and by "ultra-right," I do not mean dutiful Anglicans and devout proponents of market deregulation, I mean Nazis. Call them neo-Nazis or new Nazis if you like, but when they start killing immigrants in the name of racial purity, I see no need for that qualifier.
The so-called National Socialist Underground killed nine immigrants...
OK, but how is it again that National Socialists movements are in fact a phenomenon of the Right?
I know Right and Left in Europe are different from Right and Left in the United States, but I was under the impression that the truly European form of extreme right wingery would be wanting to reinstate monarchy and so on, not National Socialism.
For example, my understanding is that the British National Party attracts more former Labour supporters than it does former Conservative supporters. Etc...
Could you explain what is conventionally meant by the Right-Left divide in Europe, and why this convention is justified?
Re: The New Nazis
Shall we dispense with the Left-Right debate entirely and just called them Nazis? Makes everything a lot simpler. We all know that Nazis are a problem.
Apr '11
Re: The New Nazis
Lets not be blind to our own sides faults. I think Jingoism, Xenophobia, and Racism have a good standing on the conservative spectrum of the political charts. That is not to say they are exclusive to the Right. I thought what was the success of the Nazis was that they mixed the economic policies of the socialists with the nationalist policies of the imperialists. Both of these were very popular with people and the Nazis gave them one party that advocated both.
I think to the extent that the New Nazis are simply focused on their nationalist pride, and ethnic purity they are far more Right than Left. Really which side they spring from is irrelevant they are bad news, and it hardly makes me feel better to know they are more Left than Right.
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 7:22amJun '10
Re: The New Nazis
I guess the "right-wing" Nazis are the ones that crave small limited government, personal privacy, and religious freedom. Kind of like being an atheist clergyman?
Jan '11
Re: The New Nazis
The extremes of the normal distribution curve will always be with us, Ms. Berlinski. There will always be the very good and the very bad, with the great majority a mixture of both, to one degree or another. The question of what to do about immediate mortal threats is the great moral dilemma of all civilizations. You're quite right, the threat is what it appears to be. Because so few are usually involved, we tend to write it off as nonsense, but as you note it's much more than that.
It's not as though we haven't seen it before. And it's not as though Santayana hasn't warned us.
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
Aug '10
Re: The New Nazis
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
act a phenomenon of the Right?
I know Right and Left in Europe are different from Right and Left in the United States,
Explain the distance between Tim McVeigh and Bill Ayers ? Well, at the point when they both made and planted the bombs ?
The success of their endeavours vary, they were both bombthrowers. Murderers.
Re: The New Nazis
You are right, alas, that things are going to get worse. The crisis of the European Union is upon us, and it will not go away. The economic consequences are going to be grim, and the nasty folks in every country in Europe are going to gain ground.
Dec '10
Re: The New Nazis
Flownover stated - "Explain the distance between Tim McVeigh and Bill Ayers ? Well, at the point when they both made and planted the bombs ?" -- One got the death penalty, the other got promoted to a high paying job.
That aside Flownover is spot on. It's not about left-right ideolgy. It's about confronting evil and when "our side" fails to do that, we fail our values and society. People have been using Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism to uphold the right against smears by the left. Fair enough; however, even Mr. Goldberg concedes fascism does indeed exist on both the left and right side of the aisle. Ayers is an excellent example of what happens when one side excuses the actions of gutter slime.
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 8:15amNov '10
Re: The New Nazis
Valiuth
I think to the extent that the New Nazis are simply focused on their nationalist pride, and ethnic purity they are far more Right than Left. · Dec 3 at 7:21am
Edited on Dec 03 at 07:22 am
Ethnic purity? Right wing? I think conservatives would be right in taking that as an insult.
Oct '11
Re: The New Nazis
Frankly, no. You can't deal with what you don't understand. Nazism, old and new, is the political expression of those on the left that adore themselves. It appears to be of the right to the careless observer because it opposes other forms, like M-L-ism, that grow out of self-loathing.
Pointing at the filth and saying "ooh, bad!" might satisfy, but it just adds to the noise. They like noise.
Mar '11
Re: The New Nazis
I agree with most of the comments. While there is indeed a growing Nazi problem in Europe, and increasing anti-Jewishness, it's fairly minor compared to what's happening around Israel's borders.
Having just read Mr Steyn's Saturday morning piece, it's hard to be optimistic about the way the whole world is going.
Aug '10
Re: The New Nazis
Valiuth
I thought what was the success of the Nazis was that they mixed the economic policies of the socialists with the nationalist policies of the imperialists. Both of these were very popular with people and the Nazis gave them one party that advocated both.
I think to the extent that the New Nazis are simply focused on their nationalist pride, and ethnic purity they are far more Right than Left. Really which side they spring from is irrelevant they are bad news, and it hardly makes me feel better to know they are more Left than Right.
According to the European dimensions of Left-Right politics, you could well be correct, Valiuth. For one thing, since you're a European immigrant, you've had direct experience of European political attitudes, which many of us haven't.
That said, I still think we could profit from a Claire-ification on what Claire means by right-wing in the European sense.
I have a feeling that to right-leaning Americans, the European brand of right-wingism should be perplexing. So exploration of terms is in order.
Mar '11
Re: The New Nazis
While we might not hear about it much in America, Germans have been well aware of neo-Nazism in their own country for years. The true extent is obviously still hidden, but there is a hypersensitivity among the general public toward extreme nationalists, and that is a good thing.
I have witnessed neo-Nazi demonstrations in Germany where the number of counter-protestors outnumbered the neo-Nazis by about 10 to 1. Every few years there is a loud national debate about whether the tamed-down NPD (German Nationalist Party) can even be allowed to exist. The Germans are definitely not blind to the matter.
At the same time, no one really knows how many silent sympathizers exist in society. While the most open supporters are mostly in areas of East Germany with high unemployment, I saw Hitler greetings and heard Nazi songs being sung in one of the wealthiest regions of western Germany. Frightening.
Mar '11
Re: The New Nazis
Claire is spot on.
German neo-Nazis do not fit in anywhere in the normal political spectrum mostly because their platform only has one plank: ethnic German nationalism.
While there is a political party with a tamed-down national socialist platform (the NPD), the violent neo-Nazis have never voiced any desires other than "Deutschland den Deutschen!" (Germany to the Germans).
Mar '11
Re: The New Nazis
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Valiuth
I have a feeling that to right-leaning Americans, the European brand of right-wingism should be perplexing. So exploration of terms is in order. · Dec 3 at 9:24am
The German understanding of the right-left continuum is certainly different from the American understanding. For instance, the FDP, a classically liberal party (small government, free markets, etc) cannot be placed on the traditional left-right spectrum, according to many German political scientists.
Aug '10
Re: The New Nazis
1) How is it that the Far Left and the Far Right probably come closest to each other on the subject of Israel?
2) Ireland has many political failings but in spite of an enormous influx of immigrants, mainly Eastern European, also many African,up to 10% of the population from a base of practically nothing 20 years ago, no anti-immigrant party has gained any traction whatsoever. Maybe it comes from being colonised rather than colonial.
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 11:01am