VISITING THE CAMPS BUT MISSING THE LESSON
Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 08:40AM 
Wonder what you make of the news that German children will be obliged to visit the site of a Nazi concentration camp as part of their regular school curriculum?
The move — to be introduced in Bavaria and likely to become the norm throughout the country — is in response to the almost fatal stabbing of a senior police officer by a neo-Nazi.
"We have to take a stand against this far-right octopus, this tentacled monster," said Host Seehofer, the prime minister of Bavaria, who has ordered every ministry to come up with proposals to stamp out neo-Nazi influence in southern Germany. They will feed into a comprehensive action plan to be unveiled next week. "The first thing we have to do is set up a website that will give a point of contact to everyone who has problems with far-right extremists," Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minster, said. "Our aim must be to bring up kids so that they can resist any attempt by the far-Right to lead them astray."
You see, I think this is wrong on several fronts.
First, forcing children to do something carries echoes of the German past that the Bavarian PM seems to have missed. Second, I wonder will Germany's 3.2 million Muslims be required to participate in this grand scheme? Third, the idea that there is some "far-right" monster out there that threatens German well being is risible.The biggest threat facing Germany comes from within Islam - the same Islam that now seeks to wipe Jews off the map in the Middle East. You don't have to go back in history to realise that hatred and racial intolerance are alive and well.
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Reader Comments (17)
>>You don't have to go back in history to realise that hatred and racial intolerance are alive and well. <<
INDEED!!
>> Third, the idea that there is some "far-right" monster out there that threatens German well being is risible.<<
Hmmm, in a way not as risable as the idea that there is a "Hamas rocket" monster threatening Israel!
After all, the German far-right scene killed more people in Germany in the past year than those rockets did in Israel.
It's reckoned that the far-right Neo-Nazi crowd has killed up to 130 people since Unification in 1991 - mostly foreigners and the homeless etc.
Most of these are random, drink-fuelled attacks by hoodies, but in the background there is an ugly club scene, magazines that provides a certain direction and political facade for these thugs.
Parties very close to neo-nazis are also in the state parliaments of three states in the East.
Generally the problem is much much worse in the East than in the West, as there there was no public education of the Holocaust etc of the kind that's been going on in the West non-stop since the 60's.
To help people here appreciate the threat, maybe I should also say they are also responsible for countless attacks on Jews, their property, graves, etc.
Once in Duesseldorf I was walking home and heard the sound of an explosion. In the entrance to a local railway station, just a few hundred yds from my home, a small bomb had exploded as a group of foreigners was passing, 10 people, including 7 Jews, were seriously injured, one young Jewish woman had her thigh blown off and her unborn child killed by the blast.
I later accompanied an English reporter to the scene.
Parties in Neo-Nazi clubs celebrating the event went on well into the night.
They are not "far-right" they are fascists and soul mates of the Hamas savages that seem to have their own Fedayeen here amongst the far-left.
"in the background there is an ugly club scene, magazines that provides a certain direction and political facade for these thugs"
As there is on the hard left around pro Palestinian politics. You would think the left would want to get a grip on that scenario as quickly as possible while lamenting it elsewhere. To help people here appreciate the threat check on the rise in anti semitic attacks over the past decade, consider the influence of the internet, the dozens and dozens of cases the CPS have pending in our court system and cast your mind back to a certain bombing campaign on London's tube system.
They are not "far-right" they are fascists and soul mates of the Hamas savages that seem to have their own Fedayeen here amongst the far-left.
Round two. Here we go. Is there anything not the fault of the "far-left"?
Car Accidents?
Dry Rot?
Hurdles in detection of Higgs Boson?
... but in the background there is an ugly club scene, magazines that provides a certain direction and political facade for these thugs.
Rather than being front and centre like the thugs, thieves and sociopaths of mainstream politics in control of the state's monopoly on violence.
DT
Don't forget that the Nazis were National Socialists!!
Don't forget that the Nazis were National Socialists!!
Which is obviously why their populist rhetoric was backed by conservatives, aristocrats, reactionaries, racists, royalists, industrialists and nationalists. It may even explain why they brutally opposed social democrats and communists and the nominal left wing their own party.
For the love of mike, give up this stupid notion. It plain silly.
It was said tongue in cheek, but had I mentioned real commies ( Stalin, Mao ) the body count would have been even higher...and had I mentioned Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge, the death rate for the size of the country would have been worse still.
In reality Phantom, the problem isn't with Communism or even Nazism in terms of creating a body count. If you compare Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and others, the major thing they have in common is a totalitarian dictatorship. It doesn't matter if they are left, right or centre, it is the lack of a dissenting viewpoint that allows these regimes to commit this evil.
Seamus
True, but most of these have been Communists.
The right wing bad guys tended to want to control the wealth of a society, and that's it.
The left wing bad guys want to control the money, the means of production, the education of the children -- and your innermost thoughts too. When you think of Mao and Pol Pot, that's not really an exaggeration.
Phantom, when you think of Totalitarianism, that is what you get. They want to control everything, have everyone marching to the same drum beat. The Nazis basically invented modern propoganda. The took as much control of the Education system as the Communists did.
But Communism unfortunately continued to live, long after Hitler and his regime died.
And while regimes such as North Korea have no defenders,the dreamy eyed fans of Castro's Cuba still sing the praises of a totalitarian regime, even on this site, even in 2009.
Some have learned the lessons of history, some have not.
You don't have to go back in history to realise that hatred and racial intolerance are alive and well.
No Dave you just have to read the postings made by you and several other pond life specimens on this board
But Communism unfortunately continued to live, long after Hitler and his regime died.
Fascism didnt die with Hitler or the Nazis. Infact the prevailing economic/political philosophy is as close as you can get to Fascism while in a democratic society. Thats especially the case in US where corporatism (private economic centralisation) dominates much economic activity and weilds much power in politics. Britian is probably worse.
Fascism has a big time nationalist component
One minute you guys are complaining about globalization, they next minute you're complaining about fascism
All I know is that a welfare case in the UK or America lives like a king with untold riches compared to a working man in Havana or Pyongyang.
One minute you guys are complaining about globalization, they next minute you're complaining about fascism
There is no paradox. Fascist governments are the preferred option of the globalists. And while the may be full of national rhetoric, they generally have less concern for the people than they do for the big business they allow in to exploit their labour force and resources. During the cold war (and still to this day) left-wing governments were detested because they would generally deploy policies with the nation and its people seen as the priority.
All I know is that a welfare case in the UK or America lives like a king with untold riches compared to a working man in Havana or Pyongyang.
Just because you dont see grim poverty in your own country doesnt mean it doesnt exist. It does, in both the UK and US.