Dialog International

Vergangenheitsbewältigung - except in Bavaria

The current scandal involving the Bavarian politician Herbert Aiwanger proves Faulker's dictuum that In Germany "The past is never dead. It's not even past."  For Aiwanger, some sins from his youth have finally caught up with him: 

The deputy premier of Bavaria, the German state where Munich is located, is ensnared in a scandal that involves a Nazi pamphlet from his high school years and could affect multiple upcoming elections.

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Hubert Aiwanger, now head of the populist Free Voters party, distributed a pamphlet that mocks victims of the Holocaust when he was 17.

Aiwanger said he did not write the pamphlet, which he called “disgusting and inhumane,” but he admitted to having copies of it in his school bag at one point. The pamphlet called Auschwitz an “entertainment quarter” and proposed a quiz titled “Who is the biggest traitor to the Fatherland?”

Some of his former High School classmates have come forward and recall that Aiwanger was an admirer of the Nazis and had even given the Hitler salute on occasion.  The problem is not so much Aiwanger's teenage pranks- many, if not everyone of us, did some stupid things in our youth.  The problem is that Aiwanger has tried to deflect the blame for the disgusting flyer, and - in Trumpian style - claims that HE is the victim of a defamation campaign by the press.  Also, a broad majority of Germans seem to sympathize with Aiwanger. 

As Eva-Maria Schnurr writes in Der Spiegel, the entire affair points to a bigger problem with how Germans deal honestly with the Holocaust: 

Der Umgang mit dem Fall wird zeigen, wie ernst es dieses Land tatsächlich meint mit der Aufarbeitung von Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust. Kommt Aiwanger durch mit angeblichen Erinnerungslücken (im Vergessen waren die Deutschen schon immer sehr gut), einer floskelhaften späten Entschuldigung und dem Abtun als Jugendsünde?

Dann würde das Flugblatt seine damals wohl beabsichtigte Wirkung tatsächlich entfalten: Es würde nicht nur die Holocaustopfer verhöhnen, sondern auch all jene, die es tatsächlich ernst meinen mit der Verantwortung, die aus Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust erwächst. Es würde Gedenkstättenarbeit ebenso lächerlich machen wie die vielen überregionalen und lokalen Initiativen, die sich für das Erinnern einsetzen.

Kommt Aiwanger damit durch, würde das auch international deutlich machen, dass deutsche Erinnerungskultur doch nicht mehr ist als »Gedächtnistheater« (Michal Bodemann), das, wenn es ernst wird, ohne Konsequenzen bleibt.

Well, Aiwanger will keep his job as Deputy Premier of Bavaria.  And when he showed up at a beer tent outside of Munich the crowd showered him with applause and shouts of support.

 

 

Volksgemeinschaft Instead of Democracy in Eastern Germany

The Volksgemeinschaft ("Folk Community") was a utopian ideal embraced by the Nazis in the Third Reich as a racially unified and organized nation devoid of class conflict - a mystical unity, a form of racial soul uniting all Germans.  The idea of the Volksgemeinschaft  also justified the one-party state as all that was needed in a society with a united will, where the Leader (Führer) -  Hitler - implemented the will of the Volk more directly than in a democracy. Of course Jews, foreigners - i.e. non-Aryans - were excluded from the Volksgemeinschaft.

The dream of the Volksgemeinschaft never completely died in Germany.  More recently it has been revived in the rhetoric of the neo-fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. The AfD began as a small right-wing populist protest movement - analogous to the Tea Party movement in the US.  But now the AfD polls as the second strongest party in Germany - surpassing the Social Democrat SPD and the Green Party. In eastern states such as Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt the AfD is the leading party - recently winning a number of state and local elections. 

Recently the researchers a the Else Frenkel -Brunswik Institute in Leipzig conducted a wide-ranging survey of political attitudes among citizens in the eastern Germany states. What the researchers discovered is widespread dissatisfaction with democracy and longing for an authoritarian state - similar to the one many of the older respondents experience under the communist dictatorship of the GDR:

Jeder zweite wünscht sich eine ‘starke Partei‘, die die ‚Volksgemeinschaft‘ insgesamt verkörpert. Statt pluralistischer Interessensvielfalt wird eine völkische Gemeinschaft gewünscht“,

(Half (of the respondents) long for a 'strong party' that would in large measure embody the Volksgemeinschaft .  Instead of a pluralistic range of interests there is a desire fo a (ethnically pure) folk community.)

