[Editor’s note: This article by a guest writer is the first of a ‘foreign’ series that will step outside the Australian nationalist scene to investigate, review, analyse and remark on struggles elsewhere in the world. What those activists in the region the article comments on do with any suggestions or criticisms made is entirely up to themselves in line with the principles of autonomy and independence. It also fits under the ‘commentary’ category which indicates it is firstly the opinion of the individual or group of authors who penned it rather then necessarily the position of Nationalist Alternative. As part of contributing to Australian nationalist thought and free speech this site in part, acts as a think-tank and internet repository for nationalist discussion pieces which may at times provide contrasting views in some sections. The fact that this occurs simply reflects the spectrum between both method and substance in the struggle to ensure the survival of the West, its culture and its creators the white European peoples.Here in Australia the situation is very different from that described in this article. A Pro-Israeli standpoint could be risky and controversial. Islam, while still an issue in this country, is not the number one priority. If anything, probably the main threat to Australia is still the overwhelming possibility of Asianisation. The fact that the Australia-Israel Review published the names of several hundred One Nation members back in 1998 shows that Jewish groups are hostile against any political group with Nationalistic beliefs. Those that wish to lure Jewish groups into thinking that they are "kosher" will inevitably follow the path of civic patriotism rather than of true Australian Nationalism.]1 Introduction
This essay was written at the request of a comrade in the British National Party, a member of almost 3 decades. It is written by an Australian with a keen interest in German political affairs and who wants to help German nationalists win elections at the federal level in Germany today, and thereby gain office. Such a goal is possible, in my view, but not if the present course continues to be followed.
German nationalist groups - in terms of numbers, morale and organisation are superior, in my experience, to Australian groups: there is much the Australian nationalist can learn from the German. This essay is not written with the intention, not of belittling the German nationalists, but of giving them the observations of an outsider, who, perhaps, may see the present German political situation with more clarity than a German nationalist living in Germany today. Here I shall be advocating a broad range of strategies denazification, radical right-wing populism, an acceptance of liberal democracy, the use of certain safe national symbols, a new nationalism which are used, with great success, by the British National Party. It should be noted that every nationalist group, in every European and Western country, faces a different set of problems: the situation of the Swedish nationalist is not the same as that of the Spanish, or the Canadian, or the South African. So what works well for the BNP in Britain will not necessarily work in Australia, for example. But the argument of this essay is that the methods of the BNP (and the Danish Peoples Party, the Swiss Peoples Party, the Dutch Freedom Party and other radical right-wing populist European parties of that type) will work in the circumstances of Germany today.
In the following article, I will be presenting a long intellectual justification of the main theses. For the reader who is unwilling to read through what is quite a long piece of writing, I will summarise my main conclusions here:
This article proposes a new German nationalism. The elements of this nationalism are: populism; anti-Islamism and an attack on The Left for letting immigration and totalitarian Islam get out of hand; nostalgia for the good old days of culture, morals and fashions of the 1950s and 1960s, and the German economic miracle; a championing of such past German liberal democratic figures as Stresemann, Adenauer and the men of the
Reichsbanner Schwarze-Rot-Geld; and definitely no references, especially visual references, to the Third Reich and German National Socialism. (There are other elements of populist policy which could be included here too perhaps a demand for a flat income tax, or a Swiss-style system of citizen-initiated referenda. German nationalists can look to the Swiss Peoples Party, or the Dutch Freedom Party, for policy ideas. But these policies will be in response to internal German political, economic and social problems and must, in the end, be conceived by German nationalists on the ground).
Following this course of action will, I believe, prove to be spectacularly successful: German nationalists will win seats at the federal level, and win seats in large numbers as many as needed to gain political power.
2 The importance of Schmitt
In Germany today, there are two threats to the national well-being: there is an external threat, presented by Islamic immigration; an internal threat, which is the rule of a particular political and intellectual class. The latter is more dangerous. The German political parties, together with the trade unions, intellectuals, media and the rest, form a class of (primarily) baby-boomers who grew up in the post-war years and were inculcated with a hatred of Germany and German history. This class runs Germany today, and, with the aid of the strict provisions of the German constitution, the
Grundgesetz , or Basic Law, they rule with an iron fist. Which is why, in the first part of this essay, I shall be explaining the Basic Law and the peculiarities of Germanys political structure. In order to understand it and the implications for German nationalists we need to use a few concepts from the German jurist, Carl Schmitt. As they are quite complex, I shall explain them first in a broad outline. The first point is that the constitution is a system of laws which keep the country together, and is not necessarily written down on a piece of paper (Britain, for example, has no written constitution). Indeed, the most important parts of a constitution may not even be written down: they may be implied.
Schmitt calls the defining parts of a constitution substantive values; here I shall refer to them as the spirit of a constitution. One of the implications of this is that a supreme court or legislature has some leeway in interpreting what is constitutional, e.g., what is in the spirit of it, and what is not. A political party, such as the NPD, or the German Communist Party, may conform to the law, but may exist in opposition to the spirit of that law. Another important point is that constitutional forms (liberal democracy, monarchy, communism, fascism, military dictatorship) change, and can change quite often, while the people who make up that nation rarely do. Who, then, decides to make, or break, a constitutional form? In the age of democracy, it is the sovereign people. They have the power, what Schmitt calls the constituent power, to unmake constitutional forms. In the 1918 German revolution, for example, the German people made the collective decision to abandon monarchy, and vested their sovereignty in a constitutional committee who drew up what later became the Weimar constitution. The Schmittian scholar, Jan Müller, summarises this in the following paragraph.
Schmitt makes the seminal distinction between [constitution] and [constitutional law]. The former referred to the essence of the constitution, and in particular, in Schmittian parlance, its political form such as a democracy or a monarchy; the latter simply designated particular constitutional provisions. The constituting power [in most democracies, the people], according to Schmitt, had made a fundamental decision in favour of a political form of existence and this form had to be guarded and should be changed by majorities. Constitutional amendments and breaking thoughi.e., destroying] the constitution as such had to be carefully distinguished. [Müller, Jan-Werner, A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 65].
3 Liberal democratic totalitarianism
So what are the defining elements of the
Bundesrepublik ? The chief characteristic is that the institution of the political party is sovereign: not the president, nor the chancellor, nor even the powerful (and feared by nationalists) Constitutional Court. The political party has complete control over the state and all political life. Or rather, the party and the state are mutual supports, with the party filling out, and dominating, the state, and the state filling out, and dominating, the party. Modern Germany is not a one-party state, like the communist and fascist regimes of old, but a three-party state with the two major parties, the socialist SPD and the conservative CDU/CSU on one hand, and the pro-business and neoliberal FDP minor party on the other.
There is no exaggeration in saying that the Basic Law was written by and for the benefit of the post-war parties… The Party Law [Article 21] states: Parties are, in constitutional law, a necessary component of the free democratic basic order… Parties shall participate in forming the political will of the people in all fields of public life. The wording is important. By anchoring the parties in constitutional law, they are given an elevated and protected position the Constitutional Court has ruled that the parties should be regarded as Staatsorgane, literally organs of the state. Their role in forming the public will of the people imparts a superior educational function, and their participation in all fields of public life justifies their presence in the state and throughout society. Far from the constitution and the Party Law merely securing the place of the parties within the pluralis, the prevailing norms may actually restrict that order which amounts to the imposition of a form of party pluralism… [Smith, Gordon, Democracy in Western Germany: Parties and Politics in the Federal Republic, Heinemann, 1979, p.67].
