Fascism in Germany Today

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Rick Kuhn

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The East

Sieglers treatment of the background to right-wing extremism in eastern Germany complements the account of developments in the old Federal Republic in Politics against Democracy.2 The chapters in Auferstanden aus Ruinen fall into three sections. The first deals with episodes in the development of right-wing extremism in the east, mainly between the fall of the Berlin Wall and mid-1991, when the book was written, and contemporary fascist organisations. It is particularly valuable for its portrayal of the neo-nazi scene and the circumstances of racist attacks in the east. A discussion of fascism, anti-fascism and guest workers in the DDR follows. The final chapters examine explanations of the rise of right-wing extremism in the east, their limits and the favourable circumstances for right-wing extremism in united Germany. A journalist with the left-wing daily Tageszeitung (Taz), Siegler includes useful material from interviews with people involved in, affected by or responsible for dealing with right-wing extremism.

Over half a million exNazi Party members in the Soviet Occupation Zone were sacked between the end of the War and March 1948. This was used by the communist regime to emphasise its anti-fascist credentials compared to West Germany, where limited denazification had left nazis in prominent positions in business and the public sector. The Adenauer Government responded in kind, in 1960, with an extensive list of exNazis holding important positions in the DDR (99-110 also see Assheuer and Sarkowicz 99-102 on the cold war and former nazi officials). Siegler, Knütter (BMI 56) and Rosen (BMI 96-97) contend that the regimes ideology of institutionalised anti-fascism sheltered the population from settling accounts with National Socialism. Siegler also makes important points, though imprecisely, about the weaknesses of German Communist policy during the 1930s (112). Halbauer and Mosler provide a better account of the disastrous effects the rise of Stalinism had for working class resistance to National Socialism (20-23). In the early 1930s it was crippled by the Communist International and hence the German Communist Partys characterisation of social democracy as a wing of the fascism. Later the Party followed the Comintern in supporting the Hitler-Stalin Pact and persecuted members who criticised it. After the War, the Soviet military very rapidly repressed anti-fascist committees set up spontaneously by rank and file German Communists and Social Democrats in favour of authorities under reliable German Communists flown in from Moscow. Suppression of the east German working class took its most overt form when the uprising of 1953 was put down with tanks. Nor did the Communist Party (SED) shrink from using anti-semitism (Siegler 120-137, Halbauer and Mosler 22-23).

Since the 1970s fascist organisations have existed in the DDR. They have experienced a greater tolerance than left-wing and liberal critics of the communist system. Skinheads and right-wing extremists in the DDR expressed the same virtues stridently promoted by the regime: order, discipline and dedication. Instances of co-operation between fascists and the state authorities were therefore not coincidental. In the mid1970s there was a neo-nazi group in a paramilitary police unit in Basdorf. Subsequently the police have used skinheads and neo-nazis to clear out occupied houses, harass oppositionists and in drug investigations. A particular focus for right-wing radicals was the stewarding group of the Free German Youth (FDJ), the youth arm of the SED. This organisation provided scope for rignt-wingers to impose their conception of acceptable behaviour on others, sometimes with violence, to maintain order at FDJ events (Siegler 74-88.

The treatment of foreign workers, employed in relatively small numbers in the DDR in an effort to overcome a chronic shortage of labour, indicates that racism was a feature of the communist regime. The largest group of such workers were from Vietnam. They were isolated in separate, crowded apartment blocks and their lives were highly regimented; women were forbidden from becoming pregnant and were subject to deportation if they did. The isolated living conditions of foreign workers and the fact that they were permitted to send home some items in short supply made them racist scapegoats for sections of a population suffering from chronic shortages of many goods.

The racism experienced by foreign workers in the east worsened after the fall of the Berlin Wall and political liberalisation, as right-wing extremists operated more openly and confidently. These developments are discussed in the first section of Sieglers book. The period after the revolution saw considerable activity by local fascists and others coming or returning from West Germany. From late 1990 there were rising numbers of assaults against foreign workers and students in east Germany. The first racist murder by neo-nazis occurred in the village of Eberwalde in Brandenburg in November. Neo-nazis protested against the opening of the German-Polish border in April 1991, attacking Polish visitors at some border crossings. The city of Dresden became a particular focus for neo-nazis in 1990 and 1991. In June 1991 two thousand neo-nazis marched unhindered through Dresden in a funeral procession for a murdered leader, Rainer Sonntag.

