Incitement of Hatred
A meeting of activists of the ultra-right National Democratic Party in Berlin. The inscription on the poster: "Work first to the Germans!".
In the 1990s, Germany actively fought the extreme right by banning the establishment of such organisations. In response, a new extreme right culture and autonomous organisations emerge among the youth. Numerous new groups started appearing, calling themselves “fellowships”. They maintained contacts with neo-Nazis and skinheads and their main activities were done online.
In addition to these groups, there are numerous online platforms. One of them, World Wide News for People of European Descent, founded in 2002, positions itself as a respectable news website despite its clear leaning towards the extreme right. Another example of such media is the German branch of a network called “Other Media” (Altermedia-Deutschland.info), which copies and rewrites articles of respected publications with corresponding comments. Currently, this website is one of the most popular internet portals for extreme right activists. Altermedia is annually visited by 5 million people.
Organisation NordicTex (in Oberhof) hosts an extreme right website Ansgararyan. The organisation positions itself as the main defender of nationalist ideas. Similar position is occupied by Germaniaversand website, which cites Altermedia in its articles. Politically Incorrect website specialises in Islamophobic articles. When it comes to neo-Nazi graffiti, these regularly appear on the streets of large German cities.
In 2014, anti-Semitic calls have been made by Islamists. On July 11, Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail, in a sermon in Berlin’s Al-Nour mosque praised Hamas and called for the "destruction of the Zionist Jews ... every single one." On July 17, an anti-Israeli demonstration was held in Berlin, where demonstrators chanted, “Jews, Jews, cowardly pigs, come out and fight!” and “Jews to the gas chambers” .
Germany has strict restrictions on distribution of extremist literature. However, particularly online bookstores of Germany often sell books about Wehrmacht, SS troops, etc. as “historical literature”. These books are published by small private publishing houses and distributed largely online.
In April, a book by Akif Pirincci - an ethnic Turk – became a bestseller of the month. Deutschland von Sinnen: Der irre Kult um Frauen, Homosexuelle und Zuwanderer (translated as “Germany out of her Sense: The mad cult of women, homosexuals and immigrants”) is full of hatred towards all three mentioned elements of society . The situation with music is more difficult, as it is harder to censor.
Federal Service for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV) states, “Excluding jazz and classical music, there is not a musical genre that has not been infiltrated by extreme right organisations and that has not been used to conduct extreme right ideas”. According to BfV, music is actively used by German musicians who “glorify National Socialism, present Adolf Hitler and his allies as role models (or tragic heroes)” and try to “inspire racial hatred or incite to violence against foreign nationals, Jews and dissidents” .
There are many neo-Nazi groups, most of which are informal. Among the noteworthy ones are Burning Hate (Oberfranken), White rebel boys, Codex Frei (Kempten), Faustrecht (Mindelheim), Feldherren (München), National born haters (Neu-Ulm), Southern white punks (Augsburg), Sturmtrupp (Neuburg a.d. Donau), Untergrundwehr (Würzburg).
In 2014, neo-Nazis and radical nationalists held approximately 160 festivals and concerts.
In May and June there were two large Nazi rock concerts: one in Nienhagen (Sachsen-Anhalt) , the other one in Gera (Freistaat Thuringen) . In Schleswig-Holstein, the neo-Nazis opened two of their own rocker clubs "Brigade 8" and "Midgards Wächter" .
The popularity of neo-Nazi rock is evidenced by the distribution of CDs of this genre and the sale of “ideological” clothing, which is the main source of income of the radical nationalist parties such as the NDPG. Moreover, the lion's share of the profits comes from music and merchandise sale abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe .
It is worth mentioning Islamic anti-Semitism. Most commonly, it manifested in German Turkish media. Turkish-language press often talks about Jewish conspiracy, accuses them of conducting a Nazi-like policy in Germany, etc. Turkish book fairs often contain anti-Semitic texts.
On October 14, it was reported that Frankfurt Book Fair – largest in Germany – displayed Arabic books with anti-Semitic content (including the adapted text of Protocols of the Elders of Zion), glorifying terrorism and denying the Holocaust .
In 2015, according to the Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, German neo-Nazi group “The Third Way” created an online map titled “No refugee centre in my backyard”, which shows the locations of refugee homes and planned shelters across Germany. A click on a dot offers a full address with a street name and number. The group has also published guidelines with detailed information on how to prevent shelters for asylum seekers being established in the first place. It also provides a guide on how to organise anti-asylum demonstrations and mobilise locals against the idea of having refugee accommodation constructed in their area.
In May 2017, there was an increase in the number of participants in right-wing extremist music festivals. In the first five months, 40 speeches of right-wing musical groups were recorded in the Federal Republic of Germany, 39 of them in the first quarter of 2017 (15 concerts and 24 smaller speeches, for example, song evenings).