The parties have made Germany this way because they wrote the constitution, a constitution which was never ratified, never voted on, by the German people. Müller mentions the views of West German intellectual, Werner Weber, on the Basic Law views which are typical of contemporary German nationalism:
Werner Weber, a former doctoral student of Schmitts, concurred that while in 1919 the German people had made a real decision, in the deliberations of the Parliamentary Council in Bonn no fundamental choices [in 1949] could be made. Rarely, in fact, had a European-Occidental constitution been created with so little publicity. [Müller, Ibid, p.66]
But the approval of the German people is not needed under the Basic Law. Why? Because the political parties have supplanted the German people:
It is undeniable that the parties in the Federal Republic have a standing unthinkable in the past. Critics have seen their rise to predominance as a move away from parliamentary democracy towards an oligarchy of the party state. In losing their previous strong attachment to ideology, the parties have emphasised that they are Volksparteien, parties of the whole people. Yet in so changing they have subtly altered their character as representatives of the people. As Gerhard Leibholz expressed it: The parties show a tendency to identify themselves with the people… They make the claim to be the people. [Smith, ibid, p.68]
Smith describes how this control extends to arms of government such as, for instance, public broadcasting:
It considered natural that the leading party should have the major say in senior appointments, but a share of subordinate posts will be controlled by the other parties. In addition, each network makes provision for supervisory bodies which (on healthy democratic grounds) are charged with the oversight of programmes and related matters concerning radio and television output. Nomination to such boards is almost entirely controlled by the parties on a shared basis. [Smith, ibid, p.71]
This leads to what, in Australia, would be considered a conflict of interest, but which, in Germany, is not viewed as one at all.
The examples of the Constitutional Court [to which judges are appointed on the basis of their political party membership] and broadcasting can be used to show that a proper democratic balance is maintained: the full participation of the parties, in competition with one another, ensures that the public interest will not be neglected. At least we can be sure that the parties will scrutinise the activities of their opponents closely: control is not left to happy chance. But the method can preclude other interests from being properly heard, and it also constitutes a denial that there can be such a thing as an impartial public service or that some kind of neutral establishment could be vested with the power of arbitration. In the Federal Republic the public interest has to be equated with the enlightened self-interest of the parties. [Smith, ibid.]
Under such a system, the possibilities for corruption are evident:
There is an awareness of the dangers which can accompany the unrestricted influence of the parties; a realisation too that it is not only the lines between the bureaucracy and the parties which may become blurred but also those between the state and the private sectors. The pervasive nature of the party state encourages the spread of a host of party connections to the trade unions and the business world. The three layers party, bureaucracy and the private domain become wedded or felted together. The latter term corresponds to the German Verfilzung, which was coined precisely to express the undesirable intimacy of the relationship especially between the SPD in some Länder and the trade unions, although in principle the idea of Verfilzung can be applied to other parties and other types of association. The financial scandals which have occasionally rocked a Land [state government] administration and its leading party show that the disquiet is not misplaced and that a reliance on the accountability of the parties does not entirely resolve the problems of democratic control… What can scarcely be disputed is that the interpenetration of state and society has proceeded too far to be reversible, whether we are concerned with appointments to the Constitutional Court or with the political sympathies operating in the selection of the director for a local Staatstheaterstate theatre]. (Smith, ibid, p.71-72.]
What happens, then, to those who object to the cosy system? The answer is, they get picked on:
The implications of patronage in the gift of a ruling party is one shadow-side of the party state, but there are other ramifications as well; if it is to be supposed that public officials do have definite political leanings and loyalty, then we should expect them to be displayed. One positive consequence is that state employees are not disbarred from political activity: a significant proportion of the Land assemblies and the Bundestag [federal parliament] membership is made up of people employed in state service. A negative consequence is that the freedom to hold political views is accompanied by an active discrimination against those whose leanings are deemed to be extremist antithetical to the free democratic basic order which is an administrative parallel to the constitutional injunction against certain types of political party. [Smith, ibid, p.72.]
As an example of such discrimination, Smith gives the famous
Radikalenerlass law of 1972, which aimed to bar Germans who held left-wing political views from the public service, on the grounds that their ideology was against the liberal democratic order.
The system of evaluation [by the government, in order to determine whether a person was radical or not] encouraged a massive bureaucratic intervention, which involved investigatory techniques, the compilation of bulky dossiers with relevant and irrelevant information, interrogations of candidates in the provision for hearings and a regular channel of appeal against decisions to be dealt with by the administrative courts… The screening process has involved perhaps a million people all told, since the net is cast wide. In addition, concern is felt about the enormous data- gathering capacity which has been established, both at Land and at federal levels. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Verfassungsschutz, and the Information Service, the Nachrichtendienst, are in a position to supply information about suspect organisations (their listing by the Verfassungsschutz is a definitive ruling as to their hostility) as well as information necessary to reach decisions in individual cases. The Länder governments also maintain their own Verfassungsschutz departments, responsible to their interior ministries and independent of the federal office, although there is co-operation between them. [Smith, ibid, p.206-207]
The
Radikalenerlass law was taken to the Constitutional Court, on the grounds that it violated the liberal right to freedom of association and free choice of occupation. In its judgement, the Court took a rather Schmittian distinction between illegality and unconstitutionality, and again in a Schmittian fashion, perceived an intent in the constitution which was not actually in the written law:
To the objection that a person should not suffer discrimination through belonging to a party which had not been found unconstitutional, the Court formulated its own new classification, distinguishing between those parties which were verfassungswidrig (found to be unconstitutional) and those which were on the lesser plane of being verfassungsfeindlich (deemed to be hostile to the constitutional order although perfectly legal). Membership of this latter category of organisation could be sufficient ground for exclusion from the public service, even though the party or association could participate fully in political life. By these means the Constitutional Court was able to justify an apparent contradiction between public service requirements and the Basic Law. The concept of Verfassungsfeindlichkeit, however, is nowhere to be found in the Basic Law. The new category also raises the question of how hostility is to be determined. In fact, the matter is left to executive discretion, to the office of the Verfassungsschutz. [Smith, p.208-209.]
Smith complains:
The continuing operation of the Radikalenerlass and the Courts ruling have done nothing to dispel a widespread belief that the West German system is intolerant, not just militant. The ripples extend beyond employment in the public service. Since its domain is so extensive, critics have claimed that exclusion amounts to a Berufsverbot, a ban on following a particular occupation. Doubtless this is an exaggeration, but the claim has some validity in relation to the field of education, which is almost entirely within the public sector, and for a part of the legal profession (or rather, those who have a university training in law), since large numbers are engaged in public administration. Nor can the issue of toleration be limited to those who, possibly with justification, are directly affected. There is, for instance, a widespread feeling in universities that to be associated in any way with radical activity or even to engage in any kind of legitimate protest could invite the attention of the authorities and thus endanger a students future career. That atmosphere may lead either to an undesirable conformity or, for a small minority, to an implacable hostility towards the state. Either way, the spirit of liberal democracy suffers. [Smith, ibid, p.209]
So, to summarise, the defining characteristics of the German constitution? A three-party dictatorship; Militant democracy, which uses police state measures to repress anti-democratic groups who are deemed Communist or Neo-Nazi. Aside from this, there are other characteristics, not specifically mentioned in the text of the constitution itself. These are the substantive values, to use Schmitts term, of the
Bundesrepublik . The values are: Zionism and philo-Semitism; a strange doctrine of German post-war guilt, which harps on endlessly about German atrocities, real or alleged, in World War Two; and a callous dismissal of the atrocities wrought upon Germany by the victors – the deliberate mass starvation of millions of Germans in the Allied occupied zone, and in the German POW camps, in the three years after the German surrender; the ethnic cleansing and murder of millions of Germans from the East; the deaths of one to two million German POWs in the Soviet Union.
