Reader TTS

Germans have been shocked to the core by the “shisha bar” massacre in Hanau, in which eight people were killed by a young man, Tobias Rathjen, who then shot his mother and himself. This

latest episode in a series of attacks by Right-wing extremists cannot be blamed on the atavistic former Communists in the East: Hanau is a town near Frankfurt, in the heart of the West. More

than ever before, the police and security services are under scrutiny. The threat posed to the Federal Republic by the far-Right has clearly been underestimated. Many people are now deeply

worried by the resurgence of a demon that they assumed had long since been exorcised: the spectre of Germany’s Nazi past. The truth is that neo-Nazis have always existed in postwar Germany.

Until reunification, three decades ago, it was possible to dismiss them as a fringe phenomenon. Terrorism was usually associated with the far-Left, especially the Red Army Faction, better

known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Neo-Nazi paramilitary groups re-emerged in the unified German nation state, but only became a serious threat as a result of several interconnected events:

the failure of multiculturalist policies to integrate the large Turkish minority; the rise of radical Islam; and the migration crisis of 2015. The German Interior Ministry now estimates the

number of violent _ Rechtsextremisten _ at 12,700, but there is a much larger penumbra of people who sympathise with their ideas. The new far-Right terrorists have indiscriminately targeted

“foreigners”, both recent migrants and third-or fourth generation German Muslims. Germany’s tiny Jewish population, already in fear of Islamists, has also been attacked by the neo-Nazis. The

latest “lone wolf”, Tobias Rathjen, was undoubtedly paranoid, but he also appears to have been articulate and well-versed in the genocidal ideology of racial “cleansing” bequeathed by the

Nazis. The manifesto he left behind combines various themes typical of Right-wing extremist international networks, including the white nationalist conspiracy theory of the “Great

Replacement”. Originally popularised by the French author Renaud Camus, this ideology claims that white Europeans are being “replaced” by Muslims as part of a “genocide by substitution”

perpetrated by global liberal elites. Camus himself is not anti-Semitic, but many of the white supremacists who believe in this theory are. However international such far-Right ideologies

have become, they will always have a special significance in Germany. Ever since 1945, most Germans have accepted that the price of acceptance in the European family of nations is an

unwavering commitment to “the culture of remembrance”. In recent years, however, the uniqueness of Nazi Germany’s crimes, above all the Holocaust, has been called into question from all

sides. At the same time, a large political party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), has arisen that rejects the notion of remembrance and the singularity of German guilt. Having begun as a

mainstream party of economic liberals and conservative Eurosceptics, the AfD has morphed into an ever more radical Right-wing movement. It is now the largest opposition party in the

Bundestag and is adept at exploiting the disarray of the political system. The present Federal Republic bears few resemblances to the Weimar Republic, but it does have six major parties, the

same number as on the eve of the Nazi takeover in 1933. Drawing  parallels with the 1920s and 30s is always problematic, because we have the benefit of hindsight, and comparisons with the

Nazis are usually inept. But in the German case such analogies are unavoidable. In Germany, more than anywhere else, the past is always present. German history is not and can never be

“normal”. Volker Ullrich, the latest German biographer of Hitler, concludes his monumental Life of the dictator thus: “The far-Right in Germany wants to return to a narrative in which the

twelve years of Hitler’s dictatorship were an unhappy but minor episode in an otherwise normal, in parts glorious, national history. Those who whitewash history in this way need to realise

that they are attacking the very foundations of the Federal Republic.” Ullrich knows precisely whom he is accusing here. Two years ago, one of the best-known leaders of the AfD, Björn Höcke,

called on Germans to make “a 180 degree change in their commemoration policy”. Denouncing the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, he declared that “we Germans are the only people in the world to

have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital”. Significantly, Höcke was speaking in Dresden. The Saxon capital was last week the scene of solemn ceremonies to commemorate

the Allied bombing of the city 75 years ago — but this week it witnessed a march by Pegida, the anti-Muslim movement, led by none other than Höcke. Against this political background, attacks

on shisha bars and other Muslim targets are hardly surprising — although Rathjen’s murderous rampage in Hanau certainly surprised the authorities. One lesson from the 1920s will not be lost

on historians. In 1923, Hitler tried to take power in Munich with a violent _ putsch. _ He failed and the Nazi party was banned, but he learned how to exploit legal means to achieve the

same goal. After his release from prison in 1925, the ban on his party was lifted. Ten years after the Munich putsch, Hitler became Chancellor. Germans today need to beware not only of the

neo-Nazi terrorists but also of the demagogues who stay just within the letter of the law.