What seems to unite the citizens of these states is a universal hatred of foreigners - something of a paradox since there are far fewer foreigners and refugees living in eastern Germany than in the west.  There was widespread agreement that "foreigners" are coming to take advantage of social services that should be reserved for "pure" Germans. 

Antisemitism is also widespread, with nearly hall of all polled believing that Jews have too much power even today: Auch heute noch ist der Einfluss der Juden zu groß - again, with only a minuscule number of Jewish people living in the eastern states. 

Much of this xenophobia, antisemitism and fascist mindset in the east seems to be driven by a widespread resentment against the west - a feeling of inferiority, particularly among the men, in comparison to their western counterparts.  This, even though Germany has invested billions of Euros in the eastern states, improving the infrastructure and subsidizing generous social services.  The standard of living in the east has improved enormously since the collapse of the GDR in 1990.  Still, the east lags far behind the western state in economic development.  And racism only exacerbates the situation, since only an influx of young migrants and refugees can begin to reverse the downward spiral.  The dream of the Volksgemeinschaft in the east has created an economic Teufelskreis ('vicious cycle'):

"Die neuen Bundesländer schneiden da traditionell schlecht ab. Die Spuren der vergangenen Krisen und der Rechtsdrall haben das Potenzial, eine Art Teufelskreis auszulösen. Bis 2050 dürfte die Bevölkerung in Ostdeutschland um weitere zehn Prozent schrumpfen, so die Vorausberechnung des Statistischen Bundesamts , während die westdeutschen Flächenländer weiter leicht wachsen (plus zwei Prozent).

»In fortgeschrittenen Volkswirtschaften kommt Wachstum vor allen Dingen durch Innovation, und das funktioniert besser in toleranten Gesellschaften«, sagt Ökonom Holtemöller. In Ostdeutschland gebe es dabei insgesamt mehr Hindernisse als im Westen.

Rassismus und Ablehnung von Ausländern sind für die neuen Bundesländer sensible, weil schmerzhafte Themen."

Sahra Wagenknecht: The Party Crasher

The Washington Post just published a piece on Russia's efforts to orchestrate a "peace movement" in Germany which features Sahra Wagenknecht - Germany's most famous left-wing politician - who is considering forming a new political party.  The piece began with a scene from several weeks ago.  Wagenknecht had summoned thousands of her admirers to Berlin for a massive "peace" demonstration where she spoke out against NATO and the coalition government of Olaf Scholz for their military support of Ukraine.  

"When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.”“We don’t want Germany to be drawn deeper into this war,” she said, as she called for the creation of a new peace movement and condemned the bloodshed in Ukraine, without mentioning Russia’s invasion."

But it wasn't just Wagenknecht's traditional left-wing supporters who enthusiastically cheered her message of 'peace'.  Also in the audience were neo-Nazis and supporters of the far-right AfD party:

"Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”"

There is a tradition in Germany dating back to the Weimar Republic of far-right and left-wing dissidents joining forces in a Querfront ("Cross-Front") in order to fight against democracy and capitalism in favor of some sort of ne0-fascist authoritarian order. The Querfront of the Weimar Republic was eventually subsumed into the national- socialist NSDAP, which used a combination of populist economics and hyper-nationalism to attract working class voters. What a new Querfront-party led by Sahra Wagenknecht would look like an stand for is unclear, but initial polling indicates it could conceivably attract up to 20% of the electorate - and potentially much more in eastern Germany, where Sahra enjoys strong support.

Last week Der Spiegel published a profile of Sahra Wagenknecht and outlined what a Wagenknecht-Querfront political party might look like:

"Wenn alles gut für sie läuft, will Sahra Wagenknecht Ende des Jahres eine eigene Partei gründen und möglicherweise das erste Mal bei der Europawahl 2024 für sie antreten. Die Partei soll Wähler einsammeln, die sich nicht mehr gehört fühlen: nicht von den Linken oder den Grünen, nicht von der Union oder der SPD, Leute, die gegen die Fokussierung auf das Gendern sind und für die Enteignung von Wohnungskonzernen, gegen die Waffenlieferungen an die Ukraine und eine offene Flüchtlingspolitik, für flächendeckende Tarifverträge und eine liberale Coronapolitik. Es wäre eine Partei jenseits der alten Milieus, von der der Politikwissenschaftler Benjamin Höhne sagt, sie »würde den Nationalstaat als entscheidenden Raum betonen, um soziale Gerechtigkeit durchzusetzen«, politisches Neuland also,"

