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Xenophobia In Dresden, Germany?

NOTE: I spent a lot of time in Eastern Germany after the Wall fell and we were busily preparing for the withdrawl of the GSFG, the end of the DDR, and the unification of East and West Germany. Hopes were high - but so was unemployment amongst the Ossies and a growing sense of anger towards the Wessies and the many socialist brethren (foreigners from countries like Vietnam, Angola, Yemen) who had been studying or living in the DDR's socialist paradise when the on-rush of unforeseeable events of 1989-1990 took place. Within a short period of time, the resurgence of ultra-right extremist movements began and has been a problem for Germany since. Areas around Leipzig, Cotbus, Dresden, Chemnitz, and Rostock have particularly active extremist groups.

And so it goes...

Richard

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In Dresden, High Culture and Ugly Reality Clash
Michael Kimmelman, NYT, 14 Aug 2009

In early July thousands of mourners took to the streets in Egypt, chanting “Down with Germany.” Thousands more Arabs and Muslims joined them in protests in Berlin. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad added to the outcry by denouncing German “brutality.”

The provocation was the murder on July 1 of Marwa al-Sherbini, a pregnant Egyptian pharmacist here. She was stabbed 18 times in a Dresden courtroom, in front of her 3-year-old son, judges and other witnesses, reportedly by the man appealing a fine for having insulted Ms. Sherbini in a park. Identified by German authorities only as a 28-year-old Russian-born German named Alex W., he had called Ms. Sherbini an Islamist, a terrorist and a slut when she asked him to make room for her son on the playground swings. Ms. Sherbini wore a head scarf.

The killer also stabbed Elwi Okaz, Ms. Sherbini’s husband and a genetic research scientist, who was critically wounded as he tried to defend her. The police, arriving late on the scene, mistook him for the attacker and shot him in the leg.

More than a week passed before the German government, responding to rising anger across the Arab world, expressed words of sorrow while stressing that the attack did occur during the prosecution of a racist and that the accused man was originally from Russia.

Dresden is one of the great cultural capitals of Europe. It is also the capital of Saxony, a former part of East Germany that, along with having a reputation as Silicon Saxony, has made more than a few headlines in recent years for incidents of xenophobia and right-wing extremism. One wonders how to reconcile the heights of the city’s culture with the gutter of these events.

This year’s annual report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, showed that far-right crime rose last year by 16 percent across the country. Most of these offenses were classified as propaganda crimes — painting swastikas on Jewish headstones or smashing the windows of restaurants run by immigrants — but politically motivated violent acts like murder, arson and assault accounted for 1,042 of the nearly 20,000 crimes recorded, a rise of 6.3 percent over 2007.

And these violent crimes turned out to be far more commonplace in parts of the former East Germany. Saxony, with roughly 5 percent of the country’s population, accounted for 12 percent of the violence classified as far right in nature, the report said.

These days Dresden’s center, once obliterated by Allied bombs, is a marvel of civility, a restored Baroque fairyland surrounded by Socialist-era and post-Socialist-era sprawl. The rebuilt Frauenkirche, the great Baroque cathedral where Bach played, again marks the skyline with its bell-shaped dome, as it did for centuries.

The ruin of the Frauenkirche became a gathering spot for protests against the East German regime during Communist times. In February, as usual on the anniversary of the Allied air raids, neo-Nazis marched through the streets. Some 7,500 of them carried banners condemning the “bombing holocaust.” They were outnumbered, Spiegel Online reported, by anti-Nazi demonstrators, but 7,500 was nonetheless twice as many neo-Nazis as showed up last year.

The other day only the benign clop-clop of horse-drawn carriages sounded across the cobblestone square outside the cathedral, the carriages bouncing camera-toting tourists past high-end jewelry shops and overpriced cafes. Nearby, the Zwinger palace, perhaps the most beautiful of all Baroque complexes, attracted the usual supplicants to Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, which was paired in the Gemäldegalerie with an African sculpture.

Germany is now a bastion of democracy in the heart of Europe. But the far right is on the rise across the Continent, and xenophobia is gaining in this country, not least among youth and not least singling out Muslims. A recent two-year government survey of 20,000 German teenagers classified one in seven as “highly xenophobic” and another 26.2 percent as “fairly xenophobic.”

“It was known that the figures were high,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said. “But I’m appalled that they’re this high.”

The newspaper Tagesspiegel reported that Alex W. asked Ms. Sherbini in the courtroom, “Do you have a right to be in Germany at all?” before warning her that “when the N.D.P. comes to power, there’ll be an end to that.”

“I voted N.D.P..,” he added.

No surprise.

