GERMANY | Germany is struggling to ban neo-nazis

Reeling from revelations that a neo-Nazi cell allegedly robbed banks and murdered immigrants with impunity for more than a decade, the authorities have been at pains to show they’re acting against extremism.

Leading the effort is a drive to ban the far-right National Democratic Party, which is alleged to have neo-Nazi links.

All 16 German states filed a motion in the federal constitutional court to ban the NPD in December, arguing that it propagates racism and aims to overthrow the democratic government. But the court's dismissal of a similar case in 2003 suggests the going won't be easy, especially when neither Angela Merkel's government in Berlin nor parliament has joined the fight.

More than that, critics say, the move will do little to stop hardcore neo-Nazi street fighters even as it galvanizes support for a political organization that was already about to self-destruct.

Germany has tough laws to prevent the resurgence of Nazism, such as a ban on displaying the swastika and an edict that makes it illegal to deny the Holocaust.

However, constitutional protections for free speech have made it difficult to ban the NPD just because its ideology bears some similarity to Adolph Hitler's. To do that, the plaintiffs must show the party is actually working to overthrow the state through violence.

Experts say that may be very difficult to prove.

“There are some similarities between today's neo-Nazis and the Nazi Party of the 1920s and '30s,” says Bernd Wagner, a longtime veteran of the anti-extremist unit of the German police. However, he adds, the party lacks a formal structure with a leader at the top. “There are countless cells and networks with separate activities and projects and horizontal, vertical and diagonal connections.”

The danger those informal networks pose hit home in 2011, when police allegedly connected a string of bank robberies and murders to a terrorist cell that called itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

Among the group's alleged crimes are the murders of nine immigrants between 2000 and 2006, the bombing of an immigrant-owned barbershop in Cologne in 2004 and the murder of a policewoman and attempted murder of her partner in 2007.

Police initially failed to link the crimes to an ideological motive and insisted at first that the Cologne bombing couldn’t have been a terrorist attack.

It soon surfaced that the earlier effort to ban the NPD may have aided the terrorist group.

In 2012, the Interior Ministry announced it was investigating suspicions that an NPD official named Ralf Wohlleben — who had acted as a confidential informant for the authorities seeking to ban the party — had during the same period supplied the terror cell with the gun allegedly used in the murders of the nine immigrants.

The development gave ominous new meaning to the constitutional court's 2003 dismissal of the case against the NPD.

Back then, the court ruled that the authorities had flooded the party with so many undercover agents and informants that it was impossible to ascertain whether its alleged plotting to overthrow the government had actually been hatched in the minds of the police.

Now it looked as if they had also indirectly supplied the weapons.

“Wohlleben and other functionaries of the NPD were also active in this terror network,” says Wagner, who now heads a group that helps neo-Nazis who want to leave the movement.

“Even though in public they presented themselves as a non-violent democratic party, at the same time they were providing support and logisitics for violent activities.”

Prompted toward new vigilance by the revelations, the Interior Ministry reopened investigations into some 3,300 unsolved murders and attempted murders committed between 1990 and 2011. As a result, nearly 750 cases were added to the 60 killings previously attributed to right-wing extremists.

The 16 state governments now seeking to ban the NPD argue that the party gives the network real political power. They allege that as many as 1 out of 3 party members is a convicted criminal or faces police investigation, according to a copy of the complaint leaked to a German newspaper.

By providing the NPD with the state funding afforded to all German political parties, German taxpayers are essentially paying for the neo-Nazi groups' propaganda, the interior minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia argued.

“We can't be the shoemaker who continually resoles their combat boots with this party financing,” Ralf Jäger told German media after the case was lodged.

However, police say it will be difficult to establish the existence of a command structure or a money trail from allegations that the membership rosters of the NPD and informal Kameradschaften, or “fellowships” of neo-Nazis, share some common names.

There's little or no direct proof to suggest that the NPD operates like the political wing of a broader, militant neo-Nazi movement — as Sinn Fein acted for the IRA in Ireland, says Oliver Stepien of the Berlin police.

“The inland intelligence service and our own information suggests that the neo-Nazi action groups try to use the NPD structure to advance their own goals,” he says.

“But there's no general rule that the NPD pays for the lawyers when a right-wing activist is accused of a crime. In fact, the party distances itself from the action groups when they break the law.”

Some worry that the renewed effort to ban the NPD will galvanize its supporters and bolster its credibility with the hard-core street fighters just as it's about to fade away on its own.

The NPD has seats in only two state parliaments and no presence whatsoever in the Bundestag. In recent elections, it won a paltry 1.3 percent of the popular vote, although that total is much higher than the support it earned between 1990 and 2005.

The party is also practically broke. Its 300,000 euro ($410,000) annual government subsidy has already been frozen due to an outstanding fine of 1.27 million euros ($1.7 million) for accounting irregularities.

And it was thrown into disarray in December when former party chairman Holger Apfel was drummed out following allegations of a “homosexual assault.”