 

(If everything goes well for her, Sahra Wagenknecht wants to establich her own party at the end of the year and possibly stand as candidate for the first time in the 2024 European elections. The party should attract voters who no longer feel heard: not from the Left or the Greens, not from the Union or the SPD, people who are against the focus on gender and for the expropriation of housing groups, against the arms deliveries Ukraine and an open refugee policy, for nationwide collective agreements and a liberal corona policy. It would be a party beyond the old milieus, of which the political scientist Benjamin Höhne says it "would emphasize the nation-state as a decisive area for enforcing social justice", in other words new political territory.

One aspect of Sahra Wagenknecht was mostly left out of the Spiegel profile: her animosity towards America (and NATO).  For Wagenknecht and her followers on the left and right, Germany is a vassal state of the United States.  In her view, in terms of culture and values, Germany has much more in common with Russia.  Putin and the strategists in the Kremlin see an opening here:

"In early July, Putin declared that “even in the countries that are still satellites of the United States, there is a growing understanding that their ruling elites’ blind obedience to their overlord, as a rule, does not necessarily coincide with their national interests, and most often simply and even radically contradicts them.”

If Sahra Wagenknecht does follow through with her idea of establishing a new Querfront party it could become overnight the largest opposition force in the Bundestag - surpassing the AfD and the Left Party (Die Linke). How this would impact Germany's position in NATO and its strategic alliance with the United States is unknown

Annalena Baerbock under attack from left, right ....and the Kremlin

When the German Green Party chose Annalena Baerbock as its candidate for chancellor there was a surge of enthusiasm.  Here was an attractive fresh face with an optimistic message of change for Germany.  To be sure, part of this burst of enthusiasm was the result of coalition fatigue. Many young voters can barely remember a time when Angela Merkel was not the German Chancellor.  And after 16 years her popularity has somewhat declined - especially after the last difficult 18 months of dealing with Covid-19.  But almost immediately the attacks on Baerbock began to heat up.  On the right, the CDU politician and Trump wannabe Friedrich Merz sounded the alarm that Annalena Baerbock was totally unqualified to lead Germany:

"As a citizen of our country, I would not like to hand over the leadership of this country to someone who has neither government experience nor professional experience outside of politics and who also has no international experience," Merz told the "Bild" (Friday edition) .

Merz's opinion alone increases my enthusiasm for Annalena. 

On the left, Sahra Wagenknecht took time out from her talk show appearances to write a scathing attack on Baerbock and the Greens.  Among other reasons, Wagenknecht is appalled that Annalena stands up for human rights in Russia:

"Nicht nur bedenklich, sondern brandgefährlich allerdings ist, was von der möglichen grünen Kanzlerin bisher in Sachen Außenpolitik zu hören war. So forderte Baerbock unlängst, Deutschland müsse "den Druck auf Russland" erhöhen und brauche "dringend eine klare außenpolitische Haltung gegenüber dem russischen Regime" und "schärfere Sanktionen". Wenn jemand Merkel und Maas übertriebene Russlandfreundlichkeit unterstellt, möchte man sich besser nicht ausmalen, wie die Betreffende mit der Atommacht Russland künftig umzuspringen gedenkt."

In general, Wagenknecht sees Baerbock's support for NATO the transatlantic alliance with the United States, as well as for global human rights as "highly dangerous" (brandgefährlich). 

Wagenknecht's concerns are shared by none other than her hero Vladimir Putin, who has instructed his troll machine to attack Frau Baerbock.  Having failed to propel Donald Trump to a second term in the US, Putin sees a chance to influence the national election in Germany: 

"Annalena Baerbock, who is running to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in September’s election, has been targeted in recent days by an increasingly vicious campaign across social media.The onslaught has included fake images purporting to show her naked, in which the body depicted is that of a Russian model, and a photograph of her standing next to the billionaire financier George Soros that has been used to claim she is part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy of which the far right believe he is the mastermind.

Cem Özdemir, a former Green party leader and now its foreign policy expert, said he was not surprised at the campaign, which he and others, including German security experts, see as Kremlin-backed.“In order to prevent the Greens from entering the government no means are beyond the Kremlin,” Özdemir told German media.“I can only advise all democrats not to participate in [Vladimir] Putin’s dirty campaign. The German parliament will be chosen in Germany, not in Moscow, Ankara or Beijing.”