The
Bundesrepublik actively rewrites history, or, in other words, lies, to whitewash Allied and Soviet atrocities. The German government today, for instance, puts the deaths from the Dresden firebombing at 25,000, when the death toll from the US Strategic Bombing Survey itself puts it at 300,000. Is there anything good, however, about the Basic Law? Its defenders claim that the present constitutional order is stable; stability is their favourite word when it comes to describing the
Bundesrepublik . And indeed, a three-party state is stable: the
Bundesrepublik , compared to Italy, for instance, has a stable political system. But, in the end, the
Bundesrepublik is founded on untruth. That invalidates any stability.
4 The British Machiavelli
One can see, from all this, the difficulties that the German nationalists labour under. The question is: can the Basic Law, so inimical, so hostile, to German nationalists and to anything extreme, radical, be amended?
The answer is, only with great difficulty. To amend the German constitution, a two-thirds vote is needed in the
Bundestag (the lower house) and the
Bundesrat (the upper house). The latter has all its delegates appointed by state (
Länder) governments, which is the equivalent of having all Australian senators in the Australian Senate being appointed by the parties holding office at the state and territory level e.g., the present NSW Labor state government, the Victorian Labor state government, and so on. So the German nationalists would need attain a two-thirds majority, not only in the federal parliament, but in the Länder as well: a tall order.
Part of the problem is that the German nationalists are so radically opposed to the present constitutional order that, in order for them to gain power, there would have to be a complete break with the constitution a constitutional breaking-through, or
verfassungsdurchbruch. Complying with the constitution does not merely mean complying with the letter of the law; complying means adhering to the spirit of the constitution, the liberal democratic ideals and values. The German nationalists comply with the letter, to a certain extent, but certainly not with the spirit.
The central point of this essay is that the German nationalists do not have to abandon their nationalism, their opposition to the
Bundesrepublik and the Basic Law; only that they have to adapt themselves halfway to it, or three-quarters of the way. Rather than observing only the letter of the law, they have to attune themselves to the spirit of the Basic Law.
The British National Party, today, has successfully adapted itself to the spirit of the British constitution. It does this mainly through symbolism. The BNP, like the German nationalist groups, is regularly denounced as Nazi, fascist. But the average Briton, understandably enough, connects these two concepts with uniforms, swastikas, runes, armbands, jackboots, posters of heroic-looking men holding banners and the like. So, when he sees the BNPs visual propaganda Union Jack flags, Churchill, RAF Spitfire planes, the Churchillean V for victory sign he becomes, on a subconscious level, confused. He is being told by the BNPs detractors to associate fascism/National Socialism with safe, secure, comfortable, all-British symbols and images (which he has been taught, from childhood, to revere) and that will not do. He concludes, again in his subconscious, that the BNPs detractors do not know what they are talking about: apples are not oranges. He may come across, later, other pieces of information about Nick Griffins past Holocaust denial, or the fact that the BNP was founded by John Tyndall, who used to wear home-made Brownshirt uniforms but these are words, mere words. Already, the battle, on the visual, and subliminal level, has been lost: he cannot understand, on a simple level, why the BNP is called Nazi.
Does this mean, then that the BNP which was founded as a neofascist party has gone liberal democratic? Has it gone over to the enemy? The answer is: no. The British establishment politicians, journalists, academics, intellectuals hate and fear the BNP. The BNP has not given up its racialist and nationalist views, has not broken links with other nationalist groups (including the Na
tionaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands). Indeed the NDP regularly has a stall at the BNPs red, white and blue festival. The enemies of the BNP understand that the use of Churchill imagery, the Zionism, the apparent support for Israel, is a clever trick it is camouflage designed to make the party appeal to British voters, to convey the image of respectability. In other words, the BNP is appropriating the rhetoric and symbolism of the liberal democratic parties in order to make itself look electable: it is using the weapons of the enemy against him. Their stance attempts to make the accusation of anti-Semitism a non-issue, effectively neutralising the damage it does to nationalism in those countries with populations taught from birth that certain ideas/events are absolute and never to be questioned.
Sadly, there are many nationalists, in Britain and outside Britain, who lack the subtlety to see this: that is, they do not understand Griffins strategy. They take it as face value, and allow themselves to be fooled, whereas the BNPs enemies (in the British establishment) do not. One recent example was in November 2008 when the BNP debuted their White History Month:
During this month all White people around the world can celebrate their history and heritage with pride. This is our month where we can look to the past and explore who we are and where we come from. It is a month where we can be proud to be White and express it openly.
The Community Security Trust a Jewish community group that that writes on its site
CST is proud of Britains diverse and vibrant Jewish community, and seeks to protect its many achievements from the external threats of bigotry, antisemitism and terrorism.
Responded to the BNP campaign with its communications director Mark Gardner saying it could cause
racist unrest, intimidation and bullying against children from minorities.
Mr Gardner also said
Education authorities and police must monitor this situation very carefully and ensure that everything possible is done to protect schoolchildren from such poison.
Further examples of jewish groups not being fooled include in November 2009
Undergraduates should be at the forefront of campaigns against the BNP and other far-right groups.
According to Union of Jewish Students chairman Adam Pike. Mr Pike said he had
watched with horror as the extreme right-wing English Defence League held demonstrations across the country and the BNP achieved two seats in the European Parliament.
It should be mentioned that the BNP, like the German groups, makes a point of community activism. It will visit government-owned housing estates (mainly occupied by British, not immigrants) and offer to do chores, like getting the elevator fixed, cleaning up front gardens, cleaning up graffiti and so on. This makes a tremendous impression on the local community, especially considering that the representatives of the major parties (especially the Labor Party, which claims to represent the British working-class) never visit them and offer to help them with anything at all. In this respect, the BNP resembles the NPD.
5 The German dilemma
Given all this, what of the German nationalist groups? What is their symbolism? What message do they convey through their appearance? Well, for starters, photographs and footage of German nationalists always contain rather frightening-looking skinheads, wearing boots, T-shirts with iron crosses (a symbol which is still legal in Germany, surprisingly enough, and is used as an emblem by the German army, the Bundeswehr). The flags are the tricolour 1871-1918 German flag, the Imperial WWI German flag and the WWI Imperial Jack flag (used by German nationalists to assert a continuity with the German past before the Allied occupation). The German nationalists, also regularly demonstrate for recognition of the
Wehrmacht, or against slandering of the
Wehrmacht; these posters, fliers, pamphlets, banners use pictures of Wehrmacht soldiers. As well as that, there are marches in recognition of Rudolf Hess attempts to make peace between Germany and Britain, which are attended by prominent German nationalist leaders.
