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Letter From Berlin

Far Right Gains Expected In German State Election

By David Crossland

Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party is set to make strong gains in an eastern state election on Sept. 17. Nationwide, far-right extremists remain marginalized, but the NPD's regional successes are an embarrassment to Germany and a warning that xenophobia is rife in the economically depressed east.

This weekend could be potentially embarrassing for Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel, as voters go to the polls in two state elections.

Opinion polls indicate the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) will get 6 percent or 7 percent, above the minimum 5 percent needed to enter the state assembly in Merkel’s home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a rural region known chiefly for its beautiful Baltic Sea coastline.

It isn't expected to get enough votes to enter the state assembly in Berlin, which is also holding a regional election on Sunday. But in both states, the NPD and its supporters have been accused of intimidating opponents and disrupting their campaign events.

The NPD -- a xenophobic populist outfit with no substantial support nationally in Germany -- has declared solidarity with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he questioned the Holocaust and said Israel should be wiped off the map. But it made international headlines in 2004 when voters elected it into the regional parliament in Saxony, another eastern state, with 9.2 percent.

The NPD and another far-right party, the German People’s Union (DVU), are now represented in two of Germany’s five former communist eastern states, an embarrassment to the country which has spent decades atoning for the Holocaust. Marginalized in federal politics, the German far right has begun building support at the regional and state levels.

“The NPD is well organized and is tapping into people’s feelings that they have lost out as a result of unification,” said Manfred Güllner, director of the Forsa polling institute. Unemployment in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany’s most sparsely populated state, is 18.2 percent, the highest among the country's 16 states, and far above the national rate of 10.5 percent.

Like all other parties, the NPD receives state funding because it is a legal party. An attempt to ban it failed in 2002 when Germany's Supreme Court rejected the case because some of the NPD members accused of stoking racism turned out to be informants for the intelligence service.

Intimidation

The NPD has denied reports that its supporters have been intimidating campaigners from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the left-wing PDS. “The opinion poll results appear to be unsettling the media cartel and the mainstream parties to such an extent that they can only resort to lies,” Udo Pastörs, the NPD’s leading candidate in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said.

But a spokeswoman for the state’s interior ministry said: “There have been cases where campaigners from other parties felt threatened and two cases in August where police complaints were filed.” Far-right attacks on foreigners and political opponents in the state rose to 28 last year from 21, according to the regional intelligence service.

Margret Seemann, a member of the state assembly for the SPD, said NPD supporters had surrounded her campaign stall in the town of Hagenow on August 18 and behaved in a threatening manner.

“One NPD supporter took photos of everyone who came up to speak to us. Another one approached the stall and said: ‘When we get into power you Socialists will disappear,’” she told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Pastörs then showed up with several bodyguards and surrounded the stand, said Seemann. They only left when the police arrived.

“Photographing people is a subtle means of blackmail and aggression. The message is ‘watch out, we’ve got our eye on you, we may hurt you,’” said Professor Hajo Funke of Berlin’s Free University, an analyst of far-right trends.

“They are ideologically hard core and pro violence. They need violence to establish the Fourth Reich, which is their aim,” Funke said.

Campaigners in Berlin have also been complaining about intimidation and violence by far-right supporters. Last Friday a 23-year-old SPD worker was beaten up by two suspected far-right supporters as he was putting up campaign posters.

Feeding off discontent in the east

The far right has done well in the east because acceptance of democracy among ordinary people there is still weak after decades of communist rule, say analysts. The failure of the mainstream parties to cope with the mass unemployment and social upheaval after unification had made people more receptive to the radical right, Funke said. “Many people have the feeling that they’re superfluous.”

Their anger has provided fertile ground for the NPD, especially among young people, said Funke. Xenophobia is widespread because immigrants have become scapegoats for economic woes. There is little awareness of the Holocaust because Germany’s Nazi past wasn’t addressed under the communist regime. “In their racist aggression they think ‘we finished them off, that’s cool,’” Funke said.

The NPD has been targeting youths by distributing leaflets and CDs of far-right rock music outside schools, and organizing youth activities such as children’s festivals and barbecues. Its campaigners have also taken to wearing smarter clothes rather than the aggressive combat-booted look that deterred voters.

SPD State premier of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Harald Ringstorff said: “The NPD had changed its strategy. It hid itself like a wolf in sheep’s clothing…But it has been showing its true face in the campaign. It is resorting to pressure tactics including violence.”

Professor Funke said the NPD’s likely entry into the state assembly will cause outrage but be forgotten after a couple of months. “Nothing is being done to tackle the roots of the problem. People need to be educated. We can’t wait till they all become Nazis.”