From Vergangenheitsbewältigung to Violence: Unravelling the Paradoxes of the German Extreme-Right

Jack Kushner

doi:10.22599/ujpir.65

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand the reasons for the German extreme-right’s successes and failures, particularly examining the inter-relations between political parties and underground movements. It also places a particular focus on German reunification, especially the wave of East German anti-immigrant and asylum seeker violence that emerged from 1991 to 1993. Furthermore, it argues that economic factors are not enough to understand this and other subsequent German extreme-right violence, and that structural factors, such as police and intelligence inadequacies, as well as psychological factors are vital. The first section explores why xenophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments remained high in Germany despite extensive denazification, and the reasons for extreme-right party failures to exploit this. The second section examines why this sentiment has often been violently expressed. The third section looks at the relations between violent underground groups and political parties, concluding that these connections have ultimately weakened the German far-right.

Highlights

Despite extensive post war denazification, political re-education and multiple party banning attempts, extreme-right politics and associated violence remain a challenging problem in reunified Germany
Despite reunification arguably affecting Eastern women worse than men, with the abandonment of crèches and state welfare services that enabled German Democratic Republic’ (GDR) full employment seeing female labour participation drop from 89% in 1989 (Matsyiak and Steinmetz, 2008) to 67% in 1992 (World Bank, 2015), female extreme-right sentiment remains far lower than male levels, suggesting that early 1990s East German violent extremism was more related to system transformation than economic uncertainty
Waves of racist violence and numerous underground far-right groups have revealed that extensive xenophobic and extreme-right sentiment still provides a challenge to German democracy, these attitudes have not been reflected in electoral success

Summary

Jack Kushner

This paper seeks to understand the reasons for the German extreme-right’s successes and failures, examining the inter-relations between political parties and underground movements. It places a particular focus on German reunification, especially the wave of East German anti-immigrant and asylum seeker violence that emerged from 1991 to 1993. It argues that economic factors are not enough to understand this and other subsequent German extreme-right violence, and that structural factors, such as police and intelligence inadequacies, as well as psychological factors are vital.

Introduction

Findings

Conclusion