NEONAZISM IN EUROPE : A WRITER ASKS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF GERMANY HAD A JEWISH CANDIDATE?

 

photo: dpa

A renown Spiegel editor, David Crossland, is tackling an onerous question by what else, writing a book about it.  

The question would be, what would happen to Germany if the candidate for Chancellorship were a Jew?

Some might see the question as ridiculous in a country that has striven for decades to better its image.  But a majority of well thinking Germans is no match for a virulent minority intent at returning to that dark past.

In the novel, the Jewish candidate finds himself at risk almost immediately by Neo Nazis, who are guided by genial and psychotic leader.

In the novel, which plays like a tall espionage tale, the answer to the searing question of will our hero survive or succumb to such devious forces is drawn out until its climactic end.  But in reality, it brings to the fore an uncomfortable reality.

Just this month a massive trial has begun against the National Socialist underground terror cell.  But even though it has garnered a corner of the spotlight, it has not attracted the attention it should receive.

The novel in a sense echoes the present reality in Germany, and elsewhere in Europe :  

"You can't go on too much about neo-Nazis because most voters don't see them as a threat," said Heise. "They just see them as irrelevant whackos. To do anything about them, you've got to be in power. And this is your one and only shot at the job."

The excerpt above is from the novel "the Jewish candidate" by Crossland.  Published just this month, it should be a must read for people everywhere.  

But let's go back to the Neo-Nazi trial premised above.  In it, the sole survivor of the group, which has killed 10 people, will be tried in the next few weeks.  The trial has already caused a significant rift with the country of Turkey over its rights to preside the trial with their own press corps, among other things, even more scandalous in consideration of the fact that the majority of the victims of the group were Turkish nationals.

The existence of the cell, although responsible for multiple and grevious crimes, was all but secret, even as authorities had tracked them for almost a decade but failed to act to stop them from committing their racially motivated crimes. 

Most of the victims of the neo nazi cell were of Turkish descent, one was Greek and one was a German policewoman.

It is indicative that the group went after one of the largest minorities present in Germany.  The presence of Turkish nationals was established decades ago, and is by no means a recent phenomenon.  

 

It spells out however, how in many way, the existence of this groups even as German authorities track them and try to understand how to operate and recruit, have failed to take measures that would have stopped such groups from being able to operate for so long.

It is this sort of complacency, which allowed the rise of the Nazis almost 80 years ago.  And it is the same complacency which allows them to go on unabated, committing crime after crime in many European countries. 

As the echoes of the Reich seem to rise louder in many European countries, one has to ask oneself what will it take before this ideological boil is lanced?

partial source : Spiegel online 4.28.13