What neo-Nazis have inherited from original Nazism | DW Documentary

[Music] foreign past and present in the weimar republic the ideology of ethno-nationalism was widespread and eventually became the foundation of the nazi regime the extreme right in germany today is clearly drawing upon this old folkish ideology this ethno-nationalism right-wing extremists today are stoking fears of immigration and what they call the great replacement because the great replacement is when the majority population the native population is displaced and replaced by a minority when the ethnic composition of a population is turned on its head and once again the new rights ethno-nationalist ideas are accompanied by racism and anti-semitism everyone knows which old parasites we're talking about the new right rejects today's germany and believes the time is ripe for a national transformation there's a belief i think it's a delusional one that the time has come to overthrow the system they hate to overthrow democracy [Music] [Music] what does the germany of today have to do with the weimar republic of nearly a century ago what do they have in common what parallels can we draw to a time just before the nazi regime seized power sweeping away hope freedom and peace [Applause] there's this simple and catchy slogan berlin is not weimar that's a trivialization of history historical constellations don't repeat themselves in this one-to-one kind of way the slogan also offers a kind of false reassurance it implies we don't need to give much thought to anti-democratic developments that might be underway it suggests that this comparison is meaningless but i believe that some of what's happening now requires us to do exactly that to undertake this comparison the same kind of assault on democracy that happened in the weimar republic is being revived in a big way history might not repeat itself but we can still learn from it students at a high school in cologne are rehearsing a play about holocaust survivor tamar dreifus who lost much of her family in the nazi concentration camps working with germany's association for information and counseling for the survivors of nazi persecution they want to show how her story is still relevant to the present day [Music] the past is important we can learn from it so that we don't make the same mistakes in school you notice that jokes about jews have become funny again those kinds of jokes are acceptable again tamar dreyfus has also observed the re-emergence of racism and anti-semitism and believes that something needs to be done now to counter the trend you once said remembering isn't enough we have to act what if that doesn't happen that would be bad then it will grow we have to keep repeating this message day in and day out some people may say we don't want this we don't want to hear this anymore it's over but you have to remember without remembrance there is no future in 1929 during the weimar republic 11 years after the end of the first world war germany had been a democracy for 10 years but now its enemies were circling rallying on the streets and even in parliament [Music] [Applause] we have seen that this new german parliamentary and party system is hypocritical and socially corrupt it is an enemy of our fatherland huge was chairman of the german national people's party and a leader of the right [Applause] at the time political parties in the weimar republic were under attack there was a widespread feeling that germans didn't need multiple political parties all they needed was a single true representative of the people a strong leader a strong single party that's what we're seeing again today the populist or radical writer saying we are the true people we represent the people everyone else is being manipulated and is acting against the people's interests the major parties have been preying on the state and turned the government of our nation and people into an arena for ideological experiments the afd is our country's last chance to evolve in the right direction otherwise we must prepare to fight andreas is leader of the afd in brandenburg and has extensive contacts with neo-nazi youth organizations the party is putting its faith in the younger generations many in the weimar republic also recognized the importance of youth organizations churches professional associations sports clubs and political parties all expected the post-war generation to grab the reins and shape the country's future by the time the nazis had seized power it was not just the hitler youth who had been converted many young people believed that democracy had become obsolete tarnished by the older generation that had led germany into the first world war ideas of race and ethnicity had become the hallmark of national unity the individual was nothing the people everything their bond to blood and soil was to be purged of alien elements leaving behind only the pure body of the people [Music] there could be no contradictions within this supposedly biologically pure national community the body of the people it couldn't countenance any form of plurality conflicts of interest competing interests had to be quashed all of these things that we now accept as part of modern mass society were rejected as fundamentally hostile [Music] germany's student fraternities were part of this youth movement by 1924 their writings were drawing on these ideas the ethnic nation is the source of political action every citizen is obligated to act in the national interest their actions must be guided only by the desire to preserve and promote the ethnic life way of our people the traditions of the german fraternities also draw on the ethno-nationalist and anti-semitic ideologies of the 1920s and 30s then as now fraternities serve as a breeding ground for radical right-wing parties and think tanks and for the whole right-wing apparatus the german fraternities are still the elite schools of germany's extreme right their traditions are unchanged but how much of this ethno-nationalist ideology still remains we meet