Bringing the full might of the German court system to bear now could grant the party new legitimacy in the minds of potential supporters as well as stoke long-held resentment toward the liberal state's supposed persecution of “patriotic” Germans.

And it would do nothing to eliminate the neo-Nazi “fellowships” and other informal networks that keep the underground movement alive, Wagner says.

“Some might say,” he says, “that the federal government is just trying to silence its critics.”

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/international/article/1702/germany-is-struggling-to-ban-neo-nazis

For obvious reasons Germany has more reason than most other countries to fear an upsurge in RW extremism.
I wish them well in doing what they can to prevent it going as far as it did last time.

So do I. Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.    

There will be a few on here and many on another, failing racist rw forum only too eager to enlist.

Sassy wrote:So do I.   Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.     

None of the far right have Nazi affiliations either, they don't wear the WW2 uniform.   

Handy Andy wrote:There will be a few on here and many on another, failing racist rw forum only too eager to enlist.

This place is starting to crawl with them, or rather, they are stamping around in their jackboots all over the place.

    

Hardly surprising really, they've had 70 years of collective shame rammed down their throats, some might see it as a sign of a balanced society, it could be that Germany has come to terms with its past, a bit like post colonial Britain, we've both found our place in the modern world, however I think it is always wise to observe any growth in neo nazism, the lamy-Verheugen plan is something both France and Germany seem keen to keep playing down, one must remember Germans do not make mistakes,,,,,,other than the greatest.

Sassy wrote:So do I.   Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.     

only muslim terrorists

smelly_bandit wrote:

Sassy wrote:So do I.   Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.     

only muslim terrorists

Really? This was done by two white right-wingers:



168 dead, including six children and three pregnant women; nearly 700 wounded.

Timothy McVeigh:

Even many who agreed with some of McVeigh's politics viewed his act as counterproductive, with much of the criticism focused on the deaths of innocent children; critics expressed chagrin that McVeigh had not assassinated specific government leaders. McVeigh had indeed contemplated the assassinations of Attorney General Janet Reno, Lon Horiuchi, and others in preference to attacking a building,[24] and after the bombing he said that he sometimes wished he had carried out a series of assassinations instead.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/30/uksecurity.sarahhall

But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.

Catman wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/30/uksecurity.sarahhall

No ones going to watch it you dumb shit.

Shady wrote:

Catman wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/30/uksecurity.sarahhall

No ones going to watch it you dumb shit.

Phyllis has had many a Wank over this video.

ALLAKAKA wrote:

Shady wrote:

No ones going to watch it you dumb shit.

Phyllis has had many a Wank over this video.

I can smell him from here.

Shady wrote:

ALLAKAKA wrote:




Phyllis has had many a Wank over this video.

I can smell him from here.

It could be that ATOS base their assessments on WRIST MOVEMENTS.




    

ALLAKAKA wrote:

Shady wrote:

I can smell him from here.

It could be that ATOS base their assessments on WRIST MOVEMENTS.




    

Alright,I'll be honest.....I didn't know what ATOS meant.But I do now.

Would they assess his mouth movements as well?

Shady wrote:But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.

so you are condoning the "right" becoming baby killers when there is a govt in power they disagree with?? Is THAT what you are saying.

smelly_bandit wrote:

Sassy wrote:
So do I.   Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.    

 

only muslim terrorists

 

YOU'RE still as big an idiot as always, Smelly_Bum_Bandit !!!

ALWAYS have been, always will be, by all indications so far..

The 'Provincial' IRA, The'Real'IRA, KKK, Irish "loyalists", Red Brigade, BNP, Girl Guides, EDL, Golden Dawn, the Boys Brigade, the National Front, various "Marxist" groups in central America and Asia, Aum Shiniryko (Aleph) ~ Yeh, right; all terrorist groups are "Muslims" in Smelly's rabid imaginings !

OR, maybe not all terrorist groups are "terrorist" groups unless they meet Smelly's definitions ??   

Shady wrote:
But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.

  

NOW THEN, Shady !!! Really..

THAT comment is just plain silly !

 ::hdintowll:: 

grumpy old git wrote:

Shady wrote:But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.

so you are condoning the  "right"  becoming baby killers when there is a govt in power they disagree with?? Is THAT what you are saying.

.......But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.......

Please point out where I have said anything about baby killers in my 18 word sentence.

Beekeeper wrote:

Shady wrote:
But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.

  

NOW THEN, Shady  !!!   Really..

THAT comment is just plain silly !

 ::hdintowll:: 

Well not really Beekeeper & it's what I genuinely believe.Now I'm not saying that right wingers are correct in everything they do,far from it.But left wingers are in a league of their own when it comes to politics & common sense.........They just don't seem able to understand that what they do is so wrong.

Shady wrote:

grumpy old git wrote:

so you are condoning the  "right"  becoming baby killers when there is a govt in power they disagree with?? Is THAT what you are saying.

.......But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.......

Please point out where I have said anything about baby killers in my 18 word sentence.