All of this is, for the average German, off-putting. He can only agree when the opponents of German nationalists label them Neo-Nazi. And Neo-Nazism means a number of things: social ostracisation; unemployment; possibly even jail. It also evokes a past which he has been conditioned, since birth, to feel guilty and ashamed about. Again, the perceptions of the average German voter are determined by what goes on at the simple, visual, subliminal level. The average German sees all the Nazi stuff, feels fear and discomfort (and looks over his shoulder he doesnt want the authorities catching him looking at it), and then closes his mind accordingly. On a simple, primeval level, he associates German nationalism, not with pleasure, but with pain.
The German nationalist may go on to make an excellent written or verbal presentation of his case, but to no avail: the decision against the nationalist, a decision which has its basis solely in emotion, has already been made. The German nationalists, though, are completely oblivious to the effect that the deployment of this Nazi, Far Right imagery and symbolism creates. Why? The answer lies in the following analogy. Suppose that a certain person was wrongly accused of being a serial killer or highway bandit or whatever, and that you became convinced, because of evidence in your exclusive possession, that he was not guilty on all charges, and lobbied, along with your friends and family, to get him exonerated. That criminal you are championing is as hated a figure as Fritzl, the Austrian incestuous rapist and murderer. But because you were so used to associating with other activists who feel exactly as you do, and because you are convinced that your views are right, you end up, over time, becoming desensitised to what the public perception of that wronged man is. You are oblivious, then, to the effects of displaying his image on your office desk; or on a poster in your house; or on a bumper sticker. The reaction of other people who do not share your convictions is one of discomfort, and whats more, fear of you and your crank views. This reaction, however, only confirms your view that most people are stupid and ignorant, or just unwilling to face the facts, and that you have to get used to the idea of a long, hard and lonely struggle for justice and truth…
One can see the parallels with the German nationalist.
But let us, for a moment, consider the overall political strategy of the German nationalists. They believe that they will be able to form a mass, street-based movement made up primarily of youth but also Germans from every walk of life like the rioting students in Iran in 2009, the Chinese students in Tiananmen in 1989. After a series of election victories, and political and economic crises which will bring the
Bundesrepublik to its knees, they will overthrow the parties who rule the
Bundesrepublik and set up a national republic in its place. And that will be the end of Germanys problems.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the German population can look past the National Socialist imagery and rhetoric of the contemporary German nationalists and that it is so discontented with the
Bundesrepublik that is willing to rise up against it, like the East Germans did against the DDR in 1989. What of the foreign policy situation? What will it look like once the nationalists take over? It will be almost identical to that of Germany in 1933. Militarily, at present, Germany, France and Britain are weak and unprepared for war; but the Jewish community, the international Left, and Washington and Tel Aviv will urge the liberal democratic governments of France and Britain to prepare for war against the nationalist German state, to restore democracy and teach the Germans another lesson. There will be a build-up of arms on all sides. Eventually, Britain, France and the other democracies will be militarily strong enough to attack…
It goes without saying that they will level enormous trade and diplomatic sanctions against the fledgling nationalist government, in the hope of bringing the German people to their knees. Perhaps Britain, France and NATO will make war early, by bombing Berlin – like Belgrade in 1999. It is possible that the German people will cave in under all this pressure: they are, between ourselves, not as tough as their grandparents, who withstood far worse aerial bombardments than Belgrade in 1999. It is also possible that the German air force may cut the French and British bombers down before they reach Berlin. But who wants to think of these things? Who wants war? Germans do not want war, which is one of the reasons why they do not vote for German nationalists in large numbers – their current policies will entail another fratricidal war between European states their white populations, with Washington and Tel Aviv being the only beneficiaries.
The primary difference between Germany today and in 1933 is in the global attitude towards German nationalism. In 1933, most of the states of Europe were either indifferent, or accepting, of the new German nationalist government. Now, after seventy years of relentless, round-the-clock brainwashing, German nationalism is the most hated doctrine in the world: even Indians, Arabs and Africans are taught to look at it with contempt. The humanist liberals and socialists, who protested against the bombing of Belgrade, and the war against in Iraq in 2003, will welcome a war against a nationalist Germany with a kind of crazy, sadistic enthusiasm. German nationalism is a kind of test, these days, of ones morality: you prove your own worth by denouncing Nazism, Hitler and the rest. So a nationalist Germany will be a punching bag for the whole world.
All of this is obvious, but the German nationalist lives in a world of cognitive dissonance, i.e., an unwillingness to see the facts as they are. Most of the problem lies in the fact that the German nationalist today is unable, or unwilling, to recognize the political realities of the present, and work with them and adapt them to his purpose. Germany after 1949 is still Germany, and the German people remain the same even if their constitution has been imposed on them from without. The constitutional form of Germany has changed a number of times in the past hundred years: it has experienced constitutional monarchy, liberal democracy, fascism, communism, and then liberal democracy again. During that time, there have been plenty of reactionaries who have resisted constitutional change: in the Weimar era, there were nationalists who wanted to turn the clock back to before 1918; in the National Socialist era, there were liberals who wanted to go back to Weimar; and so on. In todays Germany, there are communists who cannot accept that the constitutional order of the GDR has gone, changed irrevocably; likewise, there are nationalists who cannot accept that the constitutional order of National Socialism (with Admiral Doenitz being the last legitimate head of state) has gone. Neither can make their peace with the existing constitutional order.
Which, in turn, raises the question: what came first? The particular constitutional form Communism, National Socialism or the German people? Did German people create the NSDAP and the
Wehrmacht, or was it the other way around? The correct answer, for a true nationalist and democrat at least, is that the Wehrmacht, the German Imperial Army, Rudolf Hess, Bismarck, Moltke and the rest were, at the time, the servants of the German people, indeed the creations of the German people. The true German nationalist aims to serve the German people of today and this cannot be achieved by hankering after the sovereign Germany before its occupation and partition in 1945. The past constitutional form cannot be recreated, and, what is more, should not be viewed as an end and not a means. The past constitutional form was a creation of the German people, not its master.
In addition, politics, in any country, is geared towards present-day problems and conflicts not those of the past. Germany's past is, of course, used by its opponents against it in no other country is the past used, like a hammer, to beat the German people with. This disguises the fact that the concerns of the masses are geared towards the problems of the moment (the problems, as of the time of writing, are the financial crisis, unemployment, immigration, among others). What, then, are we to make of a political movement which constantly dwells on the past specifically, German nationalism, which is preoccupied with the war crimes committed against German civilians and POWs from 1944 to 1949? Undoubtedly, the average German voter ought to know about Allied and Soviet atrocities. But the truth is that he lives in the present, and that what happened to the generation of his grandparents is of little immediate concern to him.
The young Germans I encounter are people who are backpackers, soccer fans, travelling businessmen, university students – do not want to think of such things. Not only do accounts of post-war atrocities by the Allies and the Soviets seem antiquated, they are also, oddly enough, disempowering by constantly being forced to reflect on past atrocities, the young German does not feel like a confident German proud of himself and his country in the present day. (Nothing can be more depressing for the German woman of today, for instance, than hearing about mass rapes of German women and girls by Russians, Poles and Czechs: such stories make her feel weak and powerless, victims which is what the original atrocities were intended to do).