One of the main events of the neo-Nazi music scene is the "Eichsfeld Day" festival, named after the venue, a small town in Thuringia. The festival is held for the seventh time. Prior to the concert, representatives of the NPD and the "European Alliance" (EA), the ultra-right network of Holocaust deniers, made a speech.[1]
The deputy of the Bundestag from the Left Party Ulla Yelpke notes: "Many experts speak about the close relationship between right-wing rock music and acts of violence on the part of neo-Nazis. Therefore, further growth in the number of right-wing radical music events is of great concern. In addition to the financial importance of these concerts for the neo-Nazi milieu, they serve as a starting point for the ideological legitimization of racists. Therefore, suppressing every concert is a victory of democracy. " Félix Benneckestein, a well-known rock musician who used extreme right-wing rhetoric in his songs, agrees with her. Bennenkenstein decided to break with the ultra-right and in his interview emphasized that such concerts are not only the meeting place of neo-Nazis, but also a source of radicalization, ideological "feeding." [2]
In May 2017, the anti-immigrant festival "Rock for Identity" was held, which was attended by 3,500 spectators. At that time, it was the largest number of guests of the right-wing musical event in Germany over the past seven years. For the police, such a number of visitors to right-wing radical concerts, according to the publication, was "a complete surprise." [3] However, in June, Thuringia hosted an even more massive festival of ultra-right "Rock against foreign domination. Save culture and identity! "There were 6,000 people from all regions of Germany and from abroad. The site was designed for 5,000 visitors, so the organizers had to expand the venue. [4]
According to the final report of the Berlin Register on documentation of manifestations of right-wing extremism and discrimination for 2017, the propaganda of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and other misanthropic ideologies remains the most common form of expression of the right-wing worldview. Human rights activists recorded about 1.603 similar incidents in the German capital (2016: 1359), most of all in the field of racism, anti-Semitism and PR campaigns of right-wing extremist groups, trends and individual activists. [5] The most characteristic tools of such propaganda are graffiti, stickers, stickers and inscriptions.
During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-22), much of the hate speech was related to COVID-19. Right-wing parties, following conspiracy theories, disseminated information that individual minorities, especially those of Chinese descent, were spreading the infection. Protests against the government's anti-Covid measures became widespread. Thus, in their criticism of the German government's restrictive measures against the pandemic, entire cells of the Alternative for Germany party allowed themselves to draw parallels with the Holocaust, publish Stars of David and the symbols of concentration camps, and directly compare certain laws passed by the Bundestag with those of the "Third Reich. The party's Salzgitter branch published a photomontage of the famous picture of the gates of the Dachau concentration camp on its official website, posting the slogan "Vaccination makes free" instead of the inscription "Labor makes free".
At the same time, online hate speech directed directly at politicians increased sharply in 2019-22. In an unpublished report compiled by the Interior Department late last year in response to an AfG parliamentary inquiry, there were 1,534 crimes against politicians, party members and party property in 2020, up 9 percent. a year earlier. Crimes mostly included verbal abuse, slander, threats, and incidents of vandalism such as graffiti and arson of party offices. There were also a few cases of physical violence. AfG suffered the most attacks, with 694 cases, almost all concluded verbal abuse and vandalism, followed by Angela Merkel's conservative alliance (Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU)) with 231, and the Greens with 206 episodes. Generally, this was also attributed to a reaction to anti-Caucasus restrictions.
The Interior Ministry attributed 544 crimes to left-wing figures and 393 to right-wing ones, and said they had no information about another 532 cases. Four incidents were attributed to "foreign ideology," and more than 60 were directed against small parties not represented in the German parliament.
In 2022, police searched and questioned more than 100 suspects in Germany Tuesday in connection with hate speech against politicians on social media during the 2021 election campaign. The suspects were identified after investigators reviewed more than 600 social media posts, according to federal police and the national Internet crime center ZIT in Frankfurt. They are accused of directly insulting politicians from all parties represented in the Bundestag parliament and of spreading false information, including false quotes. Two-thirds of the politicians affected were women. The suspects were in 13 of Germany's 16 states, including the capital Berlin, where police searched eight private addresses. In Rhineland-Palatinate, police found weapons, ammunition and other illegal items in the possession of one of the suspects.
In 2021, Germany introduced stiffer penalties for hate speech against politicians after a neo-Nazi killed pro-migration politician Walter Lübke in 2019. "Free speech reaches its limit as soon as it comes to slander, insults and threats," Federal Police Chief Holger Münch said. The day of the raids made it clear that "anyone who publishes hate speech should expect the police to show up at his door," he said. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said posting hate speech on social media is a "non-trivial offense," and he hopes the searches will deter others from posting such content.
