It goes without saying that any right-wing resurgence in Germany is viewed with mistrust by the rest of the world and Europe in particular. An article in the local German news magazine Der Spiegel of 15th December 2014, deals with this issue. What are the underlying causes of this resurgence and what is the prognosis? Finally are there any similarities with the rise of the NSDAP [Nazis in English] of the 1930’s?
Felix Menzel is no Hitler, at least not in the outward manifestations. Unlike Hitler he never uses virulent vitriolic rhetoric. Instead he engages one in an intellectual manner.
Menzel, now 29 years old, is the same age that Hitler was when the Armistice ending WW1 was declared & Hitler for the first time became actively involved in politics. In contrast Menzel has for the past 10 years been active in politics via a conservative right-wing magazine called the Blaue Narzisse, the Blue Daffodil whereas Hitler had not yet formulated a clear political direction and philosophy other than an inherent anti-Semitism.
Main photo: Recent PEGIDA demonstration in Desden. In English PEGIDA means “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West,”

Felix Menzel – unlikely to be a thug in the Hitlerite mould
In the 1920’s, the epicentre of extremism – both right and left-wing – was Munich. The first to show their hand was the Communists who in a revolt in 1920 overthrew the Bavarian government and replaced it with a Soviet Commune – the Raterepubliek. The ineffectual Bavarian civil authority used an extremist right-wing militia known as the Freikorp to restore order.
In Menzel’s case, the centre of right-wing activity is Dresden, a city in the former East Germany. In the forefront of this right-wing agitation is group calling itself “The Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West” or PEGIDA – the German acronym. So far they demonstrate every Monday against economic migrants and a supposed “foreign cultural domination of our country.” Needless to say, there is no clarity on this aphorism. Does it imply only Islamic religious practices or American movies? Or maybe even both?

Der Spiegel – the current insights on PEGIDA are based on an article in this magazine
Until recently these weekly demonstrations attracted little attention even locally. Comprising mostly less than a 100 people and sometimes as many as a thousand, they were almost invisible. Suddenly without warning, the number of demonstrators exceeded 10,000.
Like attendance at the NSDAP’s meetings outside Munich in the early 1920’s, being poorly attended, PEGIDA has experienced the same phenomenon. Similarly protests held under the PEGIDA banner in other cities such as Kassel and Würzburg have only attracted a few hundred people at a time
Of far greater significance for me is whether the renowned German tolerance and open-mindedness regarding immigrants reached some form of tipping point.
In the 1920’s the underlying malaise and dissatisfaction related to Germany conceding defeat in WW1 in spite of the fact that the Allies at no stage occupied German territory. This fact was skilfully manipulated by Erich Ludendorff, the former head of the Reichswehr, due to his propagandistic call of Germany being “stabbed in the back” by the Jews and the Communists. This excuse resonated within the German population especially the middle classes due to their inherent unbridled fear of a Soviet style revolution and due to their centuries old antipathy toward the Jews. Even that bitterness and hyper-inflation gave the NSDAP [Nazis in English] less than 5% in the polls.
What is driving the current right-wing resentment and intolerance? So far the strength of PEGIDA is in the heartland of the former East Germany. The core of their discontent is the lack of jobs compared with the prosperous West. Job opportunities are modest at best and wages below that of their Western brethren. In spite of Germany’s immense wealth, it will take a generation before the east & the west are on a par. Such was the baleful effect of Communism on a previously highly productive people, that their initiative has been sapped by a nanny state mentality.
So far right wing candidates have received a derisory reception at the polls akin to the early Nazi voting pattern. More telling are surveys by Der Spiegel itself. These vindicate PEGIDA’s philosophy that Germany is being Islamised with 34% of respondents agreeing with that statement.

The misanthropic Hitler parading in the Nazis’ militaristic attire
Does that 34% translate into genuine concern or are they merely acknowledging a factually correct situation? What buttresses the fact that there is increasing concern about both economic migrants and Islamisation is the correlation with the number of right-wing protests. These are currently on the rise nationwide. The results for the first 10 months of 2014 are startling. The refugee organization Pro Asyl and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which combats racism, counted more than 200 demonstrations against hostels for asylum seekers. Right-wing perpetrators are attacking the accommodation of immigrants on an average of twice a week in Germany.
In addition, the Internet has been a popular method of expressing dissent with countless right-wing hate sites and Facebook groups. Just one anti-Islamic blog, Politically Incorrect, is reporting about 70,000 visitors a day.
More ominously is one worrying similarity between PEGIDA and the NSDAP. They increasingly draw support as there is a loss of faith in democratic values. This factor is always the precursor to political radicalisation. Before the 1920’s, Germans had never experienced democracy per se as they had lived under an autocracy led by the Kaiser. One of the preconditions of the infamous Versailles Treaty was its insistence on democracy being established. Woodrow Wilson’s flower was planted in obdurate soil. Ill-nourished by the Allies, it suffered under the burden of immense reparations. Thus it fell into disrepute. Due to its inability to restore German pride, it languished. As it wilted, so did the faith of the populace in democratic values fade.
Similarly today, concerned citizens are encountering conservatives who have grown wary of democratic values, while hooligans are joining forces with neo-Nazis and notorious right-wing conspiracy theorists. Citizens’ qualms about those on the far right are decreasing, and extremist, xenophobic ideas have apparently become socially acceptable.

