The Nazi party didn’t die with Hitler. Neo-Nazism is still present around the world, but especially in Germany. Many Germans are disgusted by the far-right group while others still adhere to the group’s rhetoric. Despite the country’s calculated efforts to stamp out its extremist past, the neo-Nazi movement remains alive and well in Germany, forging on to the twenty-first century with frightening support.

The resurgence of neo-Nazism came with the fall of the Berlin wall. Since then, violence between left and right wing groups has prompted Germany to ban several neo-Nazi groups. Germany has made major efforts to rid its nation of Nazism, frequently looking to the courts to prevent a surge in Nazi influence in German politics.

Legal History

German courts have held a double standard when it comes to neo-Nazism. In 2005, they banned marches whose objectives were the “approval, glorification, or justification” of Adolf Hitler’s Reich.  Just four years earlier in 2001, the court repealed a ban on neo-Nazi gatherings, ruling that expression of opinion could only be outlawed if it led to riots.

Court-Ordered Ban

A neo-Nazi gathering

Recently, the constitutional court in Germany ruled against protests staged by neo-Nazi groups, citing their hate-filled ideology as one of the most significant factors in arriving at this decision. It brings to a close a legal battle fought over two-decades. The years following the death of Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess in 1988 had neo-Nazis in his Bayern hometown of Wunsiedel longing to march in his honor. The German constitution provides for the right of assemble, as well as the right to free speech.

The German supreme court also went as far as revising laws on neo-Nazi groups, making prosecution of suspected members drastically easier. Formal evidence is no longer required. Before, probable cause meant collecting member lists or guidelines. Now, convictions only require evidence that crimes had a “superior group intention.”

While it is easy to ignore the rights of hate groups, the question of whether such legislation is acceptable within a democracy is certainly an important one. Americans are especially ardent defenders of the First Amendment. As long as they are not inciting riots, do neo-Nazis deserve these same rights?

Mixed Response

Much of the support for this recent ruling comes from Joachim Herrmann, the Bayern Interior Minister and member of the centre-right Christian Social Union. He spoke to the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper recently, saying that the ruling “strengthens [his] fight against the NPD” and what he believes are their anti-constitutional goals. In a country that bans the public use of Nazi paraphernalia, the recent rulings are in line with public opinion. However, far-right wing elements within the country still preach to a choir ever eager to listen. But more people are eager to do away with the fringe element of their country.

Opposition to the ruling comes surprisingly from a group strictly opposed to neo-Nazism. Tageszeitung, a leftist-progressive gazette published commentary from legal expert Christian Rath. Warning against what he believes to be a double standard in free speech, he made a he compared the ban to the restrictions placed on suspected terrorists.  Rath mentioned that Germany needed to part ways with its special bans on expressions of Nazism.

Perhaps it is an inevitable consequence of multiparty states that there exist fringe elements in both the left and right-wing political spectrums. Still, provided that the constitution upholds the right to assembly for German citizens, the new rulings signal a dangerous precedent for the country that once embraced Nazism. Like Adolf Hitler during his tenure, the constitutional ban on the gatherings and the expressions of Nazism are akin to the political, social, and economic suppression by dictators directed at their opponents. Whether they welcome the comparison or not, it is indubitable the striking similarity the recent constitutional ban has to the beginnings of Hitler’s systematic extermination of his state enemies.

The Problem Persists

It is perhaps interesting to note that the Treaty of Versailles is still being paid for by Germany. In signing the treaty, Germany admitted fault for the atrocities of the World War I, committing to the payment of a staggering 226 billion Reichsmarks in 1919, reduced to 132 billion Reichsmarks in 1921. Both sums were far more than the total wealth of Germany. Its breakage began a Second World War, the very catalyst for the groups the constitutional ban hopes to target.

In 1952, Germany had already taken care of a considerable part of the debt, having paid 1.5 billion Reichsmarks ( $357 million by the then monetary standards). Payment was halted when Germany experienced Cold War divisions, becoming East and West Germany.

Come the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent German unification that followed, repayments were projected to be done within a period of 20 years, the outstanding balance of around 56 million euros ($84 million dollars) paid out to bonds held by creditors. They hope to be done by October 3, 2010, which should make people who are still living in the 1930s a little happier that they are no longer the crushed power subjected to unfair punishment.

In lieu of their hate of Semites, of immigrants, of Catholics, and of pretty much everyone else who does not conform to the Aryan prototype (or White Anglo-Saxon Protestants among groups practicing neo-Nazism in the United States), should the German government really go about in banning their marching activities and continue to ignore the ugly inevitability of having once embraced Nazism?

Government acting as an agent for social change need not translate into infringement upon civil liberties as the German supreme court has done in Germany

Double standards, especially ones that restrict civil liberties otherwise accorded to the people by their constitution, are not the best way to approach the real presence of extremism in Germany, even though the neo-Nazis in question seem to be the glaring candidates for the exception to the rule.

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