The far-right National Democratic Party, a marginal but noisy troublemaker on the German political scene with a tiny official membership (some 7,000), is as strong in Saxony as it is anywhere. Recent polls have routinely shown its support in the state as nearing 10 percent of the population; it claims 8 seats out of the 124 in the state parliament in Dresden. On Tuesday the party issued a statement calling for a black politician, Zeca Schall, working on regional elections in Thuringia for the ruling Christian Democratic Union, “to head home to Angola.” Thuringia should “remain German,” the statement said. Mr. Schall, Angolan-born, has lived in Thuringia, another region in the former East, since 1988.

High-tech industries and research institutes like the one where Ms. Sherbini’s husband works, which recruit foreign experts, have lifted Dresden economically above much of the rest of the former East, and last year nearly 10 million tourists fattened the city’s coffers. With half a million residents, some 20,000 of them foreigners, the capital looks prosperous and charming, like its old self.

All of which gets back to the problem of reconciliation: What are the humanizing effects of culture?

Evidently, there are none.

To walk through Dresden’s museums, and past the young buskers fiddling Mozart on street corners, is to wonder whether this age-old question may have things backward. It presumes that we’re passive receivers acted on by the arts, which vouchsafe our salvation, moral and otherwise, so long as we remain in their presence. Arts promoters nowadays like to trumpet how culture helps business and tourism; how teaching painting and music in schools boosts test scores. They try to assign practical ends, dollar values and other hard numbers, never mind how dubious, to quantify what’s ultimately unquantifiable.

The lesson of Dresden, which this great city unfortunately seems doomed to repeat, is that culture is, to the contrary, impractical and fragile, helpless even. Residents of Dresden who believed, when the war was all but over, that their home had somehow been spared annihilation by its beauty were all the more traumatized when, in a matter of hours, bombs killed tens of thousands and obliterated centuries of humane and glorious architecture.

The truth is, we can stare as long as we want at that Raphael Madonna; or at Antonello da Messina’s “St. Sebastian,” now beside a Congo fetish sculpture in another room in the Gemäldegalerie; or at the shiny coffee sets, clocks and cups made of coral and mother-of-pearl and coconuts and diamonds culled from the four corners of the earth in the city’s New Green Vault, which contains the spoils of the most cultivated Saxon kings. But it won’t make sense of a senseless murder or help change the mind of a violent bigot.

What we can also do, though, is accept that while the arts won’t save us, we should save them anyway. Because the enemies of civilized society are always just outside the door.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/ar...er=rss&emc=rss

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All of which gets back to the problem of reconciliation: What are the humanizing effects of culture?

I was tracking until this point. Art is part of culture, but where/how/why does art exactly enter the problem? I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but that part seems to just appear out of nowhere and rather forced, even with Dresden being the Grand Art Capital of the Elbe:confused:

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The police, arriving late on the scene, mistook him for the attacker and shot him in the leg.

...good thing the cops weren't racists...

and

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Recent polls have routinely shown [NDP] support in the state as nearing 10 percent of the population

10% is a negligible fringe element?

Interesting read.

It's sad because neither of the people involved in the incident are originally from Germany.

In two weeks I'll be in Dresden for a few days on vacation.

The German Government doesn't put up with the Neos. While I was living in East Germany a battalion sized element marched through town one day to demonstrate. The Police response looked like a small scale military invasion. There was a helicopter, armored cars with water cannons, and more K-9 teams with large German Shepherds than I have ever seen in my life. The Polizei like using dogs. It was actually a little amusing because there were a number of counter demonstrators, mostly young punk rockers and goths, who began throwing cobblestones and beer bottles at the Neos. I was riding on the Strassenbahn when it was unable to proceed and had to dismount right in the middle of the affair.

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Originally Posted by blue902 (Post 278752)

10% is a negligible fringe element?

While I agree that these figures should not be taken likely, I hope you noted the context. The article refers to 10% of the population of Saxony, not Germany. Regardless, the statistics are indeed alarming.

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Originally Posted by mojaveman

The German Government doesn't put up with the Neos. While I was living in East Germany a battalion sized element marched through town one day to demonstrate. The Police response looked like a small scale military invasion.

I can attest to this. Nazi rallies always bring about a large police presence, which is also due to the fact that there are almost always large counter-demonstrations.
Police are usually quite professional in handling these demonstrations. Here is a video of an encounter that got a little out of hand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fitl4ARpIc

Under the Grundgesetz (Basic Law or Constitution), using Nazi symbols and slogans is a punishable crime in Germany. But now neo-Nazis may have more leeway after a federal German court ruled that slogans are not illegal if they are translated into another language. :confused: Amazing.