the fraternity spokesman philipp stein in holla what i want is for peoples and populations to preserve their relative homogeneity how's that different from nazi racial theory well racial theory is based on something very different ethnicity doesn't mean everyone is blonde everyone has beautiful straight teeth or a particular shape of skull a people is made up of a variety of qualities that have evolved organically over the centuries i'm asking about this tradition of racial theory because it also involved this fear of intermingling well as i've explained kinship and identity along with language and religious confession are some of the things that define a nation and of course kinship and identity includes some things that have nothing to do with racial theory but just with forms of expression it's pretty easy for me to see that you're a german or european performance so it's pretty clear that certain physical characteristics define a people well at least most of what i would call the people that's actually a pretty ordinary fact but that's a racist or racial point of view i don't want to somehow define people by the shape of their skulls or the kind of crazy stuff that the national socialists propagated it just goes without saying that certain characteristics are what define the identity of a people so where are these ideas coming from this is existence this existential racist mode of thought has been part of radical right-wing ideology for some 200 years it's constantly finding new language and new terminology for its ideas like substituting the word race with words like culture or identity they want society to be homogenous along ethnic lines to change the things that define germany as a state today many people who are obviously german citizens are not perceived as germans through the prism of ethno-nationalism that's witnessed how racism and anti-semitism gave rise to segregation persecution and murder she and her family lived in the lithuanian capital of vilnius in 1941 when she was three years old the german army occupied the city her mother hid her but then she and her parents were rounded up and sent to the city's jewish ghetto one day her father was taken away and shot not long afterwards tamar and her mother were put on a train to a death camp along the way the train made a brief stop her mother saw a chance to escape as if by a miracle they got away unnoticed and went underground for years and survived tamar dreifus has been living in cologne for many years today she feels that she's witnessing a revival of the past a resurgent racism and hostility towards immigrants nourished by the very same ideology she feels an obligation to tell her story educate people and warn them my fate is probably to stay here and do what i do i mean this is like a drop of water on a hot stone but many drops can make stone melt and i hope i've collected a lot of drops in my time today nationalism has returned to germany's streets under the guise of a right-wing protest movement fears of a nation under threat of national decline are being whipped up to justify the anger the smell of decay from a dying democracy is wafting through the country in this situation dear friends and i say this is a citizen loyal to the state our duty is not to remain calm our civic duty is one of courage anger defiance and civil disobedience we must take our country back thus fatherland is both in the 1920s and today regard liberal democracy as a process of decline and decay it supposedly leads to crime through infiltration by foreigners and other disasters this view doesn't have much to do with reality in the weimar republic monarchists and supporters of a one-party system saw parliament and the democratic parties as the enemy the social democrats with their ideas of liberalism were especially hated the communists were agitating from the left the dnvp and increasingly the nazi party from the right they called for parliament and political parties to be abolished [Applause] today the afd is trying to claim the mantle of savior they see the government and other political parties as enemies of the people traditional political parties are trapped in their multicultural republican matrix they're musty outdated she wants to make the great replacement irreversible don't ask me what her motives are for some reason she has something against the german people they want to create a different country a country without immigrant families a country without a liberal culture and a cosmopolitan globalized economy they're essentially talking about a form of national socialism in the german parliament the bundestag the afd serves as a catch-all for the far right it survives by whipping up discontent and anger many afd voters have lost faith in the state and political system only one to four percent of voters from the mainstream established parties say they're dissatisfied with democracy in germany but among left-wing voters that figure is 31 percent among afd voters 41 percent [Music] this dissatisfaction with the democratic system paired with ethno-nationalism has also drawn reams of middle-class voters many of whom share these views even before the afd was founded a certain segment in german society held much more conservative if not to say right wing and even racist views than were reflected in angela merkel's christian democratic party but there was no one on the stage who said this openly or with an air of credibility and legitimacy the afd has succeeded in doing just that and now racist values and world views are not just being thought but openly expressed right-wing extremist beliefs also exist in the center of society that we like to think of as a kind of bastion a line of defense we tend to think of right-wing extremism as taking place on the political fringe something that you can get back under control because it's just an isolated minority but that's not really true these attitudes are widespread you'll find them in many segments of society right-wing extremism can persist over generations this is