Putin no doubt sees the CDU candidate Armin Laschet as more accommodating to Russian interests.  The next few months will determine whether Germany decides to vote for more of the same (Laschet) or chart a new course with younger leadership.

"Putin TV" Seeks to Undermine Democracy in Germany

Russian disinformation on American social media was critical in the 2016 election of Donald Trump.  It tried but did not succeed in the 2020 election, but still fomented political polarization and racial discord through tens of thousand fake Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

In this morning's newsletter, Gabor Steingart writes about Putin's ambitious media plans for the German market:

"Der russische Präsident will – ermuntert durch die Erfolge seiner verdeckten Medienarbeit in den USA – nun auch ganz offiziell auf dem deutschen Marktplatz der Meinungen seinen Stand eröffnen. Noch in diesem Jahr plant der Kremlherrscher, einen eigenen Fernsehkanal in Deutschland zu starten. Hier sind die vier Fakten, die jeder dazu kennen sollte:

1. Ausgangspunkt der Putin’schen Pläne ist der vom russischen Staat 2005 gegründete und finanzierte Auslandsfernsehsender RT, der bis 2009 Russia Today hieß. Das Ziel von RT ist es, dem Publikum die ‚russische Sichtweise‛ auf das internationale Geschehen vorzustellen und ein Gegengewicht zu ‚westlichen Medien‛ zu bilden. Nach eigenen Angaben wird RT in mehr als 100 Ländern weltweit von rund 664 Millionen Menschen gesehen.
2. Bis Ende dieses Jahres soll das im November 2014 gegründete deutschsprachige Internetangebot RT Deutsch, das bis jetzt ausschließlich online bereitsteht und zusätzlich einen YouTube-Kanal betreibt, zu einem eigenen Fernsehsender ausgebaut werden: Für den „modernen und dynamischen TV-Sender“ (RT Eigenwerbung) sollen nach eigenen Angaben 200 neue Mitarbeiter eingestellt werden: Redaktionsleiter, Redakteure, IT-Administratoren, Moderatoren, Korrespondenten, Kameraleute und auch PR-Fachkräfte.

"RT DE, wie das Portal nun heißt, ist auf dem Studiogelände in Berlin Adlershof angesiedelt, wo auch die Talkshow von Anne Will produziert wird.

No doubt "Putin TV" will find many enthusiastic viewers among the "Putin-Versteher" in the far-right AfD and far-left DieLINKE parties. 

Putin's Useful Idiots on the Far-Right (AfD) and Far-Left (LINKE)

Usually the right-wing AfD and the left-wing die LINKE parties in Germany are at loggerheads with very different policy ideas for the nation.  But they are united in their disgust for liberal democracy:  the AfD would like to establish a type of Volksgemeinshaft consisting only of ethnic Germans while the Left Party is nostalgic for a soviet-like nationalization of industry and abolishing market capitalism.  So I guess it is not so surprising that both extreme parties admire Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.  This embrace of Putin by both the far left and the far right has come to the forefront with the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.  While all the evidence point to yet another assassination attempt engineered by the Kremlin, leaders of the LINKE and the AfD promote a conspiracy theory that Navalny was the victim of a "false flag" operation carried out by opponents of the Nortstream 2 gas deal between Russia and Germany:  

For example, Gregor Gysi, the former left-wing party leader of the Bundestag, made sure people sat up on Friday. In the MDR, the 72-year-old warned of bias against the Russian president. What interest should Putin have in ordering something like that? He knows it will deteriorate relations with the West. He has enough penalties on his neck. Putin would have been particularly stupid if he had to order that, and so I don’t believe it. “

Instead, Gysi speculated about agents who might have gone insane, or talked about troops trying to torpedo the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. ‘It may also be an opponent of the natural gas pipeline to Germany. Or an opponent in command who knew: if you stage such a murder, which is then blamed on the government, it will deteriorate relations. And you see: it really works. Gysi said that instead of threatening sanctions now, the Russian government should first be given the opportunity to open an investigation.

[...]Gunnar Lindemann (Bundestag member of the far-right AfD)  went so far as to claim that Navalny was poisoned  “to find a reason to justify further sanctions against Russia”, as he wrote on Facebook. Navalny is therefore an American front man, paid for by the Soros Foundation and the “Clinton-Obama Clan”.

