The menace of the far right

Right-wing extremists on the march

By Paul Sussman
CNN.com writer

(CNN) -- "Hardly a day goes by without some new act of hatred," says Paul Spiegel, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. "Attacks on foreigners, swastikas daubed on synagogues, violence against ethnic minorities. I thought this sort of thing had been consigned to history. I am very worried."

Spiegel's concern is shared by many in Germany, where there has been a steady increase in extreme far-right activity since reunification in 1990.

The problem was highlighted in August at the trial of three skinhead youths convicted of murdering an African immigrant in the eastern city of Dessau.

Witnesses reported hearing the men shout "Negro pig" as they kicked Mozambiquan Alberto Adriano, 39, to death.

"The assailants did not view Alberto Adriano as a human being but beat him to death because he was a black African," said the state prosecutor's office.

There have been a spate of recent attacks, including an explosion in July in a Dusseldorf train station that injured 10 people, most of them Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. One of those hurt was a pregnant woman who lost her child.

Wolfgang Thierse, speaker of the German Parliament, says he is "ashamed" of Germany.

And Die Welt, one of the country's leading daily newspapers, said: "We have grown accustomed to this as if it were something normal, and that will open the gates for the far-right mob. When even foreign diplomats in Berlin dare not go into some districts it is high time for action."

Skinheads

There is a variety of extreme right-wing organisations currently operating in Germany.

There are currently about 40 neo-Nazi groups in Germany

As well as the three main far-right political parties -- Die Deutsche Volksunion (German People's Party), Die Republikaner (Republicans) and Die Nationaldemokratische Partie Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany) -- there are about 150 neo-Nazi groups, as well as a thriving skinhead sub-culture numbering approximately 9,000 members.

Statistics on support for these organisations are by no-means clear-cut.

Although the Deutsche Volksunion scored 13 percent in 1998 elections in the east-German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the country's three far-right political parties rarely get above five percent in national polls.

According to the latest statistics released by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's internal security service, the number of those involved in extreme right-wing circles has actually dropped recently -- from 53,600 in 1998 to 51,400 in 1999.

Likewise the number of offences with proved or suspected right-wing motives fell from 11,049 in 1998 to 10,034 last year.

During the same period, however, the number of those using violence against minorities increased, from 8,200 to 9,000.

Right-wing organisations are active in Germany and throughout Europe

Last year the BfV recorded 746 right-wing attacks -- a 5.4 percent increase on 1998 -- while since reunification more than 100 people have been murdered in xenophobic attacks.

In June 2000 alone 129 offences with extreme right-wing connections were recorded, 32 more than in June 1999.

It would appear that while politically the far-right is making little headway, it is increasingly making its presence felt in acts of random lawlessness.

Economic depression

"The problem is especially acute in the five states of eastern Germany," says Suzanne Karkowsky of the BfV. "Half of all violent right-wing crime occurs in that part of the country, even though only 20 percent of the population live there."

Julia Plessing of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, an organisation that works to promote ethnic tolerance, agrees.

"It's only recently we've seen a rise in extremism in western Germany. In the east, on the other hand, there has been a high-level of right-wing activity for the last decade, ever since reunification. There are attacks all the time, and it's now starting to spread into the west. If you look foreign, or left-wing, or if you are homeless or an asylum seeker, it can be very dangerous."

"There are many reasons why the problem is so severe in the east," says Plessing. "The area is economically depressed, with unemployment twice what it is in the west. The issue of the Holocaust and Germany's Nazi past has never been properly dealt with in schools.

"Also, because it was ruled for so long by a strong totalitarian regime, there is no sense of a pluralist, democratic culture. They are very suspicious of people who are different."

Flag-waving at a neo-Nazi demonstration

Germany is not the only European country with problems. But it is more sensitive to the issue than most because of its Nazi past.

There are stringent laws preventing the dissemination of racist or anti-Semitic literature. But efforts to counter extremism are being stepped up.

The skinhead group Blood and Honour was recently outlawed, while a special government committee has been established to consider proposals to ban the NPD, Germany's oldest far-right party.

The stiff prison sentences handed down to the skinheads convicted of murdering Alberto Adriano are an indication of the authorities' determination to send a strong warning to those involved in extremist activities. One of the three, a 24-year-old man, got life and his two 16-year-old accomplices nine years each.

Internet menace

"We are spending 400 million marks on educational programmes," says Riener Lingenthal of the Ministry of the Interior. "And the police have been instructed to act immediately at the least sign of trouble to show these people the state is not willing to tolerate any violence."

Special rapid-reaction police units have been set up in high-risk states such as Brandenburg and Saxony, while five north German states have telephone hotlines to report neo-Nazi attacks.

Bonn-based Postbank, one of the country's largest banks, announced in August that it would be close all accounts used by extremist groups.

Particular attention is being paid to monitoring the Internet, which has come to play an increasingly pivotal role in the spread of far-right propaganda.

"In 1996 we had 30 extremist sites," says Karkowsy. "Now we have over 350, with more appearing all the time. They are done very professionally, which makes them attractive to young people."

German Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are being threatened with fines of up to 500,000 marks (US $231,000) for hosting neo-Nazi Web sites.

Despite a vocal determination to tackle extremist activity, however, experts feel the problem will not be easy to root out.

Effective Internet policing is virtually impossible because so many organisations use foreign servers.

Violence and alcohol

Neo-Nazis throw firebombs at a building housing refugee families in Rostock, Germany. 25th August 1992.

"It makes it very difficult for us to close sites down," admits Karkowsky. "Last year a site published the name and address of a left-wing campaigner, and a reward of 10,000 marks for anyone who killed him. It took us two months to get it off the web."

Another problem is that extremist violence tends to be spontaneous rather than organised.

"Most attacks aren't planned," says Karkowsky. "They just happen, usually fuelled by alcohol. That makes prevention very difficult."

There is also a sense that, despite the rhetoric, the political establishment is not taking the problem seriously enough.

"I feel the government is simply paying lip-service to the issue rather than really getting to grips with it," says Plessing. "Its main concern seems to be protecting Germany's image abroad rather than implementing grass-roots measures to eradicate extremism."

Karkowsky agrees. "We are doing everything we can, but the political will has to be there, and in some of the eastern states it just doesn't seem to be."

Paul Spiegel does feel that things are starting to change. "People have begun to realise that an attack on a Jew or a member of an ethnic minority is an attack on the whole of Germany."

He believes there is still a long way to go, however. "There is something going wrong in our society. Only by constant vigilance, and by getting every single person in this country involved, can we solve this terrible problem."

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.