shown by a study conducted by the university of munich which examined rhineland-palatinate and baden-wurttembeck two federal states where immigration has been less of a factor they found that areas that voted for the nazis in 1933 shown here in red gave a larger share of their vote to the afd and the 2017 parliamentary elections shown here in blue there are astonishing continuities in electoral behavior that go back to the time of national socialism this shows us that the political culture radical right-wing attitudes don't suddenly disappear or change overnight there's continuity these attitudes are passed down in families and communities the new far right and the afd cut their teeth on the streets this is where they recruit their followers just like the nazis in the weimar republic at first the nazis were in a relevant fringe movement but they were determined to become a visible force and to grow to avoid betraying its stated mission the afd has to remain a movement in other words it always has to be visible on the streets and it needs to maintain close contact with other affiliated movements being a visible force on the streets in protests is essential to radical tendencies it makes a statement here we are join us follow us we're in the vanguard and ready to fight this tactic was also deployed in the weimar republic fiery rhetoric soon turned into violence street brawls became the order of the day the radicals set out to destabilize the state and demonstrate its powerlessness 1931 saw the nazis committing their first anti-semitic attacks hunting down jews on one of berlin's main shopping boulevards september 2018 in chemnitz open hostility on the streets attacks on journalists a hunt on people perceived as foreigners or migrants racism was openly flaunted and hatred spilled into violence [Music] [Applause] [Music] this tendency towards violence isn't just an abstract idea it's being acted upon i think we lost sight of the fact that we've had a militant subculture with an affinity for terrorism in this scene for a long time they've been waiting in the wings for the right moment to put their violence into action on the streets the far left shares those tendencies as was on evidence at the g20 summit in hamburg two years ago they also resorted to violence but there is a crucial the difference left isn't trying to overthrow democracy but to overthrow capitalism the radical right wants to do away with democracy and human rights this difference is also apparent in their behavior on the streets as a rule left-wing violence is directed primarily against objects and signifiers of the state right-wing violence also targets the state but it also tends to hunt down minorities and attack people not objects the afd and their allies are still a minority but they claim to represent a silent majority they openly express racial ideologies and notions of ethnic purity they themselves admit that the recent arrival of refugees in germany was a boon to their movement of course the great migration crisis that started in 2015 has been a kind of catalyst for patriotic or right-wing ideas or whatever i don't think anyone would deny that there was a moment when these opinions were able to gain momentum when what people were willing to say out loud really expanded the limits of what can be said openly and in public without immediate sanction have shifted substantially in germany over the last few years i think everyone agrees on that it's worrying that radical slogans including a kind of rhetorical violence are now not just limited to social media where it's long been a real problem now it's left the digital world and gone analog into the public sphere far-right groups such as bagida and the identitarian movement are moving on to germany's streets [Applause] the identitarian movement may be a throwback but as this promotional video shows it presents itself as hip young and forward thinking like their other allies on the far right they want to draw young people into the movement the identitarians are skilled at attracting attention like at this 2016 protest at the brandenburg gate in berlin and their campaign on the french alps for a mediterranean mission to keep refugees out rather than to rescue them martin zelner has mounted campaigns in austria germany and across europe proclaiming the supposed downfall of society he also plays down the crimes committed by the nazis claiming that traditional democratic politicians have become mired in what he calls a cult of guilt for years this elite has been searching for a sword to fall onto now they've found one the migration crisis this is a society a generation of death and voluntary liquidation the identitarians want to be a force of life so we say this to that elite you're welcome to sacrifice yourselves to destroy yourselves with your cult of guilt that's your right but you don't have the right to drag the rest of us into this the identitarian movement is being monitored as an extremist organization by germany's security services the identitarians say they want to protect the purity of supposedly homogeneous ethnic groups the great replacement is its unifying narrative and features prominently in a manifesto by one of the movement's leaders the ethnic german population will be displaced in the coming decades replaced by migrants who do not share our culture the 21st century is about nothing less than the survival of our people and the whole of europe [Music] before the idea that the population will be supplanted that there'll be something like a great replacement as the new right calls it is widespread this is a core element of the new radical right-wing ideology it's a response to migration the globalization of the population and demographic change alexander kleiner who calls himself alex malenki is the leader of the identitarian movement in leipzig his aim is to convince young people that the great replacement is real he and philip tala run the right wing youtube channel lautgedacht or thinking out loud now everyone should have