The main priority, for nearly all nationalists in the West is to encourage Third World immigrants to return to their own countries, and to stop potential immigrants from the Third World from entering Western countries. There are a host of other problems to be tackled, of course, but that is the main one. And it is a problem very much of the present. Terrible as it sounds, the massacres of millions of German POWs and civilians in the aftermath of the Second World War has little to no bearing on the German (and European) political problems of the present. Yes, those atrocities should be brought to the public consciousness of Germans, and the entire world; yes, Germans should receive compensation for them. But a modern German government, basing its policies on the ideas of todays German nationalists would be a government legislating for the purpose of redressing the wrongs of the past instead of the present, that is, one not geared to the present-day preoccupations of the German people.
There is, of course, one ethnic group in the world today (which shall not be named here for reasons of political correctness) which revels in stories of its past suffering, and even invents, by the thousand, stories of past atrocities. The more gruesome and fantastic these stories are, the better. But the Germans, as a whole, are a healthy people, and do not like to contemplate their past suffering and tragedies. They get no joy from it.
6 The populist solution
Supposing, then, that German nationalists make the political, economic and social problems of todays
Bundesrepublik their number one priority: how do they go about winning federal and state office? The answer is to move a few more steps towards accepting legality, which means accepting the spirit of the present 1949 constitution: that is, being legal, not only in the acceptance of the constitutional law for the formation of political parties, but the acceptance of the underlying doctrines, the spirit, of that constitution (e.g., modern liberal democracy is splendid; so is liberalism; so is the multi-party electoral system; totalitarian political systems, like Communism, fascism and Islam, are bad). That does not mean accepting the modern-day German
Parteienstaat entirely. No, it means three-quarters acceptance which is considerably more than that shown by most German nationalists so far. That acceptance of the virtues of liberal democracy also allows German nationalists to make an attack on the liberal democratic system, not from the position of fascism or National Socialism, but from populism.
So what is the central doctrine of Far Right populism? Anti-elitism:
This has been a central element of the populist rights challenge to the political establishment: the charge that in liberal western democracies, political power has been usurped by a self-serving clique of professional politicians, who have nothing but disdain for the will of the people. In this situation, the populist right has generally promoted itself as the only voice that not only dares to say loud what ordinary people only dare to think but which seeks as Jean Marie Le Pen has famously put it to return the word to the people (rendre la parole au peuple). Radical right-wing populist discourse aims thus above all to discredit the existing political and cultural elite and weaken both its hold on power and particularly what Christoph Moergeli, a leading hardliner in the SVP and Christoph Blochers ideological alter ego, has called its power to define concepts (die Definitionsmacht über Begriffe), in order to replace it with a genuine elite of citizens who think for themselves and act responsibly. [Betz, Hans-George, Against the System: Radical Right-wing Populisms Challenge to Liberal Democracy, in Movements of Exclusion: Radical Right-Wing Populism in the Western World, ed. Rydgren, J., Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, 2005, pp.30-31]
There is plenty of material, in German liberal democracy, which can be used as the basis of a German nationalist political attack. After all, the German system is a Parteienstaat through and through, where everything including the army, the civil service, the judiciary is partified through and through, and where success depends on ones political connections. German politics is the province of the élite; under present-day German constitutional law, it shuts out the people, and does not even allow the German people to vote in referenda (except when it comes to the revision of the borders of the Länder , which hardly counts). A real conflict exists between modern liberal democracy, which is rule by the élites , and populism, which is rule by the people, especially when it comes to the question of immigration, as the following paragraph explains:
Another staple of present-day Far Right populism is Europe is anti-Islamism. The main immigrant group in Europe, threatening Europes ethnic homogeneity, is the Muslim; in Germany, they are the largest foreign group. Many Far Right populist groups attack Islamic immigration, not on racial grounds (although, of course, they in reality oppose Islamic immigration on racial and cultural grounds) but on the basis that Muslims do not respect Western liberal values, the values of a free society. They thereby manage to borrow the language of Western liberalism and use it against the Western liberal democratic politicians who have brought millions of Muslims into Europe. Anniken Hagelund, in a sympathetic article on the populist Far Right Norwegian Progress Party, writes:
The concerns over immigrants marriage practices in the public has served as an opportunity for the Progress Party (and others) to formulate policies where immigration control is tightened in the name of integration and in the name of protecting women... The more recent concerns about immigrants marriage practices have directed more of the attention towards family migration and the regulation of family reunification. Settled immigrants rights to family reunification with their children and spouses (including new spouses) has until recently been practically unquestioned in the Norwegian debate on immigration. Now several proposals have been launched which aim to prevent enforced (and arranged) marriages by making it harder to bring the foreign spouse to Norway. Higher maintenance claims have already been enforced, but the Progress Party has also suggested to deny family reunification unless both spouses are aged at least 24 years and to place a ban on marriages between cousins (a custom prevalent in the large Pakistani community)...
The opposition which has emerged between a multiculturalism that celebrates cultural diversity, and a feminism that argues the universal right to protection from cultural demands, has created a space for new alliances and a convergence of discourses and opinions in the field of immigration policy. Issues such as enforced marriages and genital mutilation have made the language of human rights and gender equality available for arguing against immigration. The Progress Party can refer to the girls to substantiate their policies, some of which have also been supported by the other political parties. Shortly after Fadime was murdered, the claim for a ban on cousin marriages was made not only from the Progress Party but also by women MPs in the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party. In a field where the decent position to such a strong extent has meant to distance oneself from the Progress Party, such parallel proposals represent something quite new... [Hagelund, Anniken, The Progress Party and the problem of culture: immigration politics and right wing populism in Norway, Ibid, p.158-159]
Liberal democrats cannot argue with the logic of this: after all, most of them, especially on the centre-left side of politics, are liberal baby-boomers who fought for womens rights in the 1960s and 1970s.
Likewise, radical Islam which has a vice-like grip on the Muslim immigrant populations in Europe is no friend of the
Parteienstaat and liberal democracy. One could speculate that, if the Muslim populations to be in charge of European government, the constitutions of the liberal democratic European states would be changed to resemble those of Iran and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan: the rule of the parties would be replaced by the rule of the Imams. Even without an Islamic theocracy, womens rights, and a host of individual freedoms, could be dramatically curtailed under political pressure from Muslims: as they are even in more liberal democratic Muslim countries such as Malaysia. A populist agitator could easily stir up the passions of the German people by painting a picture of a future Germany where nudism and scanty dress are banned, and beer houses are shut down, for fear of offending Germany's substantial Islamic population.
7 Westenalgie replaces Ostalgie
Nationalism has to have, of course, a positive component. What should that component be in German nationalism? The answer is: nostalgia for the good old days of the West German
Bundesrepublik an equivalent of the nostalgia, called O
st Nostalgie, or
Ostalgie, for the Eastern German Democratic Republic, which is so prevalent these days.
One of the components of current Far Right European populist ideology is nostalgia nostalgia for the way things were in Britain/France/Denmark/the Netherlands/[insert Western European country here] in the 1950s and 1960s, before the mass Islamic immigration into Europe began. Not only did the Europeans, in this blessed period, live in an ethnically homogenous, traditional society, they lived at a time of great economic prosperity. Furthermore, the European welfare state functioned at its peak.
