Germany: Far-Right round-up
01 January 1991
Germany: Far-Right round-up
artdoc April=1995
Euro elections sees demise of far-Right
No far-Right party in Germany managed to cross the 5% threshold
necessary to win seats at Strasbourg. The Republikaners lost
about half its share of the vote - 3.9%, down from 7.1%, in the
European elections in 1989. The League of Free Citizens, led by
Manfred Brunner, a former senior official at the European
Commission who, in 1993, attempted to challenge the acceptability
of the Maastricht treaty in the Constitutional Court, fared even
worse. During its election campaign, the leader of the Austrian
Freedom Party was invited to speak at the League's rallies.
The Christian Democrats, meanwhile, were the biggest winners,
with 40% of the vote (Jewish Chronicle 19.6.94, Independent
24.6.94).
Republikaners contest local elections
An electoral committee in Saxony-Anhalt has overturned a previous
decision not to allow the Republikaners to stand in regional
elections owing to its undemocratic procedures in the selection
of candidates (Independent 7.6.94).
The debate about anti-racism
Kohl commemorates German Hitler resistance
Chancellor Kohl's commemorations to mark the 50th anniversary of
the failed officers' attempt on Hitler's life has been criticised
by relatives of members of the resistance and the opposition
Social Democrats. They are particularly angry that the main
speaker at the July 20 anniversary was Chancellor Kohl and that
the commemoration was marked by a military ceremony and march by
the Bundeswehr's elite honour guard battalion.
A special publication for the event `The Conscience in Revolt'
omitted any references to communist and exiled opponents of the
Third Reich. Earlier, at France's Bastille Day parade in Paris,
Chancellor Kohl chose to be accompanied by the sons of two
leading aristocratic members of the resistance and Manfred
Rommel, the Christian Democrat mayor of Stuttgart and son of the
`Desert Fox' (Guardian 15.7.94).
Berlin exhibition condemned for recording Communist resistance
to Hitler
A further row about Germany's anti-nazi history has blown up over
an exhibition in Berlin devoted to the anti-Nazi resistance.
Franz Ludwig von Stauffenberg, formerly an MEP representing the
Bavarian ruling party, the CSU, and the youngest son of Claus von
Stauffenberg, the colonel who planted the bomb that exploded at
Hitler's headquarters on 20 July 1944, has condemned the
exhibition organisers for including Communists alongside his
father and other members of the `true resistance'. The
exhibition's organiser, Peter Steinbach, argues that all strands
of the anti-Nazi struggle must be represented in the exhibition.
`We are living in the German Federal Republic, not in an
Orwellian state. Historians, above all, have the duty to defend
the independence of their work... 20 July 1944 is a day of German
history. But it is not the property of one family. And it is
certainly not an event that can be dealt with in party political
terms' (Independent 19.7.94).
IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 10, September 1994. Contact:
Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London
WC1X 9HS. Tel: 0171 837 0041