A German State's Losing Battle Against Extremism(Neo-Nazis Elected in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)

[stockholmer]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,784686,00.html

Neo-Nazis have been left to thrive in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which includes prominent members who have glorified the Third Reich, won up to a third of the vote in some districts in Sunday's regional election, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,784333,00.html say analysts and anti-racism groups.

Far-right supporters are firmly ensconced in rural communities, where they staff the local fire departments, run leisure activities for young people and even provide citizen's advice for welfare claimants. They live in a vacuum, in small towns and villages abandoned by mainstream democratic parties and by overstretched, underfunded local authorites, and are often free to express their ideology unhindered by the police or courts.

The village of Jamel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,737471,00.html dominated by neo-Nazis, is a case in point. A signpost by the roadside shows the distance to Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn. A reporter recently recorded a video of a rusty barbecue inscribed with the words "happy holocaust" -- http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,784520,00.html a flagrant breach, many would argue, of Germany's tough laws against incitement to hatred. But there it stands, behind a barbed-wire fence in the garden of the local NPD office.

The NPD won 6.0 percent of the overall vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, enough to remain represented in the state parliament for a second five-year term. The NPD, which has five seats the Mecklenburg parliament, has been described by the German domestic intelligence agency as being a "racist, anti-Semitic, revisionist" party bent on removing democracy and forming a Fourth Reich. However, the party has not yet succeeded in landing any seats in the federal parliament, the Bundestag.

snip




The NPD placards, such as "Stop the Polish Invasion" and "Criminal Foreigners Out" -- with the word "criminal" printed in small letters -- are so offensive that they are are alarming foreign visitors and threatening tourism, one of the state's most important industries. Hotel owners have called for future elections in the state to be held in the winter, outside the tourist season.

[bayareamike]

1. Ironic considering that

the SPD (the social democrats of Germany) won the most votes (about 36%). Also, I'm not sure I would qualify this is as a "losing" battle, considering that in this year's election the NPD took 6% of the vote which is down about 1.3 percent from the last election in 2006. Support for the far right wing party dropped in this election while support for the left leaning party, the SPD, markedly increased.

[MissHoneychurch]

3. I was about to say the same

the NPD lost votes in the election. But still. In some towns they won up to 30%. That is what the article is referring to.

[DCKit]

4. Not much different from the 28% support for our racical teahadii candidates.

pResident Michelle Bachmann? In what world is the idea even acceptable? The same goes for the rest of the (R) slate.

[JVS]

2. This election was very good for the SPD and the Left party

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Germany's version of Teabaggery:

Sans the misspelled signs.

[Blue_Tires]

9. +1

[pampango]

6. Right wing nationalism and xenophobia seem to go hand-in-hand.

The former communist east of Germany suffered chronic depopulation after unification in 1990 triggered by an economic slump. Mecklenburg was particularly hard hit. A generation of sullen young men has found solace and company in far-right groups.

The Mecklenburg port city of Rostock saw Germany's worst post-war anti-immigrant riots, in August 1992, when hundreds of extremists attacked a building housing asylum-seekers with Molotov cocktails, watched by neighbors who applauded them. Rostock marked the start of a wave of xenophobic attacks across eastern Germany where foreigners were seen as scapegoats for the upheaval that followed unification.

The per-capita incidence of violent far-right crimes in Mecklenburg is the fifth-highest among Germany's 16 states, according to figures from the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The four states with higher crime rates are all in eastern Germany.

"We can't project a cosmopolitan image if there are posters in almost every village saying "Foreigners Out," said Wolf-Dieter Ringguth, the chairman of the Mecklenburg Lakes Tourism Federation. "Many hotel owners have had to explain to their guests that the number of posters in no way relates to the number of voters."

From the right wing perspective you have to be able to blame "them" for your problems. There aren't enough Jews left in Germany to represent a plausible "them" so the far right has shifted the focus to foreigners.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. There has been resentment among some segments in Germany against the Turkish foreign workers

who came "temporarily" in the Sixties and stayed. They were given public assistance in housing, subsidies, etc. and brought in their families to join them in Germany. There are immigrants from other countries as well as Turkey now. This demographic is what fuels the rightwing national socialist groups whose goal is to "rid" Germany of the presence of these immigrants.

[Odin2005]

8. Oh dear, that's where my mom's side of the family comes from.

NOT GOOD!!! :(

[jberryhill]

10. Your Mom is a Pomeranian?

[Odin2005]

13. LOL, her great-grandfather was from Mecklenburg.

[jberryhill]

15. I'm part Schnauzer

[DefenseLawyer]

11. One of my best friends moved to Germany about 15 years ago

Went as a student, ended up staying, eventually became a German citizen. In the time he has been there he has gone from an educated, liberal musician to a right wing crackpot. I'm not saying he's a nazi, but he's so anti-government and "survival of the fittest" now that he borders on being an anarchist. It's been a pretty shocking transformation.

[Starry Messenger]

12. recommended

[and-justice-for-all]

14. Germany needs to stomp that shit out...it is intolerable and revolting.nt