Sascha Lobo, the columnist for Der Spiegel, sees these pro-Putin conspiracies as yet another manifestation of reflexive anti-Americanism in Germany:

Antiamerikanismus ist in Deutschland außerordentlich anknüpfungsfähig in eine Vielzahl verschiedener Milieus und Gruppierungen hinein, von hart links bis rechtsextrem, in den Geschmacksrichtungen antikapitalistisch bis antifreiheitlich. Manche Menschen, die mit der Komplexität der Welt Probleme haben, sehen dann in Putin einen Gegenpol zu den USA, und wenn man das eine hasst, muss man das andere lieben. Dieses Schwarz-Weiß-Denkmuster wird von russischer Propaganda angereichert mit jeder Menge Nato-Feindschaft, ohne Rücksicht auf Geschichte, Gegenwart und Grauwerte. Als Gemeinsamkeit taugt eine tiefe Ablehnung gegen "die da oben".

Meanwhile, Navalny is recovering in a Berlin hospital and will likely continue being a thorn in the side of the Kremlin and its German allies.

Return of the Plagiarist - "KT" Guttenberg

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was a rising star in German politics until it was discovered that he had plagiarized massive sections of his doctoral dissertation.  He left Germany in 2011 for the United States where he landed on Wall Street.  From time to time a "KT" has explored making a comeback in Germany.  Two recent events have made a comeback less likely in the near future.

Recently, Der Spiegel reported that Guttenberg had lobbied the chancellery in Berlin on behalf of Wirecard AG, the fintech company that defrauded investors of millions of euros. 

Guttenberg beriet den Dax-Konzern bei dessen Expansion nach China mit seiner Investment- und Consultingfirma Spitzberg Partners. Am selben Tag habe Guttenberg eine E-Mail an Lars-Hendrik Röller, den Leiter der Abteilung für Wirtschafts-, Finanz- und Energiepolitik des Kanzleramtes und den Persönlichen Beauftragten Merkels für die G7- und G20-Gipfel, geschickt.

Darin informierte er Röller laut dem "Spiegel" über den beabsichtigten Markteintritt von Wirecard in China und bat ihn um "Flankierung im Rahmen der China-Reise" Merkels am 6. und 7. September 2019. Nach der China-Reise antwortete Röller demnach Guttenberg am 8. September per Mail, "dass das Thema bei dem Besuch in China zur Sprache gekommen und weitere Flankierung zugesagt" sei.

Evidently KT's efforts bore fruit - Wirecard's interests were discussed at the highest levels during Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing - although it is not clear whether Merkel was personally involved.  In any case, Wirecard announced shortly afterwards that it had acquired a Chinese payment processing company.

Guttenberg later said he "shocked an horrified" after Wirecard's massive fraud came to light.  This is slightly ridiculous, since - as I wrote in December - there were many signs of irregularities in Wirecard's financial reporting.  The Financial Times had been sounding the alarm for well over a year.  '

KT Guttenberg has also been active in promoting an AI software start- up Augustus Intelligence. Little is known about this secretive company, where Guttenberg has a leadership position, but it does not appear to have any real product or customers.  The tech-journalist Sascha Lobo has written that Augustus Intelligence is a Palantir-wannabe.  Palantir is the data intelligence software company that is slated to complete its IPO this year with a $20 billion valuation.

Palantir steht wie kaum ein Unternehmen für die Privatisierung der Sicherheitsbehörden, für die Übernahme eines Teils staatlicher Hoheitsgewalt mit digitalen Mitteln. Über Palantir gab es Gerüchte, viele Produkte seien untauglich oder luftschlossig. Aber die Verheißung, mithilfe künstlicher Intelligenz endlich den perfekten Überwachungs- und Sicherheitsapparat zu schaffen, hat Palantir noch immer für Behörden und besonders die konservative Politik attraktiv erscheinen lassen.

Palantir is a dream platform for authoritarian regimes such a China, Russia, or Turkey - as well as for wannabe authoritarians such as the Trump administration.  Augustus Intelligence evidently wants to compete with its own "dictator-ware" offering.