So...what are the "these kind of things" to which you refer??

smelly_bandit wrote:

Sassy wrote:So do I.   Of course, there's no such thing as a RW Terrorist is there.     

only muslim terrorists

Shows how truly illiterate you are then.

grumpy old git wrote:

Shady wrote:


.......But these are the kind of things that happen when left wingers are in power & have influence.......

Please point out where I have said anything about baby killers in my 18 word sentence.

So...what are the "these kind of things" to which you refer??

If you can qualify why & how you twisted my post to include baby killers,I'll think about answering your question.

Not only Germany as stated already. If only we had Germany to worry about, then it would at least be contained to some degree. We have Nazis in all corners of our world our leading governments are totally infected with the Nazi disease.

We see the nazi regime working in the way of racism by its advertising, in the brutal way the elderly and disabled are treated. Remember the nazi labs? Now look at these so called medical treatments; many of these treatments are nothing more than toxic experiments. I would lay money down in saying these experiments have failed time and time again, resulting only in the killing how many, babies, children men and women?

Stop using the word Nazi, it seems to be the most over used word on this forum,and most have just picked up the word to use as an insult,and most don't understand what it really means.

nicko wrote:Stop using the word Nazi, it seems to be the most over  used word on this forum,and most have just picked up the word to use as an insult,and most don't understand what it really means.

Hello, This is the subject!

captainJane wrote:We see the nazi regime working in the way of racism by its advertising, in the brutal way the elderly and disabled are treated.  Remember the nazi labs? Now look at these so called medical treatments; many of these treatments are nothing more than toxic experiments. I would lay money down in saying these experiments have failed time and time again, resulting only in the killing how many, babies, children men and women?  

What the Tories are up to now is a cull of the poor, similar to what went on in WW2.

    

captainJane wrote:

nicko wrote:Stop using the word Nazi, it seems to be the most over  used word on this forum,and most have just picked up the word to use as an insult,and most don't understand what it really means.

Hello, This is the subject!

Indeed it is!

Catman wrote:

captainJane wrote:We see the nazi regime working in the way of racism by its advertising, in the brutal way the elderly and disabled are treated.  Remember the nazi labs? Now look at these so called medical treatments; many of these treatments are nothing more than toxic experiments. I would lay money down in saying these experiments have failed time and time again, resulting only in the killing how many, babies, children men and women?  

What the Tories are up to now is a cull of the poor, similar to what went on in WW2.

    

Do you seriously think that if today's government were in any way similar to the Nazis, you'd still be sitting in your little flat, paid for by the government, getting pissed with money given to you by the government?

Twat.

Tess. wrote:

Catman wrote:

What the Tories are up to now is a cull of the poor, similar to what went on in WW2.

    

Do you seriously think that if today's government were in any way similar to the Nazis, you'd still be sitting in your little flat, paid for by the government, getting pissed with money given to you by the government?

Twat.

People are dying due to this governments policies, you ignorant little bitch, whether you choose to accept that fact or not.

Catman wrote:

captainJane wrote:We see the nazi regime working in the way of racism by its advertising, in the brutal way the elderly and disabled are treated.  Remember the nazi labs? Now look at these so called medical treatments; many of these treatments are nothing more than toxic experiments. I would lay money down in saying these experiments have failed time and time again, resulting only in the killing how many, babies, children men and women?  

What the Tories are up to now is a cull of the poor, similar to what went on in WW2.

    

And the Labour Nazis culled a load of UK service personell by sending them to two unnecessary wars.    

Catman wrote:

Tess. wrote:
Do you seriously think that if today's government were in any way similar to the Nazis, you'd still be sitting in your little flat, paid for by the government, getting pissed with money given to you by the government?

Twat.

People are dying due to this governments policies, you ignorant little bitch, whether you choose to accept that fact or not.

UK service personnel died due to Labours policies you ignorant little bitch,whether you choose to accept that fact or not.

Beekeeper wrote:

smelly_bandit wrote:

only muslim terrorists

 

YOU'RE still as big an idiot as always, Smelly_Bum_Bandit  !!!

ALWAYS have been, always will be, by all indications so far..

The 'Provincial' IRA, The'Real'IRA, KKK, Irish "loyalists", Red Brigade, BNP, Girl Guides, EDL, Golden Dawn, the Boys Brigade, the National Front, various "Marxist" groups in central America and Asia, Aum Shiniryko (Aleph) ~ Yeh, right; all terrorist groups are "Muslims" in Smelly's  rabid imaginings !

OR, maybe not all terrorist groups are "terrorist" groups unless they meet Smelly's definitions ??                 

Correct

It all depends on your perspective

There are terrorists (Muslims)

And

There are freedom fighters

You view Mandela as a freedom fighter when in reality he was a terrorist

I see OBL as a terrorist, many Muslims do not

Catman wrote:

Tess. wrote:
Do you seriously think that if today's government were in any way similar to the Nazis, you'd still be sitting in your little flat, paid for by the government, getting pissed with money given to you by the government?

Twat.

People are dying due to this governments policies, you ignorant little bitch, whether you choose to accept that fact or not.

Such amateur dramatics