Richard

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Lost In Translation: English Nazi Slogans Are Legal, German Court Rules
Der Spiegel, 13 Aug 2009

Is a Nazi slogan still a Nazi slogan if it is uttered in English instead of German? Not necessarily -- at least according to Germany's Federal Court of Justice.

In a landmark decision Thursday, the Karlsruhe-based court ruled that using Nazi slogans translated into a language other than German would not, in general, be a punishable crime.

The ruling is linked to a case in which a neo-Nazi was prosecuted and fined €4,200 ($6,000) in 2005 for distributing clothing and merchandising bearing the slogan "Blood and Honour," written in English. With the ruling, the court overturned the verdict against the neo-Nazi, who was not named, but said it could still be possible to prosecute him under other laws relating to right-wing extremism.

Although "Blood and Honour," which is also the name of a banned far-right organization, alludes to the Hitler Youth motto "Blut und Ehre," the court ruled that translating the words represented a "fundamental change" in the slogan, meaning its use was no longer punishable under German law. The judges said that Nazi slogans were characterized not only by their actual meaning but also by the fact that they were in German.

Senior judge Jörg-Peter Becker said that the court "is aware that its decision gives neo-Nazis a degree of leeway to translate their chants and slogans." However, he added that legislation by itself is not enough to eliminate Nazi ideas from public discourse.

Giving the Hitler salute or using symbols or slogans associated with "unconstitutional" organizations such as the Nazi party is a serious crime in Germany, punishable by up to three years in prison. In 2008, police launched an investigation after a senior member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) draped a banned swastika flag across a coffin at a funeral.

Xenophobia In Dresden, Germany

I don't agree.

I have worked with many "cultures" around the world including muslims.

I don't think there is fear, just a hate for an ideology that is inherently, brutal, violent, horrific, corrupt etc etc etc. And one that has attacked innocent humans all over the world. Some have had enough of the religion of peace.

I don't agree at all with your thread title.

Team Sergeant

Hate needs a focus

When Germany united there was a big difference between the East and the West.

Much talk was made of bringing the East up to the West.

It did not go as fast as those in the East would have wanted.

Add in Muslim immigrants and the tensions of Islam and Neo-Nazis have had easy pickings.

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Xenophobia In Dresden, Germany

I don't agree.

FWIW - I was there when the Wall came down and for the three years followng that seminal event - and have followed the issues pretty closely since.

I have heard the arguments against things foreign first hand in numrous kneipe from Weimar to Frankfurt am Oder, from Chemnitz to Rostock, and in on-going published discussions - and although this particular piece dealt specifically with Muslims, the Ossies and their distrust (often times emanating in overt hatred) towards fremden (foreigners) of nearly any sort - including Wessies (West Germans) - is a viscerally real issue.

Germany from the old IGB to the Oder-Neisse is not the same Germany as the one from the borders of FR-LUX-BE-NL to the old IGB - they remain two similar but different peoples united under a vaguely common historical cultural umbrella of mutual distrust brought about by two generations of separation and a similar language.

Perhaps this will eventually change - many at the AmEmbassy-Bonn in 1990 were predicting 7 years - my predictions since 1990 have been that it will take three generations and a long-term, generally stable social-economic environment to do so.

Xenophobia kann ungenau sein, aber das deutsche Anti-ausländer Gefühl ist eine reale Ausgabe.

Richard

Ossies and Foreigners

I'm pretty much in support of Richard on this subject. Many Germans have strong reservations with foreigners immigrating to their country just like we do with all of the illegal immigrants who come here. As I mentioned earlier, I spent a few years in the former DDR and feel qualified to make a few observations about life there. The "Ossies" do not like foreigners coming and living in their territory. They see them as competitors for jobs and also as a force that will degrade their standard of living. The only reason that I was accepted there is because I can speak the language, I am white, and I have a last name that is of eastern European origin. I would have to agree that a large number of the population there are xenophobic. The man who stabbed the Arab woman was a Russian who immigrated there at an earlier time. I am certian that he may have been treated poorly because of this and also had issues with his status of not being a true German. I believe that the Arab population overall in the former DDR is only about 1%. It's higher in the larger cities but nearly non-existant in the smaller towns and villages. In the coming decades when the Arabs begin to expand further into eastern Germany I predict that there will be many more incidents like the one that we read about.

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...good thing the cops weren't racists...

How do you know ? You weren't there, neither was I. Maybe this guy seemed like a threat to my fellow responding officers. I'm sure they didn't shoot him for "looking Arab"...:rolleyes:

I fully agree with Team Sergeant. The Germans I know just don't hate foreigners- They dislike most of the immigrants from the muslim world. They don't adapt, don't blend in, but want all the benefits of this country. It's not a religion of peace, it's a religion of hate, war and expansion by any means.

