The author of this article is correct: After this weekend, anyone who buys the AfD line that they've got nothing to do with Nazis is a fool--and anyone who sells that line is worse than a fool. spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
Björn Höcke marched right through the center of Chemnitz, carrying a white rose and trailed by a passel of Nazis. (For those who don't know, that is vomitous desecration. This is what the White Rose means: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose.)
There's something comforting about calling them "neo-Nazis," or "the far-right." It suggests they're not quite as sinister as real Nazis. But both are euphemisms. If you do this in Germany, you know damned well what you are: a Nazi. 
I don't want to hear another *word* about the "understandable" grievances of these fucking Nazis. Saxony has been a Nazi breeding ground since the 1990s--from the moment Russia took its thumb off the place. (And indeed, we now know, well before. See: cambridge.org/core/journals/…)
Blaming the refugee crisis and "economic anxiety" for the latest outbreak of Nazism makes no more sense than blaming the Jews and "economic anxiety" for the first one. This outbreak began *way* before the 2015 crisis. Nazis began terrorizing shelters for asylum seekers in 1991.
The refugees in Hoyerswerda had to escape under police escort. (The Nazis, of course, should have been the ones who were "escorted" by the police straight to prison. Again: This was 1991.)
I'm sick of hearing excuses for Nazis, and sick of the delicate treatment they receive:
I'm sick of hearing excuses for Nazis, and sick of the delicate treatment they receive:
"Whole swathes of society are disoriented because they’ve lost their sense of direction, their ideological stability” following the disappearance of the former communist regime, says Frank Richter, director of the Saxon branch of the nationwide Center for Political Education."
Bullshit. That regime collapsed in 1989. The generation that could legitimately claim disorientation has had 29 years to adjust. These Nazis weren't even born then. They're not doing this because they haven't yet adapted to life without the Stasi's loving paternal guidance.
Do you imagine for even a moment that they don't damned well know what they are and what they want? Just take one look at them. "Lost their sense of direction?" No. Their sense of direction is just fine.
"Lost their ideological stability?" Actually, they've had no trouble adjusting to capitalism. Chemnitz is the crystal meth capital of Europe. They can obviously develop indigenous industries--with a large, lucrative export market--just fine, when they care to do.
Their ideology is perfectly stable. It just happens to be the Nazi ideology. Don't try to excuse, understand, interpret, or justify it. Put the whole damn place on lockdown and arrest the lot of them. Ban the AfD as a neo-Nazi group, which after this weekend no one can deny.
Don't *dream* of blaming the refugees for this. This ideology took hold on that soil before anyone could have imagined the politics of 2018. This is precisely the region where the Nazis enjoyed their first electoral breakthroughs--in 1931–33. books.google.fr/books/about/Sa…
No Nazi should ever be allowed to extend his arm in a Hitler salute in Germany, not even once, never again. Germans have no choice now but to crush them ruthlessly. Don't ask yourselves what Germany did wrong that made them so unhappy, or how to appease them.
This article was written in 2012: spiegel.de/international/…. This was written in 2009: jstor.org/stable/4113274… (There are your famous European no-go zones.)
The refugee crisis did not cause this. Nor did the Jews.
The refugee crisis did not cause this. Nor did the Jews.
Did the 2015 refugee crisis cause Nazis to firebomb a building full of Roma in 1992 in Lichtenhagen, then set another building full of Vietnamese workers--and their families--on fire?
Do you truly think "the loss of the stability" Saxony enjoyed under communism caused this?
Do you truly think "the loss of the stability" Saxony enjoyed under communism caused this?
1991: Nazis attack a refugee hostel in Hoyerswerda, injuring 32. 1992: Nazis set house of a Turkish family in Mölln on fire, killing three. 1993, Solingen, same scenario, killing five. Did the refugee crisis cause this? ft.com/content/dfda30…
The same Nazis have been attacking a Jewish restaurant in Chemnitz for years, adorning the place with Swastikas, leaving a pig's head outside the door, with the word "Jude." Is that because Germany has allowed too many Jews to live there, do you think?
What about in 2009, when these "surviving Nazis" and "neo-Nazis" marched through Dresden bearing their Nazi torches? (NB: The difference between a Nazi and a neo-Nazi is age, not ideology.) dissentmagazine.org/online_article…
So spare me the credulity in articles that tell me the weekend's depravity in Chemnitz was prompted by a murder committed by an immigrant. (The victim was an immigrant, too.) No, folks, it was prompted by Nazis looking for any excuse.
They were probably aided by Putin in finding one. (Ah, yes, a quick search shows me @20committee had the same thought: observer.com/2018/08/is-vla…) But this is Germany's responsibility, not Russia's. Germans know damned well what happens when you underestimate Nazis--
-- or think you can co-opt them into normal politics. Germans need to reach down, find a set, and crush them, including the AfD. If they fail to confront this, the rest of the world will just shrug when Putin makes his bid to restore Germany to its pre-89 status.
I have faith, though, that this time around, Germany will take care of the problem on its own. It's a shame, though, that they didn't crack down sooner. They were obviously in denial. Now it's so out of hand that solving it will be ugly, and it won't look very democratic.
But there's no choice. We're talking about Nazis. You have to do what you have to do.
