German public discourse has been getting a lot shriller over the course of the year as the unprecedented influx of refugees into Europe and, in particular, Germany brought out the best - lots of helping hands by citizens - and some of the worst - several attacks on shelters per week, calls for a border fence, and more.
German officialdom was very reluctant to focus on the country's extreme right, as we discussed in the June 2015 post German officials and extremism: always mention right and left together.
The recent stabbing of a mayoral candidate and one other person in the million strong city of Cologne marked another low. The candidate was released after two weeks and is undergoing rehab before taking over the office of mayor, because she did win the election.
Much of the current debate on the rise of the right deals with the self-proclaimed anti-islamization movement Pegida. The one year old loose organization's regular Monday night demonstrations in the city of Dresden draw several thousand. prompt counter demonstrations and feature speeches with hateful content.
While Pegida is a xenophobic movement, they happily embrace equally minded immigrants, such as Turkish born German author Akif Pirinçci, who voiced regret at a demonstration two weeks ago that "concentration camps are currently closed".
He is being investigated for hate speech because of this statement.
The latest Nazi reference at the 2 November event came from the co-organizer Bachmann and caused instant outrage in the press and on social media.
The headlines were minor variants of "Bachmann compares Justice Minister Maas to Goebbels", or "Maas compared to Nazi Goebbels". Members of Mr. Maas' social democratic party mounted a vigorous defense, calling for hate speech prosecution, condemning demonstrators as "PEGIDIOTS", despicable arsonists, and more.
It looked pretty clear cut until we read some articles and found the quote from the speech calling Mr. Maas "einer
der schlimmsten geistigen Brandstifter seit Goebbels und Karl-Eduard von
Schnitzler". Our translation: one of the worst intellectual arsonists since Goebbels and Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler.
You know Gobbels but von Schnitzler, with that aristocratic sounding "von" to boot? Schnitzler was fired from his broadcasting job in the West German city of Hamburg in 1947 and moved to the Soviet occupied East Germany where he joined its broadcaster. As host of Der Schwarze Kanal, which ran for 20 minutes every Monday night, Schnitzler edited together extracts of Western television footage and recorded caustic, virulently anti-Western commentary over it.
History tells us that Goebbels qualifies as a much bigger villain, so the upset about mentioning him and not von Schnitzler in the headlines is understandable.
As a component of the address, though, bringing the two propagandists into a single sentence is a textbook example of discourse, hilarious and scary at the same time.
For now, Mr. Mass has proven the greater man by not filing a hate speech complaint. If you ask the blogster, there's probably going to be more than one future occasion for a complaint.
The social democrats have a much easier time drawing very clear boundaries with Pegida than the conservatives. No matter how you slice and dice it, it can be difficult to figure out who is who on the right.
If two local politicians call their naturalized priest "our negro", and you are not told what party or organization the politicians belong to, what's your guess?
That's how two local CSU politicians in Bavaria came to hand in their resignation.
Finally, at least German conservatives would be well advised to keep the amount of noise over any Goebbels reference limited. After all, it was CDU Chancellor Kohl who pulled a Goebbels comparison versus then Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in 1986. There is no need for a debate on any evil empire notion here.
[Update] Changed "a negro" to the officially quoted "our negro". Added Kohl L.A. Times link, though Newsweek is the original source.
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