NPD breakthrough in Saxony:
Nazi parties turn popular resentment into votes
Graeme Atkinson in Berlin, Searchlight October 2004 22
THE NAZI National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD),
the party the German government tried unsuccessfully to outlaw last year,
has made a major electoral breakthrough in Saxony. Crashing through the 5%
threshold needed to win seats, it polled 9.2% in regional elections on 19
September, giving it 12 seats in the 126-seat parliament in Dresden.
 The
vote for the fascists in eastern Germany's biggest state was a shock for
the mainstream Christian Democrats CDU and Social Democrats SPD, both of
which saw their own vote fall.
Presenting itself as a radical party of anti-system protest with such
slogans as "German money for German interests", the NPD cashed in on the
deep resentment that voters feel towards Gerhard Schroder's federal SPD-Green
coalition government and its programme of economic reforms. For the SPD,
the Saxony result was little short of an embarrassment. The party won a
pitiful 9.8%, only 0.6% more than the nazis. But the main loser was CDU,
which dropped almost 16% and lost its absolute majority.
Commenting on his party's success, the NPD's lead
candidate Holger Apfel said it was "a great day for Germans who still want
to be Germans". Apfel is often to be seen at demonstrations commemorating
Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess and is an associate of the British National
Party. When Apfel went into a studio to boast of his success on
television, candidates of all the other parties walked out rather than
share a platform with a nazi.
Paul Spiegel, the head of Germany's 100,000-strong
Jewish community, has urged caution in evaluating the NPD vote, pointing
out that the result "should not be over-dramatised", but at the same time
making it clear that "a party that makes antisemitic and xenophobic
propaganda does not belong in any parliament".
The NPD was founded in 1964 and in the 1960s held seats
in seven West- Germany regional parliaments. Membership has increased from
3,500 in 1996 to around 5,000 today. Its previous biggest regional vote
was in 1968 when it polled 9.8% in Baden-Wurttemberg. In elections to the
federal parliament the NPD has generally fared miserably, most recently in
2002 when it scored only 0.4%.
In the past five years the NPD has raised its profile by
organising itself on a more professional basis and by working assiduously
to sink roots in local communities hit by the worsening economic climate.
The NPD can be legitimately characterised as a successor
organisation to Hitler's NSDAP and is associated with violent and
terrorist activities against asylum seekers and political opponents. For
example, Uwe Leichsenring, an NPD campaign organiser in Saxony, was
involved with the Skinheads Saxon Switzerland (SSS) an organisation banned
two years ago after it was discovered to be hoarding illegal arms and
proved responsible for violence against immigrants.
It was because of its nazi politics and its links with
violent skinhead gangs that the federal government started moves to ban
the NPD four years ago. The attempt ended in fiasco after a court ruled
that secret service operatives had acted as agents provocateurs in
gathering evidence.
In elections in Brandenburg on the same day, the equally
extreme German People's Union (DVU) also did well, its 6.1% vote giving it
six seats in the 88-seat regional parliament. The party, which acts as a
mouthpiece for the Munich-based multimillionaire fascist publisher and
property magnate Gerhard Frey, had engaged in massive publicity in the
region, where it has little real infrastructure, in its bid to capitalise
on anti-government sentiment.
The DVU has around 11,500 members, making it on paper the biggest fascist
party in Germany. However, it is not an activist party like the NPD and
has little appeal to younger people. Its previous best vote was Saxony-Anhalt
in 1998 when it won 12.9% in regional elections. Its gains were squandered
and subsequently lost by its incompetence and Frey's insistence on
absolute control. There is little reason to think that the outcome will be
any different in Brandenburg.
Although the fascist results are undoubtedly a warning
signal, the main winner in both ballots was the left-wing Party of
Democratic Socialism (PDS), which scored 23.6% in Saxony and 28% in
Brandenburg, where the CDU and the SPD both lost 7%.
The PDS is still the main vehicle of popular discontent
and protest in eastern Germany. With the fascists on the offensive, the
PDS now bears a great responsibility for galvanising the mainstream
against them.
Social conditions are deteriorating rapidly, especially in eastern Germany
where poverty and unemployment levels are far higher and incomes far lower
than in the west. At present, 4.39 million people are jobless and although
the national unemployment rate is 10.6%, in the former communist east it
is around 20%. The fascists are trying to exploit this by whipping up
nationalist feeling and outright racism with demands for "German jobs for
German workers". They have been especially active in the 18-35 age group
and among the jobless, where the NPD captured 26% and 18% respectively.
The political mainstream is now faced with countering this poisonous
message, and the anti-fascist movement, trade unions and the PDS with
uprooting it from the protest movement against Schroder's attempt to
dismantle the welfare state.
Europe's biggest nazi event:
Hess marchers
grow bolder
Europe's biggest nazi event with more than 4,600 fascists
marching through the small Bavarian town of Wunsiedel. The mainly German
marchers were joined by nazis from the USA, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Great
Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Hungary, Russia, Austria, Spain, Italy and Croatia...
Hartz IV:
Nazis hijack
protests against welfare cuts
The extreme right in regions such as eastern Mecklenburg-Vorpommem
has faced little opposition over many years and is able to present itself
as a "radical solution"...
Nazis brauchen Zeichen:
Zeichen des
Hasses
Nazis brauchen Symbole, Tätowierungen, Parolen, Hierarchien,
Bosse, Unterwerfung...
Click and subscribe to Searchlight Magazine
hagalil.com
03-11-2004 |