realized that anyone who doesn't follow the green eco mainstream or who's not interested in immigration is immediately branded a nazi they're trying to marginalize us great replacement i've seen that a lot in your literature what is it the great replacement is when the majority the native population is displaced and replaced by others when a population's ethnic composition is upended so if we take germany as a concrete example then the great replacement would mean that people born and bred in frankfurt would no longer be the majority in their own city and who decides who's german and who isn't it's not a decision there is no decision and no authority can make one it's a process but you have decided who's german and who isn't we don't want germans to become a minority in their own country people whose families came here from somewhere else aren't germans sorry what people with a migration background aren't germans in a way it depends on exactly where they came from and your definition of what is a german yes um but the vast majority of people with migrant backgrounds in germany are germans they're german citizens but can a piece of paper be the final word in defining who is a german and who isn't um [Music] what they're saying violates our concept of citizenship and the values of our constitution when they say that people are not german because of their heritage that's a modern form of racism a german is a person who's a german citizen and that's what the new right is unwilling to accept the ideology of the great replacement unites right-wing extremists around the world on march 15 2019 in christchurch new zealand a right-wing extremist shot dead 50 people who were praying in two mosques the killer filmed his rampage and streamed it live on the internet harvesting clicks and likes from right-wing extremists before the attack brenton tarrant penned a manifesto claiming that the white race in western countries was being replaced because of its lower birth rate it was titled the great replacement the same ideology that underlies the identitarian movement and there was also a direct connection to martin zellner mouthpiece of the identitarians [Music] martin zellner was forced to admit that tarant had donated 1500 euros to his private account a year before the attack [Music] the terrorist's donation to the identitarian movement demonstrates ideological sympathy or proximity he also said that he donated to other nationalist movements this is a very clear indication that the christ church killer was a fan of the identitarian movement christ church and then the identitarian movement has set up what it calls a patriotic bar behind the barred windows of this house in hala several far-right activists are holding a meeting here we're allowed inside but aren't allowed to ask any questions alex malenki says the killer's donation to martin zellner was no big deal tomorrow someone could throw 10 euros into your mailbox just saying was this just a random donation unsolicited and unwanted it turns out that zellner replied to brandon terrance email i want to thank you personally for your incredible donation this is my personal email address if you want you can contact me here martin zelner continues to paint himself as the victim but he doesn't seem to reject violence in principle only for strategic reasons non-violence and activism does not mean being defenseless in my opinion it should be coupled with a genuine willingness to fight we do that as a conscious decision for metapolitical and strategic reasons we know it's better and more effective so avoiding violence may only be a temporary tactic an event attended by numerous afd officials the speakers openly professed the doctrine of the great replacement the federal government wants us to work for the immigrants so that they can keep bearing children and complete the population exchange these conquerors disguised as refugees just want to prey on our society our dear people are deeply divided and now the declining birth rate and mass immigration is posing a fundamental threat to their existence the idea of an existential threat to the german people was also put forth by nazis during the weimar republic [Applause] hitler propagated his racial ideology early on directing it against anyone he saw as alien to the german nation [Music] but at that time many people didn't see the danger in it in nazi ideology this supposed body of the nation was made up only of what they called aryan germans jews didn't belong even if their families had been in germany for [Music] generations [Music] and if a muslim in this country does not want to accept our know then dear friends he is free to roll up his prayer rug clamp it under his arm and leave our country the main enemy under this ideology are jews who are perceived as powerful as infiltrators that hasn't changed migrants muslims are also painted with the same brush they're painted as unworthy impure and violent a blight german fraternities spokesman philip stein has his office on the first floor of the same house in holla where the identitarian movement has its bar he also says that the german people will be displaced by immigration if two three or four million people immigrate and live in germany for many many decades then of course a shift in the social majorities will at some point become a possibility just take a look at demographic statistics you don't have to be right or left-wing it's simply a fact the demographic trend here in germany is basically happening to the detriment of the majority population so the descendants of people who live here now no matter how long they live here we'll always be immigrants and not germans they're citizens but not part of our people the trick behind this is to present demographic change as a larger threat that's then dressed up in racist garb there's no way to come up with the idea of a great replacement unless you're thinking in terms of ethnicity and employing racist categories the students at the lessing high school in cologne will soon and who isn't