Part of the 4 million Muslims in Germany
This trend is worrying. Only the middle ground in politics is populated by those that trust democratic values.
Mourning for the good old days
There are groups to the right of PEGIDA. Included amongst these far-right groups are the xenophobic National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) who view the protests as a chance to take their worldview directly to the middle class. Populist movements that have attracted little attention until now, like the so-called “identitarian movement,” are suddenly in the spotlight. The xenophobic Reichsbürgerbewegung, or Reich Citizens’ Movement, which asserts that the German Reich still exists within its pre-World War II borders. For them regaining Germany’s old borders will remain a pipe dream.
Aside from the obvious anti-immigrant focus of these groups, a more nebulous melancholy is prevalent: they are mourning the “good old days.” The only question is: Which good old days? Those after 1933, when Dresden, displaying the Nazi swastika, drove out its Jewish residents? Or is it those after 1945, when the East German Communist Party isolated its inhabitants behind censorship and a policy of non-contact with the west either physically or via radio & TV broadcasts.

Ernst Junger – an author beloved of Felix Menzel – who claimed that he hated democracy
Like the Jews only representing less than 5% of the German population in the 1920’s, the same statistic applies to the Free State of Saxony of which Dresden is the capital in which only 2.5% are foreigners. Despite the objective facts, they are in denial and decry the “twisting” of official statistics.
Riots in Cologne at the end of October show that there is a new danger on Germany’s extremist right. Neo-Nazis and football hooligans teamed up to go after Islamist Salafists.

Confrontation in Cologne with hooligans and PEGIDA both in attendance
Nationalism Conflated with Patriotism
Two interrelated aspects unites the demonstrators: a vague feeling of being threatened and a yearning for simple answers. This is why long-forgotten Nazi-era terms such as “Volk” and “Vaterland” are back in vogue. The German flag is being held aloft by PEFIDA to the shouts of “Germany is awakening. For our Fatherland; for Germany. It is our country, the country of our ancestors, descendants and children.” Is the triumphalist anthem Deutscheland uber Alles about to make a return?
What is the wellspring of this latent nationalism paraded as patriotism? It is the tide of social change creating disenchantment. At a macro level, it was the same in the 1920’s. The certainty under the Kaiser with its mandated order was replaced by a vacillating and incompetent Weimar Republic unable to adapt to the new political realities and provide political leadership.
Underpinning the Nazi’s policies on the untermenschen was a loathing of democracy and a hankering after certainty. That is why Hitler’s usurpation of dictatorial powers after the Reichstag Fire in January 1934 was not even opposed by the President, Paul van Hindenberg. There was a meeting of minds. The demolition of democracy was not mourned. Most Germans favoured a retrogressive step back to a golden era of certainty as it had been under Kaiser Wilhelm. Like the Nazis, if PEGIDA had to attain power, they would not find reverting to the past a panacea.
As interesting and as eye-opening as all these observations are, does the right-wing really represent a threat to German tolerance and open-mindedness?
Change for most people is frightening. Lack of jobs and people’s latent xenophobia / racism exacerbated by an uncertain future creates a natural receptiveness to radical ideas. The very simplicity of radical solutions is a magnet for the disaffected and disenchanted.
Without an economic implosion, Germany is unlikely to experience severe economic dislocation. This was the tipping point for the Nazis. At the height of the great depression, with all the winds blowing in their favour, they still only recorded 34% of the vote. With their opponents in disarray, the Nazis were offered power by Von Papen who imagined that he could control Hitler.
For the vast majority of the Germans, the concept of democracy has been deeply embedded within the fabric of society.
Without truly calamitous circumstances, the right-wing is unlikely to gain sufficient traction politically to even obtain 5% of the vote.
Instead they will remain background noise in the German political arena.
It is highly unlikely that shouts of Heil Menzel will be heard during my lifetime.
But what they require is a marketing person to develop a catchier briefer name than PEGIDA.
Hi Dean, just the other day we also discussed about PEGIDA. The former ‘DDR’ had a tendancy towards right wingers because they feel that they should have been lifted immediately to the same level of former ‘BRD’. However, skills were not the same but then – expectations were high. This part sounds a bit like 1994 in South Africa…..
Yes, right wingers are using PEGIDA as a forum to present themselves as the (only) party taking care of people’s worries but I don’t think that they will really get people behind them in numbers.
There is a lot on the news about Islam, Taliban, ISIS: people are putting every evil in the Middle / Near East into the ‘Islamic pot’ but they are too lazy to look a bit deeper to see that irrespective of the religion, Taliban & ISIS are just dangerous idiots with weapons. I believe (and hope) they stay where they are but a lot of people are afraid they would come to Europe / Germany. The media is exaggerating here.
I believe and I can see that the gap between former Eastern & Western Germany is nowhere close to the gap between the poor in SA and the not so poor. And yet – would you be worried that the AWB would get strong again and get all Whites behind them?
Let me know what you think about my thoughts.
Hi Mike, Personally I do not believe that PEGIDA is a huge threat in Germany. They are disaffected because they cannot accept social change and the fact that the Easterns did not rise as quickly as expected. If the German economy had to collapse, which I do not believe for one second, then they could become more formidable.
This is the scenario that I am concerned about in South Africa & the rise of the EFF and Julius Malema.