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Causes and Countermeasures
The books considered here offer various explanations for the growth of fascist organisations in Germany during the 1980s and 1990s, some more coherent than others. Stöss understands right-wing extremism as a set of ideas held by individuals for essentially social-psychological reasons. For him, right-wing extremism involves antipathy towards democracy, aggressive nationalism and historical revisionism. He argues that democratic nationalism has not found any response in Germany in the long term. It is true that nationalism as a label certainly elicits hostility across a wide political spectrum, and is a central concept for fascists. But this misses the point that, in practice, the democratic parties have all appealed to national interests in their pursuit of domestic and foreign policy. Fascists do reject democracy as inimical to national interests, embodied in a particular fascist party or leader. Their conception of national unity is intimately bound up with appeals to race, a concept which is not discussed in Stösss second chapter, on the characteristic ideas of right-wing extremism. By way of contrast, Lange, a Director of the Verfassungsschutz, who also defines right-wing extremism in terms of ideas, is clear that racism is a key characteristic of right-wing extremism (BMI 30).

In the chapter of Politics against Democracy on causes and countermeasures, Stöss argues that the expression of anti-democratic attitudes can be traced back mainly to an authoritarian, prejudiced character formation. This results from shortcomings and mistakes during early childhood socialisation (208. Following Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Stöss attributes these problems of socialisation to the breakdown of institutions which gave people a sense of identity, notably the family. The interaction of social and individual factors in generating right-wing extremism is noted. But the analysis that emerges has as its core the conception that right-wing extremism is essentially a form of individual thought and consequently behaviour. This is reinforced by the confusion in Stösss treatment of social factors. Thus he maintains that the significance of economic crises for the success of right-wing extremism is frequently overstated, though they can play a role, as an important requirement for peoples personal satisfaction. Social crises are of greater significance. But social crises, affecting housing, neighbourhood relations, social contacts and social care, cultural infrastructures and opportunities for leisure are largely determined by economic factors (214). It can be similarly argued that the crises of democratic means of social integration Stöss discusses are frequently an effect of major economic problems. Finally, he suggests, political culture can facilitate anti-democratic activity. This is an allusion to his earlier discussion of the repression and glossing over of National Socialism in the Federal Republic. Racism is mentioned in this connection but only in a long list of other factors which are bridges to the right (217). Attitudes to the Third Reich are a factor in the current appeal of fascism, but a very subordinate one. Stöss does not grasp how racism and nationalism are both far more important points of contact between mainstream German politics and the extreme right (and this is true in most other liberal democracies) which speak more to the direct experiences of postwar generations than historical judgements about the Third Reich.

Historical revisionism is, nevertheless, the intellectual cement that ties contemporary fascists to the Nazi regime and plays an important role for the cadre of fascist organisations. The arguments assembled under this heading either deny or downplay the atrocities of the National Socialist period, particularly in relation to the genocide of Jews, Gypsies and other groups. On the other hand the positive aspects of Hitlers rule - national pride and greatness, low unemployment, law and order - are emphasised.

An analysis of right-wing extremism, like Stösss based on a methodological individualism, is apparent in Jaschkes short essay (BMI and sketchily in Rosens essay, BMI 97). He also explicitly identifies the importance of continuing cultural and organisational traditions in several neo-nazi youth groups in the contemporary growth of right-wing extremism (BMI 68. One might add that this fascist cadre extends to the core members of the DVU, NPD and Republicans.

Stöss examines several countermeasures against right-wing extremism. He maintains that bans on right-wing extremist groups, though not parties, can be effective if undertaken in the context of other measures to reduce their attractiveness. Jesse and Lange, as strong advocates of the theory of Streitbare Demokratie (Combative Democracy) and the importance of repressive measures against extremists, concur. The other measures Stöss advocates include steps to expand historical knowledge, communicate democratic norms and to create acceptable economic and social opportunities, as well as a political order with which people can identify. Recommendations at such a high level of abstraction are more like the amorphous political goals of any mainstream politician (conservative or social democratic) than a specific anti-fascist strategy. But Stöss does assert that When confronting right-wing extremism, the main concern is to protect youth from anti-democratic forces (235), and this priority derives most directly from his essentially individualist analysis of fascism. His proposals about social work amongst youth and education on National Socialism are a little more concrete than his other suggestions. Jaschke adds the promotion of multiculturalism to his recommendations for youth work (BMI 7071) and Rosen, an official in the Interior Ministry, outlines similar measures advocated in official reports (BMI 100-102).

