22 October 2006

Modern German Nazis March

As if it were needed, Berlin witnessed yet another sign of the revival of National Socialism in Germany today has some 750 neo-Nazis openly marched, Reuters describes it as:

"BERLIN (Reuters) - A group of 750 neo-Nazi sympathisers demonstrated outside a Berlin jail on Saturday against the detention of the singer of an outlawed rock group.

German police said several hundred anti-fascists chanting "Nazis raus" (Nazis go away) were separated from the rally by police. There were no incidents of violence.

The far-rightists were protesting the detention of an obscure singer, Michael Regener. He also goes by the name "Lunikoff".

He was sentenced in December 2003 to three years and four months in jail after a court ruled his band "Landser" was a criminal organisation that spread racial hatred. He began his sentence in April 2005 after losing legal appeals.

Some protesters carried posters reading "Freedom for Lunikoff" as they marched near the Tegel prison in northwestern Berlin.

Israel's ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein, said in an interview published on Saturday in the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper he was concerned that Jews were not feeling safe in Germany. "They are no longer able to pursue their Jewish way of life here freely," Stein said."

Let's not forget the recent election wins and the growth of NPD:

"This now makes the economically depressed state the fourth regional legislature where an extreme right party is represented:; The NPD also sits in Saxony's parliament while the German People's Union (DVU) is represented in the state legislatures of Brandenburg and Bremen. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which is on the Baltic coast bordering Poland, is one of Germany's poorest regions with an unemployment rate of 18.2 percent, nearly double the national average.

The former communist states have never caught up to the West economically since German reunification in 1990, strengthening the appeal of the NPD party, which has been able to capitalize on the disaffection among jobless youth with its crude anti-immigrant, racist platform."

In the post WW2, much was made of modern Germany's abhorrence with National Socialism, the death and destruction that it brought and how these lessons were learnt by young Germans.

Clearly, the German political establishment, civil society and police are not doing enough, I suggest they make an example of the next 750+ neo-Nazis that demonstrate and incarcerated the lot of them.

It should be made clear to neo-Nazis that if they march they will be incarcerated, no ifs no buts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know Lunikoff's real name was Michael Regener.