The Fight for Germany
Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, September 6, 2024
Credit Image: © Imago via ZUMA Press
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These errors seem to go only one way. It turns out that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party did not win enough seats in Saxony to block legislation or appointments that require a two-thirds majority. “Saxony’s electoral commission said on Monday morning that a software error was to blame for the incorrect calculation of seats based on preliminary results from Sunday’s vote,” says the German news agency DPA.
Nontheless, the AfD won a tremendous victory in both Saxony and Thuringia. In Thuringia, the AfD won 32.85 percent of the vote, a plurality, with the weak “center-right” CDU (the main opposition party) winning 23.6 percent. In Saxony, the AfD came in second to the CDU, winning about 30.6 percent of the vote to the CDU’s 31.9 percent.
The international press was hysterical. “The far right is on the cusp of winning the most votes in German state elections for the first time since the Nazis,” said the BBC. “For some in Germany, the rise of Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a literal nightmare.”
- “A far-right German party’s win has some fearing for the future. Others worry of a return to the past,” AP, September 2, 2024
- “AfD becomes first far-right party to win German state election since 1945,” CNN, September 3, 2024
- “German AFD wins landmark victory as a hard-right party tops a regional vote for the first time in the country since the Second World War,” Daily Mail, September 1, 2024
Power in a mass democracy lies in controlling narratives. There is nothing fearsome about the AfD. It does not want to bring back the Second Reich, let alone the Third, but it is cast as somehow a continuation of the Nazi regime, or at least as some nebulous “far-right” demon. “The AfD has become so notorious that it’s been placed under domestic surveillance for the threat it poses to Germany’s constitution,” said NPR. Would NPR neutrally, let alone favorably, report that Belarus or China was cracking down on the opposition?
The center-right CDU says the AfD is a pariah party: “There will be no coalition with the AfD, no cooperation with the AfD,” said party leader Friedrich Merz. Instead, with elections in Brandenburg coming up, he lectured voters: “Take a close look at what happened in Thuringia and Saxony” and “make sure there are clear political majorities in the center of the political spectrum.”
The SPD, the left-wing party the CDU supposedly opposes, also claims it “has a responsibility to ensure that there will continue to be stable political majorities in the political center in future.” Thus, it’s the parties’ job to discipline voters to make sure they are ruled by the “political center” regardless of what they want. The “political center” is far left by historical standards, with mass immigration continuing in Germany regardless of the party in power.
A Green Party leader says that the AfD’s success “causes many people very deep concern and fear.” Would right-wing voters afraid of a hard-left party get sympathetic media coverage about their “concern and fear?” A spokeswoman for Turks says many in her generation plan to leave Germany. If someone wanted to stop the AfD, removing the reason for its support through remigration would be a good first step.
“The results for the AfD in Saxony and Thuringia are worrying,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society, and ruining our country’s reputation.” How did it do that without ever being in government? Mr. Scholz is lecturing Germans about what democracy means and who should govern.
The AfD wants what its election results warrant: a role in government. Alice Weidel, national co-leader of AfD, said it was a “historic success for us” and a “requiem” for the SPD government led by Chancellor Scholz, whose party barely got 5 percent of the vote, the minimum required for seats in parliament. “Firewalls [to exclude the AfD] are undemocratic,” she said. Björn Höcke, another influential AfD leader, said the vote would mean other parties could not freeze it out. “We are ready to take government responsibility,” he added. It seems unlikely the AfD will get the chance.
In May, a court fined Mr. Höcke for daring to utter the phrase, “Everything for Germany.” Supposedly, this was a Nazi slogan, though Mr. Höcke said he didn’t know that. (Neither did I.) A judge did not believe him and therefore fined him. “The Nazis also said ‘Guten tag,” Mr. Höcke said. “Do you want to ban the German language because the Nazis also spoke German? At some point, this has to end.”
The perpetual guilt imposed on Germans after World War II is the foundation of the modern German political order. It is the foundation of the entire postwar political order in the West. “We Germans are the only people in the world that have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital,” said Bjorn Höcke, referring to a Holocaust memorial. The Telegraph added that Mr. Höcke said that modern Germans have “the mentality of a totally vanquished people.”
Britain is planning to build a Holocaust memorial next to Parliament, destroying some of the meager green space left in London.
A new permanent National Holocaust Memorial & Learning Centre beside Parliament is the right idea, in the right place, at the right time. It will be a bold, unapologetic national statement.
Let’s fulfil the promise I made a decade ago, get behind it, build it, & be proud of it. pic.twitter.com/NQ0bNbNvxx
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) September 5, 2024
There is a new memorial lamenting slavery in London. The historic homes of the American Founding Fathers are now monuments to shame. There are anti-white “decolonization” efforts in many white countries. Our system has a negative foundation myth that teaches white children they are uniquely guilty of racism, sexism, and oppression, and must “abolish whiteness.” Each country has its version. Canada berates itself over residential schools for Indians, America over slavery and westward expansion, Britain over the Empire, Belgium over the Congo, the Netherlands over colonialism, and so on. This does not lead to “healing.” It rubs ancient grievances raw and becomes the new rationale for more payoffs to non-whites.
The Washington Post argued that the imposed guilt and shame Germans feel should be the model for Americans. Kamala Harris claimed the United States is the “scene of a crime:” “what we did with slavery and Jim Crow and institutionalized racism.” Monuments reminding us of slavery go up while statues of heroes come down.
The real enemy of World War II was not the Axis but the inner racism in every Western country. This also explains the current hysteria over Tucker Carlson’s interview with Darryl Cooper about the causes of World War II, now apparently worthy of condemnation from the White House. The real question is not about history, but about World War II mythology that attacks Western nations.
Here was the most important part of the Darryl Cooper interview on Tucker Carlson: pic.twitter.com/pIExPRCTZ4
— ib (@Indian_Bronson) September 5, 2024
The Allied victory did not lead inevitably to the Death of the West. Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and other allied leaders and generals would be guilty of “inciting racial hatred” if they were living today. However, Germany is “patient zero” of this global anti-white plague, and if Germany recovers, the rest of us may, too. Hysteria and fear over the gains of a moderately right-wing German party are therefore justified; an entire moral framework and political system are in jeopardy. If Germany becomes a “normal” nation whose people are allowed to be patriotic, other white nations could be, too.
Evoking the Nazis is a way to tell Germans they can never be normal. After the election, a former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said, “Exactly 85 years after the start of World War II, Germany is in danger of becoming a different country again: more unstable, colder, and poorer, less secure, less worth living in.” Tarik Abou-Chadi who teaches at Oxford says, “As a German citizen, a queer person of color, it is simply devastating and frightening that, at a very high turnout, over 30 percent support extreme-right fascists.” The head of the International Auschwitz Committee said that the vote was depressing for survivors because “they thought that Germany, after the experiences of the Holocaust, the rise of the Nazi party, the SS and everything, would be especially aware of the dangers of this ideology.” The AfD’s strong performance among young Germans suggests they are throwing off Germany’s regime of shame.
The result may be more repression. “All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists,” said Chancellor Scholz. Left-wing protesters, including antifa, are already disrupting AfD events. The Washington Post said AfD participation in government “would amount to a major new crack in Germany’s post-World War II firewall against the far right, further eroding efforts to contain and ostracize extremist political thought.”
Throughout the West, regimes teach our children shame and self-hatred. This started in Germany; maybe it could end there first. German activists face obstacles that should shame Americans who have much more freedom. However, the Germans persisted and have won a major victory. Nationalists support patriotism and pride for all nations. Germany and America’s fates are linked, like those of all white nations. The struggle to save our countries may make us one people.