Democracy Fading in Eastern Germany

The results of yesterday state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony should be a wake-up call for all Germans.  The Alternative for Germany (AfD)  - a profoundly anti-democratic party - surged to become the second largest political party in both states. The AfD gained more than 550,000 votes over the last elections, half of which came from new voters, including young voters. To make matters worse, the AfD party in those states is led by an extreme right-wing contingent (der "Flügel") that promotes the völkisch ideal of a genetically homogeneous Germanic Volk, and all others - even with German citizenship - are Auslānder who should be expelled from sacred German soil.  One gathers that the AfD would like to bring back the Nazi requirement of Ariernachweis for German citizenship.  Indeed, the rhetoric of the Flügel has its roots in Nazi propaganda: 

Ideologisch ist man sich in diesen Kreisen völlig einig mit Nazis: Es gibt ein "deutsches Volk", und zwar ein genetisch definiertes. Es ist besser als die anderen "Völker" und muss deshalb "verteidigt" werden. Zum Beispiel gegen die ständige lästige Erinnerung an die entsetzlichen Verbrechen, die dieses angeblich doch bessere "Volk" begangen hat. Und gegen die "Selbstvernichtung" durch "Multikultipropaganda" (Kalbitz).

Some observers argue that many AfD voters do not actually buy into the extremist views of its leaders, that their votes are really "protest votes."  But Andreas Kalbitz, the Afd leader in Brandenburg, is known for palling around with neo-Nazis and even hung a swastika from a hotel window in Athens.  They voted for him anyway.  I do believe that the AfD achieved its electoral success not despite the extremism of the Flügel but because of it.  In the past, the recipient of the protest vote in the east was the far-left die LINKE.  But a surprising number of these left voters have now defected to the AfD - more or less switching allegiance from Stalin to Hitler. 

The results of yesterday's vote will not just impact Brandenburg and Saxony, but have implications for the entire German nation.  From time to time, I read the daily newsletter from the political journalist/writer Gabor Steingart.  This morning Herr Steingart wrote:

"Die bisherige bundesdeutsche Normalität – wenn die CDU verliert, gewinnt die SPD – gilt schon länger nicht mehr. Auch die Geschichte des gestrigen Wahlabends ist eine Geschichte, die von einer Gesellschaft auf Wanderschaft erzählt. Sie handelt von Transformation und Disruption, die vor allem dann deutlich werden, wenn man auf die Details der Wahlanalyse schaut."

In other words, the vote yesterday was a turning point:  Germany must now come to terms with the fact that sizable number of its citizens - and not just in the east - have turned their backs on democracy.

See my earlier post: AfD Leader Björn Höcke Channels Adolf Hitler

 

Angela Merkel Schools Far-Right Politician on Meaning of Democracy

The other day Angela Merkel held a forum in the eastern city of Stralsund - a stronghold of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party (AfD).  An AfD local politician confronted the chancellor, accusing her of instituting a "dictatorship" and suppressing freedom of expression in Germany.   Her calm response to this outburst was impressive, and shows that she really is still the leader of the free world .

As Christian Stöcker writes in Der Spiegel, the AfD politician espouses a völkisch worldview that at its root is totalitarian:

Es handelt sich um die Ideologie des Völkischen. Sie besagt, ganz verkürzt, dass es so etwas wie ein genetisch, nicht etwa geografisch oder rechtlich definierbares "deutsches Volk" gibt. Dieses "deutsche Volk" ist per se besser als die übrigen "Völker". Weniger kriminell zum Beispiel. Kriminell sind vor allem die Ausländer! [...]Hat man diese Ideologie von den überlegenen Volksdeutschen, über die man nie so richtig öffentlich reden darf, erst einmal verinnerlicht, sieht die Welt plötzlich ganz anders aus. Man selbst ist im Besitz einer ewigen Wahrheit, fast alle anderen leben in ständigem Irrtum. Das Verhältnis entspricht dem von religiösen Fanatikern und "Häretikern", Ungläubigen.

(This represents the völkisch Ideology. It maintains, in short, that there exists a genetically - rather than geographically or legally - determined Geman Volk. This "German Volk" is better than other Volk.  Less criminal, for example. It's the foreigners that are criminal!.  Once one has embraced this ideology of the superior German Volk - about which one cannot speak openly, the world suddenly seems very different.  One is now in possession of an eternal truth - everyone else is living a lie. This behavior resembles that of fanatics and "Heretics", or apostates).

