The approval and performance of politically-motivated violence has been a core element of fascist or antisemitic activism for a century.
Some have spoken out against a rapprochement between the AfD and PEGIDA. The AfD leader in Saxony insists: 'The AfD is the political arm of all non-violent, liberal-democratic citizen movements.'
The Chemnitz case shows a Saxon city where the radical right has tried to establish itself for years, with some very concrete fantasies about a violent ‘overthrow’.
We might see parallels between Rostock ’92 and Chemnitz ’18, but the impact and the political context today are fundamentally different – though not at all less dangerous.
What kind of campaigning could outweigh the increasing power of implicit and explicit alliances by far-right actors and certain anti-Muslim German feminists?
Chemnitz shows how collaboration across three rightwing sectors is a recipe for disaster, as the extreme right understands very well.
If these rebels hadn’t somehow found the courage to strike out in bold, new and, frankly, dangerous directions, we would all be the poorer for it.
The CSU's position is weak – but unfortunately, not weak enough to not bring down Angela Merkel.
The hollowing out of this constitutional firewall represents a weakening of a legal structure born directly out of the German experience of state fascism.
“I wanted a Germany that was hegemonic and efficient, not authoritarian and caught up in a European Ponzi scheme. That was in 2013.” Excerpt from the Munich Seminar.
AfD is a far-right party which has drawn a lot of strength over the past five years by banging on about how unsafe German streets have become.
Unable to generate a domestic consensus and powerless to counter the priorities dictated by the euro, social democracy must continue to fail at home while divisions among EU nations deepen.
