Germany Has a Serious Right-Wing Problem
Germany is experiencing a rise in right-wing violence and racist rhetoric. It needs to work to curb it — quickly.
In recent years, Germany has experienced complications due to the actions of right-wing groups in the country.
These actions have not only affected the citizens of Germany but also some political leaders and even members of the military. If the actions of right-wing groups continues to rise with not only Germany but across the EU, a ripple effect of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia will be felt across the globe.
Germany’s sordid history with right-wing groups is no secret, being the home country of the Nazi Party and the atrocities that they committed in the country and across Europe during World War II.
This caused Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to rightfully place the right-wing group Alternative for Germany under surveillance on March 3.
Alternative for Germany, or AfD as it is known within the country, is a far-right nationalist group and the largest opposition party in German Parliament.
“AfD co-chairman Alexander Gauland has talked of fighting an ‘invasion of foreigners’ and the party openly focuses on Islam and migration, seeing Islam as alien to German society. Some of the party’s rhetoric has been tinged with Nazi overtones,” the BBC explained in a 2020 briefing.
BBC further revealed that one of AfD’s key leaders likened a Holocaust memorial to a “monument of shame” and has called for a complete turnaround in how Germany handles its Nazi past.
Rhetoric of this nature is unacceptable in a country with such a tortured history with its past. Action needed to be taken against AfD to ensure the safety of not only Germany but the world over.
Dozens of lawmakers were affected by the surveillance order, and the AfD party has filed a lawsuit combatting their label as extremist and the surveillance they were put under shortly after. Members of AfD have viewed the surveillance order as a partisan move to weaken the party.
On March 5, a German court overturned the surveillance order on AfD. However, this decision does not directly impact the party’s other ongoing lawsuits.
“The court revoked the intelligence agency’s right to take further action against the party, or to publicly discuss its consideration of taking action against the party, until a final ruling is handed down in a lawsuit the party has filed to prevent the government from classifying it, or its members, as extremist,” Melissa Eddy reported in the New York Times.
NPR reports that federal investigators have spent over two years gathering information on AfD and have an estimated 800-page report on their actions. The findings accuse AfD of “violating human dignity” which is directly protected within the first article of Germany’s constitution.
“Suspicion of being a threat to democracy, based on its anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim expressions and members who have been dismissive of Germany’s crimes under the Nazis,” wrote Eddy.
Controlling and censoring AfD will be necessary in Germany the group poses a major threat to the various minority populations in Germany. AfD grew out of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy programs and now Merkel needs to work towards controlling a beast she helped create.
Over the course of 2020 and into the beginning of 2021 Germany has experienced a rise in far-right based crimes.
“According to provisional police figures released Thursday [February 4], the number of crimes committed by right-wing extremists jumped to its highest level in at least four years in 2020,” reported NBC News.
The rise in right-wing extremist crime further highlights the need to crack down on far-right groups such as AfD. Merkel must work with law enforcement across Germany to extinguish these far-right groups. An increase in security and police presence in areas where the crimes spikes occurred may be essential in ensuring that those spikes drop.
NBC News reports that the preliminary numbers say that there were almost 700 more crimes with far-right backgrounds committed in Germany during 2020 than in 2019.
Prior to the rise in far-right crime in 2020, Germany had been rocked by a synagogue shooting on Yom Kippur in October of 2019 as well as a far-right individual shooting and killing a politician and ally of Merkel in early June 2019.
Right-wing extremism has even been seen within Germany’s military in recent years.
After German citizens became stranded in a combat zone during the Rwandan civil war, Germany created an elite force known as Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK).
Since the inception of the KSK there have been fears of the rise of far-right ideologies due to Germany’s Nazi past. Recent reports show those fears may be valid.
“German military’s counter-intelligence agency, tasked with rooting out right-wing extremism in the ranks, examined 843 suspected cases of right-wing extremism in the military in 2020, according to a defense ministry report,” reported Politico.
Merkel needs to take even further action in weeding out far-right extremists from within their specialized military force. The voices of far-right groups cannot be present in the most highly trained military force in Germany, and Merkel needs to be the driving force behind silencing them.
During one investigation a police raid of the home of a KSK soldier revealed the possession of an AK-47, thousands of rounds of ammunition, plastic explosives, and Nazi devotional items including a “SS songbook”.
Unlike other countries around the world, Germany has to constantly deal with and face the repercussions of their troubled past, even at the expense of personal freedoms seen in other developed countries.