This reactive nostalgia, offered by the European populists, is a powerful, seductive picture. Nostalgia for the prosperous, clean, safe, healthy past is something that the electorate enjoys indulging in. On the level of culture and entertainment, one can see this in the popularity, in Britain, of television shows such as The Darling Buds of May, Ballykissangel, Heartbeat, and other shows of that genre, which depict an idyllic post-war past of the 1950s and 1960s. (No doubt Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and other West European countries have their own television shows in the same genre). Nationalist movements have always exploited idealist pasts: a nation is, after all, its history. The problem is that Germany, looking back in the past hundred years, is made to feel that it does not have much to be nostalgic about. The twelve years of National Socialist rule are portrayed as the darkest period in Western history.
Now, the average German, these days, is probably not old enough to remember the conditions in that period; he may have the suspicion that it wasnt all as bad as is portrayed, but he knows to keep those suspicions to himself. The main thing is that he cannot look back on that period with pleasure: that period of German history means shame, dishonour, for the German people, and the tremendous blood and suffering brought about during the war, and in the aftermath, which saw the genocide of millions of Germans by the Allied and Soviet victors. He will, then, have a negative impression once he sees any present-day German nationalist propaganda that evokes that period. One of the side-effects of this conditioning against Germanys past is that Germans are encouraged to direct their nostalgic yearnings towards the former GDR: nostalgia for the East Germany is socially acceptable, even sanctioned, by the present liberal democratic system (so long as it remains at the level of a feeling anyone who tries to bring back Communism to Germany will be prosecuted).
This is baffling to those who believe that life in the former East Germany was pretty dreary: but humans, being what they are, must have an outlet for sentimental emotions. Therefore, a really effective and safe German nationalist propaganda would make the following case: Remember life back in the 1950s and 1960s? During the time of the Wirtschaft wunder (economic miracle)? Wasnt life great? Cosy little German towns where people looked out for each other, clean healthy living… A time of decency. Now there's Kurdish asylum seekers, corrupt and incompetent politicians… Lets get back to the way things were!
The case would have to be stated through the careful use of images from that period, of course. The advantage of this kind of nostalgia (as opposed to nostalgia for the Third Reich) is that it is perfectly safe, perfectly socially (and politically) acceptable. The Constitutional Courts cannot chastise a German for looking back fondly on a more prosperous period of the Bundesrepublik . German nationalists are used to stealing the imagery and sloganeering of the radical Left: the German Freienationalisten borrow, as is well-known, from the anarchists and the Antifa. But there is untapped potential in the use of symbols, slogans, concepts of the German centre that is, German liberal democracy.
Imagine the tremendous shock it would cause if German nationalists were to declare that liberal democratic bores of Germany's past, such as Konrad Adenauer and Gustav Stresemann, were the true embodiments of the modern German nationalist ideal. Adenauers Germany had no Muslims! Neither did Stresemanns… Thats what we nationalists want. The liberal democratic Weimar paramilitary, the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold , could be rehabilitated: not brought back to life, of course (that would be illegal), but held up as heroes, brave fighters for liberal democracy who took their fight to the streets. (In the Weimar period, the Reichsbanner fought against the twin totalitarianisms of Communism and Fascism; nowadays, the totalitarianism is Islam). The other positive element, in contemporary Far-Right populism, is Caesarism: the leader, and the public image, and the charisma, of the party leader, is all-important.
As the sociologist Max Weber pointed out, elections in liberal democracies become elections for leaders, personalities, who are the heads of their respective political parties the electorate more often than not votes for the individual man, not the party, and sometimes not even for the ideas of the party. Such elections have a plebiscitary quality: that is, they are votes for a yes or no on a single question who is to be leader of the country. There are plenty of examples of Caesarist elections in modern history: in 2004, Bush Jr. was more interesting than the dull, mumbling, mop-topped John Kerry; in 2008, Obama was the better orator and had more charisma. The same is true in European nationalist politics. The Dutch Far Right achieved electoral breakthrough, and gained international prominence (some may say, notoriety), with the rise of Pim Fortuyn; it languished after Fortuyn's assassination; it rose again with the rise of Geert Wilders. Likewise, the British National Party's fortunes rebounded after the ascent of the media-savvy Nick Griffin. The decline of the French Front National is attributable, at least in part, to the fact that its leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, is too old and has been in the game for too long.
Why are leaders in politics so important? Possibly, the answer is that the masses are extremely simple-minded: they have difficult in understanding abstract concepts. The only way they can embrace a political idea is by associating it with an individual. Otherwise it gets all too hard. Dutch nationalism, British nationalism, Swedish nationalism, French Far-Right populism: all abstract concepts, not tied to anything concrete. It was only after German nationalism became embodied in a single individual, whose face was reproduced endlessly throughout the German (and world) media, that German nationalism began to experience real success in the Weimar era. Politics, it is true, especially nationalist politics, is a collective effort.
At the same time, one needs a leader, an individual, who is photogenic, media-savvy, instantly recognisable, well-presented, someone who has an air of confidence and self-assuredness someone like John F. Kennedy or Barack Obama or Vladimir Putin. The slick, polished, charismatic leader, who is never at a loss for words, is a necessity in our Caesarist age, in which style dominates over substance, in which visual presentation and the media can make or break a politicians career.
8 The new German nationalism and the Miracle of Bern
At the start of the article, I mentioned the New German nationalism. What is it exactly? I can find no better example of it than in one of Ernst Zündels prison letters, written on July 17, 2006, on the subject of, of all things, Germany and the German performance in World Cup soccer. Zündel writes at length about the newfound patriotism, long dormant, that awoke after Germanys victory against Communist Hungary in the 1954 World Cup match:
The unexpected side effects of soccer in Germany, with the World Cup being hosted here is truly something to behold. It is a nostalgic time for me, for this is the first time I have been in my homeland in fifty-two years and my nation is hosting the World Cup, I am seeing signs of life, pride, and joy that I havent seen among my kin in many years and it has everything to do with this soccer phenomenon. The first and last time I was involved in anything like this was when I was fifteen years old and the legendary Fritz Walter of Kaiserslautern was the German teams captain which beat Hungary in 1954, we Germans refer to this victory as Wunder von Bern, or the Miracle of Bern, which by the way recently became the title a best selling book and box office smash. At the time I can distinctly remember how a collective sigh of relief of exhaled by 80 million Germans in the east and west, and millions of Germans in Austria, Switzerland, and overseas in Canada, America, Argentina, the joy was palpable. As I am writing this line, I can remember how the victory affected me, my school chums, siblings we were elated, transformed actually, by that game, I can remember that game as if it were played yesterday! It was if a very heavy weight were lifted from the collective shoulders of the worlds Germans. It is difficult for a victor nation like America to relate to Germans and how this psychically devastating feeling we have embraced, related to our capitulation and the lies fabricated by the victors. In a small sense Americans know this feeling as it relates to Vietnam, it was an unpopular war, the entire population wasnt behind it, feelings of guilt were imposed upon service members, upon the supporters of the war, and even upon dissenters, who embraced these feelings of guilt, as if to do so would somehow atone for their nations sins, real and imagined. The 1980s and Reagans efforts to remove this stain upon Americas honor worked well the First Gulf War too, helped eliminate Americas Vietnam Syndrome. The same thing has never happened in Germany, except perhaps from small victories, i.e. the Miracle of Bern, for example. Thus Germans continue to live with this absolutely debilitating sense of manufactured guilt the President of Iran described it well in his interview with Der Spiegel.