The favourable effects of economic instability and crisis for the extreme right is recognised by a range of authors, Stöss, Jaschke (BMI 6, Knütter (BMI 43-44) Rosen (BMI 97), Sippel (BMI 77). Rosen (BMI 197) in particular and an important strand of thought in mainstream German politics regard strategies premissed on restoring sustained economic growth as crucial in undermining the appeal of the extreme right.6 His essay promotes sources of support in the federal bureaucracy for economic and welfare programs to counteract fascism.

Certainly, economic growth and the elimination of unemployment would decisively undermine, though not eliminate, the attractiveness of right-wing extremism. But if German fascism develops a wider base during the current recession it will be able to sustain the loyalty of a larger and more committed cadre during the subsequent economic recovery. And, to the extent that fascist organisations are more able to exercise more influence and demonstrate their political effectiveness at a national level, they will therefore be better placed to grow even as the economy picks up and during future recessions or social crises.

There is, however, a major problem with attempts to address unemployment, poverty and their consequences directly, if economic crises are a characteristic and unavoidable feature of capitalism or, at the very least, if Germany in the 1990s cannot avoid deep recessions. This is what Wilfried Herz argues in the influential Die Zeit; Germany is slithering into an economic crisis and no-one knows how to pull it out.

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A few weeks before the Rostock pogrom, the Government again gave a melodramatic account of the asylum problem. On 4 August Interior Minister Seiters contended in the Federal Parliament that Germanys capacity to absorb newcomers. . . been strained to the limit by misuse of the asylum law. The fascist attacks on the Rostock asylum refuge set off another, more determined round of assaults across the country. The Social Democratic Partys national leadership dropped its opposition on the question and for the first time agreed to discuss the possibility of a revision of the asylum provision of the German constitution in late August 1992. A special Party conference in November endorsed the leaderships new position on article 16. In early October the Free Democratic Party, the liberal junior partner in the Kohl Government, followed suit. This has given further credibility to the racist preoccupations of the extreme right.

Stoppt die Nazis, unlike the other books under review, deals seriously with mass anti-fascist movements and mobilisations. Stöss briefly mentions the movement against the NPD during the late 1960s (148. But he conflates such actions with individual acts of violence against fascists (226) and on this basis rejects them, as do several of the BMI authors for whom organised anti-fascism is a (left-wing extremist) problem rather than a suitable response to right-wing extremism (Jesse 16, Lange 33, Knütter 60). Halbauer and Mosler distinguish between elitist actions by anti-fascist fighters and mass mobilisations to confront events organised by fascists. Sections of the autonomist movement (sometimes called anarchist in the English language press) regard the bulk of the German population as incapable of confronting fascism because compromised by racism and even see little distinction between the police or existing state and the fascists. The tactical conclusion is actions by small groups of dedicated antifascists which leave no space for involving the large numbers of working people whose interests the fascists threaten. Drawing on the experience of the struggle against fascism in Germany during the late 1960s and the 1970s, Stoppt die Nazis rejects this position and argues that it is possible both to confront the fascists publicly and politically and draw wider sections of the population into activity around defence of their own interests.

Challenged by big counter-demonstrations when they try to march or rally fascists loose several of their most important means of attracting support. The acceptability of their ideas is challenged when large numbers of people publicly demonstrate their hostility. The cultivated image of power, ability to intimidate political opponents and hence the credence for their racist programs fascists seek is deflated when they are unable to dominate the streets. Even massive moralistic displays of anti-racism or anti-fascism, such as the demonstrations in France over the last couple of years, cannot do this if they are removed in time or space from the fascists attempts to rally support. But Halbauer and Mosler maintain the large anti-racist marches and rallies after Hoyerswerda indicate that a bigger anti-fascist movement with more effective tactics is possible. Subsequently 20 000 anti-fascists and anti-racists marched in Rostock shortly after the pogrom there, anti-racist rallies on 8 November 1992 drew 350 000 people (even though it was organised by the Christian Democratic Union with an international audience in mind) and a 14 November mobilisation saw 200 000 demonstrate in Bonn against proposals to change the asylum article of the constitution. The potential to organise a large and militant anti-fascist movement remains.


Neo-liberalism and racism can be successfully challenged from below, and the workers' movement can experience its strength in struggles against attempts to subordinate jobs, wages and democratic rights to profits. The wharfies' victory did not threatened capitalism, but it provided workers with a glimpse of their potential power.

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