everybody else they don't see that as a problem to the contrary we all came from somewhere else settled here and then built up our country if you look at it that way whether they see themselves as german or not but it's not relevant to whether you belong or not it's very sad we're all people the fact that these prejudices still exist is really a pity we should be past that in the 21st century but europe is not past that here in austria far-right parties have gained an ever larger following in recent years in may 2019 heinz christian straha had to step down as vice chancellor and leader of the right-wing populist freedom party after a scandal that exposed underhanded political practices and their plan to limit the independence of the media in hungary this process is well underway the right-wing populist fides party under viktor orban has virtually abolished the free press pac tv stations with its own people and close down entire editorial offices and he's manipulating the media for his electoral campaigns in italy the far-right lega nord led by anti-immigrant firebrand matteo salvini have a powerful influence on policy their isolationist policies are one reason why thousands of refugees have drowned in the mediterranean [Music] the afd on the campaign trail for the european elections afd leader york moyeton met with other european far-right leaders to found a radical pan-european alliance the right is on the rise throughout europe if you compare european countries you can see the far right is quickly gaining ground in many of them in some right-wing extremists are now even part of governing coalitions at the national level after the end of the cold war right-wing populist and far-right parties played very little role in europe only reaching the 10 percent threshold in a few countries at the turn of the millennium but in 2019 far-right parties have become a force to be reckoned with in some countries they've even been part of the government a similar development took place after the first world war which had led to the emergence of a number of democracies in europe [Music] twenty years later most of them had reverted to authoritarian systems or dictatorships [Music] the weimar republic resisted this tendency but the nazis were biding their time waiting for a chance to overthrow democracy and establish a totalitarian regime for a while the economy was on the upswing inflation was falling and unemployment was lower than it had been in years in october 1929 the global economic crisis brought that to a crashing halt until then the nazis had been a fringe party then unemployment exploded bringing with it widespread poverty voters flocked to the nazis with little social security many germans lost their homes and went hungry the nazis seized on this widespread discontent and won the protest boat from 1924 to 1933 the nazis had made some significant electoral gains but these did not come at the expense of the other political parties instead voter turnout was rising rapidly and it appears that many people who marked their ballot for the nazis had previously been non-voters the nsdap the nazi party was what they called a people's party a party of protest it was the only party that was effective across the weimar republic the afd is also a mixture of socially established voters from the center who've drifted to the right and new voters protest voters who see it as a vehicle to express their dissatisfaction and we will keep this revolution going until politics in this country has been reversed by 180 degrees the afd also capitalizes on protest and it attracts people who didn't vote before almost a quarter of afd supporters were previously non-voters there's a clear parallel to the former nazi party this also implies that not all nazi voters around 1932 had suddenly become convinced racists and anti-semites and national socialists the nazis were harvesting the protest vote and the afd is doing that too even in these economically stable times the afd has succeeded in sparking protests on the streets unemployment in germany is low and the economy seemingly robust but the danger is still there german society is becoming increasingly fragmented we're not a society that's getting poorer we're a society that's getting richer anyone can in theory grow wealthy but the upper 60 percent in our society keep getting richer while the lower 40 percent haven't made any gains in the last 15 years and that's a problem even with the expansion of opportunity social inequality has grown this 40 percent is 32 million people in germany people who've seen no economic gains or who have even lost ground this state of affairs has become a threat to social stability what would happen in the event of a new global economic crisis if germany experienced runaway inflation and mass unemployment new radical right is pursuing a policy of ratcheting up social tensions they want to push it to the point where tensions will erupt and destroy liberal democracy the weimar republic went from a peaceful democracy to a brutal dictatorship in just 14 years in attendance the trend is that we're very gradually seeing a return to those things social polarization right-wing extremism the rise of an anti-democratic party the rise of right-wing violence a state and a government that no longer seem to be able to cope with this situation all of those elements existed in the weimar republic we're not repeating that history but we must draw on our knowledge of what happened to the weimar republic to make sure it doesn't happen again [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,901,427

Rating: 4.1109943 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, DW documentary 2019, full documentary, documentary 2019, DW, beyond the news, Weimar Republic, Identitarian Movement, history, Neo-Nazis, conservative revolution, AfD, the great replacement, nazi documentary, history documentary, neo-nazi documentary, the far right, right wingers

Id: rcCu3Yia6WU

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 21 2019