Significantly, Adenauer in 1954 and Schroeder in 2006 failed to make use of the photo opportunities and the political opportunities presented by the newfound soccer patriotism:
The Miracle of Bern, definitely started the Germans on the road to recovery and the current World Cup seems to have initiated something that cannot be entirely suppressed, the emergence on national pride among the German people! Germans schoolboys, war veterans, victims of allied rapes, and wars widows watched as these knights in shining armor, stood up for the German people, as our politicians wouldnt, they stormed across the soccer fields of Europe, until victory was finally won! As I sit here today, and reminisce, I can see the parallels between then and now I can see the similarities in the response of the German people between 1954 and 2006 the reawakening of the spirit. To show you how disconnected the government of Konrad Adenauer was with this spirit, let me tell you how Gerhard Schroeder, the Minister of the Interior, and Konrad Adenauer, the leader of Germany were absent from the game, the best they could muster was a telegram congratulating the team, after the game was over. Imagine that; imagine the missed photo opportunities, unbelievable. This is not a mistake modern German politicians are about to make again, Merkel was there recently cheering, sitting next to the Polish Prime Minister, as were many other politicians today the German leadership, cannot afford to miss such an event, it could very well affect them politically.
One of the interesting elements of Germany's performance in soccer was that it awoke a new nationalism:
What surprised me while I sat in my cell watching the game was the enthusiasm of the mainly young German soccer fans, both male and female, I was astonished to see the number of German flags waving inside the stadium, the painted faces, all those wearing the German national colors, black, red and gold! I have never seen such an exuberant German response to anything then came the reaction of the German team, and their Swabian-American trainer, they began to score! There was an almost orgasmic release of applause as the German team began rolling over their opposition in much the same way as Rommels tanks. It was an amazing performance to watch. Klinsi, a normally reserved German and not a man of many words, suddenly was seen jumping up and down, hugging his teams captain, a smile on his face, overjoyed and happy.
This nationalism, of course, repackages the Old German virtues such as self-discipline, efficiency, loyalty, etc.:
Then came the obligatory press conference with the goal scorers and, of course, their captain. The German press is known for its poisonous put downs of anything patriotic, especially statements coming from well-known soccer players, and the German players were immediately chastised for their patriotic singing of the national anthem. Then, unexpectedly, one of the most amazing things I have ever seen took place, right before my very eyes, the 22 year old goal scorer Lalnn said that he was proud to be a German, and proud to be part of the German national team. He then said the team was hoping to win the Cup for Germany and how overjoyed the players were to the German people’s positive response as manifested by their applause and participation. He said that he felt that patriotic expressions were not only right, but were in order too. His statements may have proven to be the kick off, because after he made them, his teammates echoed his sentiments, making statements like, its time that we stop dumping on the positive qualities of Germans, or our useful and productive German characteristics of toughness, top fitness and endurance, and our Iron Will, training schedule! I nearly fell over when one of the players said that!
This display of nationalism, of course, is subversive: it could possibly sweep the old German attitudes about the
Bundesrepublik , and Germany's Nazi past, away, which is the main reason why the German liberal democratic establishment hates it:
As a result of this, suddenly the German people had their long suppressed Patriotism Debate, unleashed as a result of this Americanized, German from Malibu, with his comparison of the spirit shown by the German crowds to the celebration in America of the Fourth of July, Independence Day! That set the tone from that magic moment on the medias poison pens and self-deprecators have been on the defensive. Talk shows and polls clearly reveal German patriotism awakening. Even a few politicians have come forward and hesitantly offered a few platitudes. Then, the next game rolled around and the Klinsi team revealed that it had learned its lessons from the last game. They played one of the most exciting and skilful games I have ever seen played. I wasnt alone thinking this, even the Kaiser Franz Beckenbauer was all smiles, and everybodys mood was positive and upbeat. The T-shirt slogans shown on television became more bold national spirit was everywhere! Am convinced that the longer Klinsis team can hang in there the firmer this Renaissance of joy will be. This process began back in 1954, with the Miracle of Bern, could it be completed by another miracle in Berlin in 2006, I certainly hope so. There are many superb teams playing in this series, but with each game this young German team is growing together, becoming more cohesive, improving its performance and learning from past mistakes. Winning is important, we have a saying in German, Der Weg ist das Ziel, or the path is the victory. Already there is a major change in a new generation of Germans, no longer held down by the weight of the past, guilt free, unabashedly proud of their heritage, this is for me a touching experience, because when I fought my trials and was asked by so many why I took on what appeared to be a lost cause, I told them, in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1988, that I did it for the wartime generation whose voice was stifled by censorship and that I did it for Germans yet unborn.
Which gives hope for Germanys youth:
Here I sit in prison overjoyed as I watch this new generation exploring with an almost religious fervor the nearly snuffed out feelings associated with joy and patriotism! Un-cramped is the word television commentators are using to describe this phenomenon. There is little doubt that this generation will succumb so easily to the manipulation and psychological intimidation their parents and grandparents did. The genie is out of the bottle – Klinsmann and his team put the patriotism, topic at center stage. Imagine that, a man that became disillusioned with his fatherland, coming back to Germany more than a decade later and kicking in the door so to speak, and starting a debate on one of the most sensitive topics [almost] in this country, the love of ones country.
Is not nationalism, patriotism, love of ones country and ones people? Yes, say the liberal democrats of the
Bundesrepublik : but Germany cannot love itself because of its Nazi past; yes, say contemporary German nationalists: but Germany cannot love itself because of the Basic Law, the Allied and Soviet occupation. On that question loving the Germany of today – the
Bundesrepublikers , and the German nationalists, agree. What is needed is a new nationalism, a clean nationalism, based on the simple feelings of the German people feelings of pride, confidence, strength, a belief in the goodness of the traditional German virtues of honesty, self-discipline, courage, efficiency, reliability, industriousness and the rest.
That new nationalism will have to occur outside the modern German state, the
Bundesrepublik (which is based on a hatred of German nationalism of any kind, past, present or future) and the former German state forms that is, Germany in the period of the Second Reich, Germany during the Weimar period, Germany during the time of the Third Reich.
9 Zionist drivel
Perhaps the only real drawback of Far Right populism is its tendency to Zionism and support for Israel against Islam. As an example, there is this excerpt from a speech by Geert Wilders:
Israel is our first line of defense. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War. The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming. [Geert Wilders, from a speech delivered at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York in 2009, at an Alliance of Patriots conference].
It goes without saying that this section of the speech is full of holes. I will not bother to address its lies and fallacies; suffice to say, despite Israel having one of the largest armies in the world, most of its weapons and equipment paid for by the US and German taxpayer, it has yet to volunteer one soldier to fight the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when Europe and NATO is struggling in the latter. Like Wilders, Nick Griffin frequently makes pro-Israel, and pro-Jewish, statements, and is always denouncing Nazis, i.e., any Westerner who criticises Jews and Israel. This has not stopped, however, the Jewish community from denouncing him as a Nazi and a fascist at every turn. They scent an imposture. Griffin is buying protection from the powerful Jewish lobby by making pro-Jewish statements. Unlike Wilders, he does not have a clean record on Jewish issues: he has been accused, in his younger days, of holding Holocaust Revisionist views and penning an essay arguing that Jews have a disproportionate influence on the Western media, politicians and the rest. The issue in Australia is where Nationalists choose to disregard political opponents because of the image that these opponents have created for themselves. Not only does this serve to protect these opponents from criticism and opposition, of which they already have virtually none, but it also removes knowledge and gives a distorted view of the political landscape. Given all this: should German nationalists follow the Wilders and Griffin line on Jews, Israel, Zionism and Judaism? Wilders has been elected to the European Parliament, his Party of Freedom has enjoyed electoral success in the Netherlands, while the traditional Dutch nationalists who are openly anti-Semitic, sympathetic to fascism and German National Socialism, are having no luck at all. Griffin repeatedly makes a correlation between the BNPs recent electoral success and its turn away from Nazism, i.e., criticism of Jews and Israel. The problem for the German nationalists is that the Holocaust, Judaism, Israel and Germany are intertwined. The Holocaust has a deep religious, spiritual meaning for the Jewish people; most of it is based on Talmudic prophecy.