What must have enraged the AfD politician was Angela Merkel's calm support for democratic pluralistic society.  Pluralism is anathema to the völkisch worldview:

Tatsächlich hat die AfD mit gesellschaftlicher Pluralität ein großes Problem, Pluralität und völkisches Denken schließen einander nämlich aus.

(In fact social plurality is huge problem for the AfD.  Plurality and the völkisch mindset are mutually exclusive.)

Even though Angela Merkel is viewed as something as a lame duck chancellor at this stage, there is no one else on the world stage who is as effective in standing up for democratic principles,

Return of the Fememord

At 10:45 a.m. on June 24, 1922, Walther Rathenau, the Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republicd departed his home in Berlin in his open car heading for his office. His car turned at the corner of the Wallotstrasse onto the Königsallee. As the driver finished the turn, a six-seated dark gray automobile pulled up alongside of Rathenau's car and then cut him off. Three men were in the large vehicle. One of the gentlemen lifted a submachine gun, pointed it at Rathenau, and fired five times. A second gentleman threw a hand grenade into Rathenau's car. The six-seated vehicle sped away; Rathenau was dead.

Leading up to the assassination, armies of right-wing extremists marched through the streets of the capital chanting:

Knallt ab den Walther Rathenau!
Der Gott-verfluchte Juden-sau!
[Shoot down Walther Rathenau/ The God-forsaken Jewish sow!]

The Nazi seizure of power didn't happen for another 11 years, but some viewed the assassination of Walther Rathenau as the beginning of the demise of the Weimar Republic. The historian Sebastian Haffner was an admirer of the charismatic Rathenau.  In his memoir Geschichte eines Deutschen (see my review) Haffner recalls his devastation upon learning of Rathernau's assissnation:

"Rathenau und Hitler sind die beiden Erscheinungen, die die Phantasie der deutschen Masse aufs äußerste gereizt haben: der eine durch seine unfaßliche Kultur, der andere durch seine unfaßliche Gemeinheit".

Rathenau's murder was the most spectacular of the many political murders by right-wing extremists in the Weimar Republic.  These were known as Fememorde.  Between 1918 and the mid 1920s, Germany was rocked by murder after murder. The victims all had a connection: they were killed for political reasons. And their deaths were made possible by right-wing extremist groups that played on racism, nationalism, and economic anxiety to stoke fear and hatred. By 1922, at least 354 government members and politicians had been murdered, setting the stage for the rise of the Nazis.

On the evening of June 2, 2019, Walter Lübcke, a regional politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), walked out onto the veranda of his residence in Kassel and was shot through the head by a sniper.  For years, Lübcke had been receiving death threats by Nazis and other right-wing groups because of his pro-immigrant stance.  His private address was shared on extremist social-media platforms.  The far-right politician, Erika Steinbach, called for his "removal" from Germany.  It came as no surprise, then, that the prime suspect arrested in Lübcke's assassination turned out to be a Nazi:

"The man who was arrested at the weekend in connection with the shooting of Walter Lübcke on 2 June is believed to have an association with the militant neo-Nazi group Combat 18 among others. [...] Investigators say they consider Stephan E to be close to the Hesse branch of the far-right National Democratic party (NPD) as well as having contact with Combat 18. The 18 in the group’s name refers to the first and eighth letters of the alphabet – A and H – far-right code for Adolf Hitler."

The assassination of Walter Lübcke and the knife attack on Cologne's mayor Henriette Reker could be just the beginning of a new wave of Fememorde.  Mayors of both large and small cities across Germany are now routinely subjected to death threats from right-wing groups. 

"Mehr als 1000 Bürgermeister hat „Kommunal“ in den vergangenen Tagen dazu befragt, ob sie oder Mitarbeiter der Verwaltung schon einmal Hass-E-Mails bekommen haben, oder gar körperlich bedroht wurden. Die Ergebnisse sind bemerkenswert: Jeder fünfte Bürgermeister berichtet von Hass-E-Mails, genauso von Einschüchterungsversuchen. In jeder zwölften Kommune wurde mindestens ein Mitarbeiter oder Gemeinderat körperlich angegriffen. 2016 hatte „Kommunal“ schon einmal Bürgermeister befragt. Damals waren es sechs Prozent, die von Übergriffen berichteten. Nun sind es acht. Jeder vierte Bürgermeister konnte von Schmierereien am Rathaus oder anderen Beschädigungen berichten."