German city of Dresden declares 'Nazi emergency'

[Initech]

The German city of Dresden has declared a "Nazi emergency" after years of "right-wing extremist, racist" activity in the city, a local councilor says.

Dresden city councilors this week passed a resolution warning that the far-right was growing in strength in the eastern German city.
"The word 'Nazinotstand' is an exaggerated formulation for the fact that there is a serious problem -- similar to the climate emergency -- with right-wing extremism right up to the middle of society," Max Aschenbach, councilor for the satirist Die Partei (The Party), told CNN.
Aschenbach, who tabled the motion, told CNN the move was symbolic and would have no legal consequences, but that it served to highlight the threat posed by the far right in Dresden.

Dresden is where the the PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) first emerged in 2013, and regular rallies are still held in the city.

Anti-immigrant sentiment runs high in the state of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital: The Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) won 27.5% of the vote in this year's state election.
The AfD became the first far-right party to enter Germany's national parliament in almost 60 years when it came in third place overall in federal elections in 2017.
Aschenbach said his resolution, which was put forward to show commitment to a "democratic, open, pluralistic society," was put to a vote by Dresden's city council on Wednesday, and passed by 39 votes to 29.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/02/europe/nazi-emergency-dresden-grm-intl/index.html

Holy shit, this is Dresden here. If they see that Nazis are a problem, they are a problem! Fuck Nazis!

[progree]

1. This The Nation article delves into Nazism and similar in Germany

The Neo-Nazi Murder Haunting Germany
The assassination of a local politician is waking up the country to the threat of the radical right.
https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazi-germany/

After discussing the above ...

Whatever we eventually learn as the investigation of Ernst proceeds, experts on right-wing extremism have long suspected that the Office of Constitutional Protection isn’t living up to its name. Most notoriously, the office and the country’s other security services failed to stop a series of murders of immigrants from 2000 to 2007 by a terrorist cell called the National Socialist Underground. “There’s been a tendency to underestimate the potential for right-wing terror for a long time,” said Kai Arzheimer, a professor of politics at the University of Mainz who studies right-wing parties.

There has also been a disturbing wave of violence against local officials. There was Henriette Reker, who was seriously wounded in a knife attack during her successful 2015 campaign for mayor of Cologne. There was a small-town mayor in eastern Germany, Markus Nierth, who resigned in 2015 after a neo-Nazi demonstration outside his house. “Papa, I’m afraid of the Nazis,” his young son told him. There was a Social Democratic leader in the town of Bocholt, Thomas Purwin, who stepped down in December 2016 after threats to his family. There was another small-town mayor, Andreas Hollstein, who was stabbed in November 2017 by a man shouting about refugees.

This list could continue: The Association of German Cities says 40 percent of city council members and 20 percent of mayors in Germany reported having received threats. In 2018 more than 1,200 crimes were recorded against local officials.

...

All of this news is bad, but it gets worse, because for the first time since 1945, there is now a strong right-wing party in German politics, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It has the third-largest caucus in the federal Bundestag and is represented in all 16 state parliaments. And in recent state elections in eastern Germany, it made further inroads. The AfD thus achieved something that its postwar extremist precursors never did: It has brought the far right back into everyday political life.

[Backseat Driver]

2. Whoa...watchful waiting?

[Blue_true]

3. Dresden is in what used to be East Germany.

The East has lagged way behind the West in terms of well paying jobs. The gap hasn't closed after 35+ years. That has made eastern cities furtile places for extremists.