The word Holocaust literally means burnt sacrifice to God, and it is the sacrifice of the six million Jews in giant ovens which has made the Jewish God relent and hand over the State of Israel to the Jews after millennia. German National Socialism, in this Jewish religious view, was an enabling force which allowed the handover to happen. Any scepticism towards the Holocaust story, now held to be true by religious and secular Jews alike (and many non-Jews), is an attack on the Jewish religion itself and the Talmud; further, it is an attack on the religious justification for the existence of the State of Israel. Simply put, any denial of the Holocaust, or of Israel's right to exist, by German nationalists will awaken the wrath of the Jewish community, not to mention the entire Western civilization itself, which, while professing the values of secularism and religious tolerance, tolerates no disbelief in the religion of Judaism and the religious prophecies of a Holocaust. The main point of dispute is not between those who oppose German nationalism and German National Socialism, and those who are sympathetic to it; it is between the believers and disbelievers in Judaism and the prophecies of the Talmud. The trouble for German nationalists is that while the Jewish community, by itself, cannot stop a German nationalist party from being elected, it can enlist plenty of non-Jews of good will German liberals, socialists, conservatives, or just the average German in the street to put obstacle after obstacle in the way of that party and so prevent it from gaining office.
Jewry can persuade these Germans that today's German nationalists, like their forebears, are evil people who like gassing Jews, gypsies and homosexuals for fun, and that they must be prevented from ever attaining power again. The only way to stop this blocking is to create doubt in the mind of the average German. That is, German nationalists have to persuade them that there is no ideological link between them and National Socialism. That means cutting off any connections with the revisionist movement. German nationalist parties should expunge Holocaust and WWII revisionist material from party websites and material and websites and material affiliated with party members. By that means, they can remove the evidence, needed by Jewry, to prove that todays German nationalists are on a par with the evil Nazis. (While the nationalists do not openly peddle revisionist material, of course, they can promote authors who offer vague, acceptable criticism of the Holocaust story and how it is exploited by Jews Norman Finkelstein, for instance and anti-Israel and anti-Zionist books. They can also sell nostalgic material celebrating German army units, German movies from the 1930s, hagiographies of Otto Remer and Rudolf Hess, denunciations of Allied and Soviet war crimes, documentaries on the German territories lost after Versailles and reclaimed by Germanys 1930s and 1940s expansionism… All in all, it adds up to a soft Neo-Nazism, and hardly constitutes a distancing from Germanys Nazi past. Given that German history is around two thousand years old, the material on these German nationalist sites raises the question: why are German nationalists preoccupied with such a small (twelve year) period of Germany's history?
The enemies of today's German nationalism respond: because they are Neo-Nazis, thats why). What is needed is a thorough purge, a clean sweep, which will get rid of anything vaguely Nazi or Neo-Nazi just like what Nick Griffin did to the BNPs book and film catalogue. Fortunately for the German nationalists, a great deal of time has passed since 1945 and the liberation of Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. The WWII generation, and the left-wing baby boomers (who castigated their Nazi parents), are growing old. There is a growing section of German youth who feels little to no connection to the Germany of WWII, views todays Germany in the light of its present achievements, and is, in short, tired of hearing about the Holocaust and the Nazis. That, then, could be a new slogan for the new German nationalism: Shut the hell up about the Holocaust. Were sick of hearing about it and WWII every day and every night. Why are you stuck in the past? It was over 60 years ago!
10 In conclusion: how the German nationalists will win
To sum up these ideas, let us sketch a hypothetical scenario. A new German Far Right political party is formed, called
die Rechte , the Right (a conscious copying of the German Far Left party,
die Linke , the Left). The ideology of
die Rechte is more or less the same as other Far Right groupings: opposition to immigration; a championing of the little people against establishment politicians and EU bureaucrats; policies including the reintroduction of capital punishment for serious sex offences; etc. The difference between
die Rechte and the rest of the German Far Right is that it makes no reference to Germanys Nazi past whatsoever. All in all,
die Rechte has a selective approach to German history, behaving almost as if the Third Reich never existed. The leader of
die Rechte is a slick, well-presented, photogenic politician, good at dealing with the media. The safe, clean nationalism of
die Rechte attracts millions of voters. In its policies,
die Rechte makes no mention of traditional German Far Right concerns: acknowledgement of Allied atrocities against Germans; restitutions for the East European expellees; dismantling of the laws forbidding Holocaust denial. The German political establishment becomes more and more frustrated, it cannot ban
die Rechte for being hostile to the
Bundesrepublik and liberal democracy, for seeking to revive National Socialism. Eventually,
die Rechte wins a federal election. The world is in shock. Israel and Jewish groups declare that Germany has been taken over by Neo-Nazis and has to be bombed back into the stone age. Watertight sanctions have to be put into place, the German people, who had the impudence to vote for a Neo-Nazi government, have to be starved into submission. The problem is, however, that the charges of Neo-Nazism cannot be proven.
The international community cannot invade Germany, or drop bombs on Berlin, without evidence of Neo-Nazi intent. Besides,
die Rechte is democratically elected. Eventually,
die Rechte obtains the necessary two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat to amend the German constitution, with or without the support of the other political parties. It is then that the MPs quietly, and without any fanfare, vote to amend Article 21 of the German constitution. In this way, the German constitution is reformed, and reformed quite dramatically, in favour of nationalism. Obviously, to do all this, what is needed is a simple, feel-good nationalist message with little to no references to the past. Propaganda puts itself at a disadvantage when it goes on the defensive, i.e., seeks to refute propaganda allegations made by the enemy. Modern German nationalism is perpetually on the defensive in its propaganda, always trying to get people to look past propaganda allegations made against the Wehrmacht, National Socialism and the rest. The solution is to bypass this history and put forward a simple message: the Germans are a great people, and through national self-confidence, pride, unity, the German virtues of industriousness, efficiency and the rest, they can overcome virtually any obstacle and that includes present economic difficulties. To conclude. Supposing that we were to bring a great German statesman and patriot (e.g. Bismarck, or Frederick the Great) from the past into the present, using a time-machine. What would he do, if he wanted to gain power and prestige for Germany, to revive Germany as a nation and lead it to greatness? The answer is, he would become a radical Far Right populist, working within the confines of the liberal democratic system and the Basic Law, and use any means necessary including the adoption of Adenauerism, and the rest, and a denazification strategy to gain political power for his party and so restore the German peoples confidence and faith in themselves. That is the only way forward.
