Date: Mon, 3 Feb 92 14:59:42 +0100 Reply-To: GRMNHIST - German History Forum <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1> Sender: GRMNHIST - German History Forum <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1> From: Walter Felscher <mmife01@MAILSERV.ZDV.UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE> Subject: neonazis and skinheads This is a comment on neonazism in Germany by a German observer. I publish it with hesitation, and only after several correspondents have risen this topic which, clearly, is not historical, but belongs current politics. 1. Neonazis To begin with, by neonazis I understand people who say that Hitler and his doctrine was good, that his crimes did not take place, and that his ideas should be resumed. There are such neonazis, have been there in Western Germany for the last 40 years. They hardly appear in public, meet in conventicles, did run in some elections where they received 0.0... % of the vote, and do not count more than, say, 3000 people at most. One of their spokesmen, a demoted army lieutenant named Kuehnen, died in prison last year - ironically from Aids. They are best described as loonies - digruntled in some way or another in civil life, and seeking consolation in a made up past. Kuehnen was maybe 30 when he became known in this connection; older, former Nazi's by now have been dying out. A small publishing firm which some old Nazis had set up here in very Tuebingen closed down maybe 10 years ago, for lack of demand. 2a. Skinheads in Western Germany A very different matter are the skinheads, now uttering nazi paroles and committing crimes, from vandalism to arson and, presumably, murder. They appeared in West Germany maybe 10 years ago, were without any political persuasion at all, youth from the lowest strata, often still at professional highschool but with a performance, and in an environment, making it more attractive to them to flunk school and live on the dole (and on income from theft etc.). They hung around the center of the cities, cut off their hair Iroquois-style, painted it green and pink: with the one and only desire to have a uniform and to shock the passerby whom they occasionally molested - the few policemen still walking the streets looking carefully away. On a slightly higher level, you have the same behaviour in the soccer hooligans, available e.g. also in Britain who, however, are often employed and perform their crimes only on the occasion of soccer matches. The skinheads were/are nearly illiterate, no information about Nazism and its doctrines in their minds. But then they discovered that the thing to shock people most - and to gain media attention - was to paint a swastika. Without knowing what it meant. 2b. Skinheads in Eastern Germany By contrast, in East Germany, with a harsh police regiment, there were no neonazis, and hooliganish phenomena such as skinheads were immediately suppressed. After the police state collapsed in November 1989, skinheads began to appear in imitation of what had been seen in the Western media. And they imitated the swastika painting and the repeating of slogans from an ununderstood Nazi terminology. While their number is very small, both their virulence and their proportion within the entire population is clearly higher in the Eastern parts than in the Western ones. 2c. Skinheads, economical causes It is a truism that everything is the world is influenced by economical developments. As for the skinheads in Western Germany, though, a causation by such developments can hardly be discerned. While they recruit themselves from a particular stratum of society, this stratum is but a small section of the lesser educated and lower income groups and cannot be characterized by its economical conditions. 30 or 40 years ago, youth from these groups might, to a small part, have glided into petty crime, while the larger part would have worked in low income jobs. And that since this situation did change has, contrariwise, to do with the generally improved economical situation: the substitution of a work ethics by the hedonistic attitudes of a consumer society, the silent toleration of deviant behaviour, and the availability of social support to those not willing to work. In particular, skinheads in Western Germany are not the victims of the non-availability of employment: over the last years, there has been a continuous surplus of unfilled apprentice jobs for youths between 16 and 18. In the Eastern parts, the situation is quite different. Unemployment there is above 30%. The old and ineffective production plants employed three men were Western plants used one, and the process os restructuring them is excruciatingly slow. In this situation, apprenticeships are harder to find, and the general attitude of supposing 'the state' to take care of everything still hampers the development of personal initiative. Consequently, here indeed the economical situation supplies candidates of unemployed and aimless youths. 3. Skinheads and Neonazis There can be no doubt that, after the skinheads discovered the shock value of painting swastikas, some of those few true neonazis, mentioned above, began to use this occasion to feed them their terminology. And again, this happened mainly in the Eastern parts where the entire system of public values had been turned over. Still, there is no political movement worth to mention behind these rioters and criminals, their entire number is tiny, and there is as yet no reason for concern. As yet. Things may change, and some of the policies pursued do much to fan the fire. While it is only too understandable that foreign observers, not familiar with details, are concerned about a possible resurgence of Nazidom, I am afraid that I consider it highly detrimental that skinhead violence and neonazism are identified also in the German media and in the statements of German politicians. Actually, it seems to me that it is mainly this published attitude which drives a-political gangs into the arms of an otherwise absolutely negligible neonazi movement. Walter Felscher, Tuebingen Up