There is a big islamistic threat in Germany, not only from the immigrants from these countries but also from "converted" islamists. Google "Sauerland Group" and you'll get the lastest news:

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"We didn't want to kill two or three US soldiers, but rather many,"

If you look at the German crime statistics you might understand:

We have 8.8% non-German population (the ones with a German passport are not counted here, they are regarded "Germans" in the statistics, their crimes are accounted as crimes commited by Germans). Most of them being Turks.

These 8.8% commited out of all cases:

24.7% homicide and manslaughter
23.9% aggravated assault
29.7% rape
20.9% theft
28.8% robbery and extortion under threat of force
12.7% environmental crime

This is only for resident aliens, visitors/tourists that commit crimes are not accounted for in this statistic.

The fed. Govt. is working on a new system to identify the "Germans with migration background" in the statistics. This will raise the percentages above accordingly.

The percentage of non-Germans in jail is 28% (remember, they represent only 8.8% of our population...)
Only 17.3% of them have jobs.

Source: Federal Statistical Office, Germany

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In the coming decades when the Arabs begin to expand further into eastern Germany I predict that there will be many more incidents like the one that we read about.

You Sir are correct. Not only the former East Germany is affected, it's all of Germany.

And now you know the rest of the story....

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Originally Posted by blue902 (Post 278752)

...good thing the cops weren't racists...

Oh, and BTW Mr. Lab, if you google the incident you'll find information (even on muslim and arab websites) that the husband of Marwa, Ali, was shot accidentally by one of our officers.

Pls. do your homework before posting B.S. Thank you.

Like Mike, the Germans I 'knew' were not xenophobic, either, and tended to worry about such issues in the sense of the overall German experience with Nazism. Their general sense of worry increased some during GW1 when it was discovered that a substantial number of the so-called Turks living in many of the industrial areas of Germany were actually more militant groups of Kurdish nationalists with Turkish passports.

However, I spent a lot of time in the East and the general conversational tone there (especially in the old industrial/mining regions where unemployment was much higher) was one of overtly anti-foreigner feelings and a sense of fear of the foreign (even Western) changes taking place so rapidly in their lives. It was always interesting for my traveling partner and I (who wore good quality European style clothing and drove a car with German license plates) when we'd go somewhere and the initial responses were generally of cold indifference - until they realized we were German speaking Americans and not Russians or another group of Wessie businessmen or politicians come to take advantage of them yet again. The initial euphoria of unification faded pretty quickly as the reality of the situation faced by both sides of the old IGB became reality.

As far as xenophobia:

Definition - fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything foreign or strange

From the article -

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Germany is now a bastion of democracy in the heart of Europe.

True.

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But the far right is on the rise across the Continent,...

A rising European-wide issue.

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...and [U]xenophobia is gaining in this country, not least among youth and not least singling out Muslims. A recent two-year government survey of 20,000 German teenagers classified one in seven as “highly xenophobic” and another 26.2 percent as “fairly xenophobic.”

And in Germany, specifically.

I'm certainly not worried about some kind of resurgent idea of yet another 'Germany for Germans' empire or the like - but must not there be regional concerns if the German govt is classifying such behavior as being xenophobic? :confused:

Richard's $.02 :munchin

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so-called Turks living in many of the industrial areas of Germany were actually more militant groups of Kurdish nationalists with Turkish passports.

That's right Richard. Even though the PKK was outlawed in Germany we still have thousands (if not ten thousands...) of them floating around and hiding. The real problem here is the muslim population that can't or won't live by western rules and customs. Like I said, they refuse to adapt, don't respect the western culture, hate everything western, but still want to benefit from our social system and free medicare. They live by the Quaran, and their Mullahs preach them to hate us, Americans, everbody that doesn't live by the Sharia. It's perfectly legal for them to kill, rape or rob a non-muslim. They have absolutely no feeling of guilt when arrested for such a crime by the German police. All we get is "insha'allah, it's the holy book, the quaran told me to do so". Mohammad was a 50-year old travelling salesman, had a 6-year old wife and killed several people by beheading them. What can we expect...:rolleyes:

It's true that our five "new" States in the former Eastern Germany/DDR have a stronger Nazi movement than the West. Still, they are a minority, and always will be. I'm half American, I never had a problem here in Germany, nobody attacked me, neither verbally nor physically (well, I got a few stupid comments about GWB back then, but nothing personally :cool:)

Simmer down there M&M.
I am in agreement with you about most of what you said.
I thought it was kind of funny that they shot him thinking he was the attacker-- and funnier because any other time they might have been right.
Irony maybe.

I remember germany myself. I can understand those concerns and it was pretty interesting to me that what I heard there and what I've heard here were almost in the same phrases-- but not the same language.