Some German politics still the same as Hitler’s, Mustache and all

                                                                         

                                                                        

 Lutz Bachman 

How an anti-foreigner, anti-establishment group is changing German politics:

THE march on January 19th in Dresden by Pegida, or “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident”, would have been its 13th. But it was cancelled because the police had “concrete” information of plans to assassinate its organiser, Lutz Bachmann. On January 21st Mr Bachmann was exposed in German tabloids for posing as Hitler on his Facebook page. He called it a joke, but later resigned his position. Pegida plans to resume its marches next week.

Among its followers, despite Mr Bachmann’s antics, neo-Nazis are a small minority. The typical marcher is a middle-aged, middle-class Saxon man who, says Hans Vorländer at the Technical University of Dresden, is alienated from politics and the liberal media, and yearns for a homogenous fatherland. The marches may have “passed the peak”, adds Dieter Rucht at the Berlin Social Science Centre. Yet there will be political fallout. Nine-tenths of Pegida supporters back the Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded only in 2013 and represented in three eastern state parliaments.

The AfD began with an anti-euro message. Some leaders, such as Hans- Olaf Henkel, from Hamburg, want to keep it that way. But, especially in the east, the party has used populist innuendo against asylum-seekers, immigrants and homosexuals. Party elders like Alexander Gauland, in Brandenburg, openly flirt with Pegida. This is straining the AfD, which has three leaders. Bernd Lucke, an economics professor, favours an anti-euro message; Frauke Petry, a businesswoman from Saxony, and Konrad Adam, a former journalist, sympathise with Pegida. Mr Lucke wants to lead alone, but Ms Petry and Mr Adam have resisted him. In a compromise, Mr Lucke will take over as boss only next December.

German democracy is responding without hysteria. Marchers against Pegida have recently far outnumbered those for it. The centre-left Social Democrats and Greens refuse to debate with Pegida, and Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats, has condemned it. Others are open to dialogue. One Christian Democrat, Jens Spahn, even joined a televised debate with Kathrin Oertel, one of Pegida’s organisers.

That was a big step for a group that had previously refused to talk to the media. Its marchers chant “Lügenpresse” (“lying press”), a term once used by the Nazis. Yet on the very day of the cancelled march, Pegida held its first-ever press conference. In the public glare, its leaders tone down their language. When confronted, their counter-arguments seem weak. Asked why Saxons should worry about Islam when only 1% of Saxony’s population is Muslim, Ms Oertel said some Germans march for the rainforest though Germany has none.

The gradual conflation of the AfD and Pegida is a new and worrying phenomenon. There must never be a legitimate party to the right of the CSU, the Christian Democrats’ Bavarian sister party, said Franz Josef Strauss, a longtime leader of Bavaria, with Germany’s Nazi past in mind. Such a party has now arrived, and could enter the Bundestag in 2017.

the Economist

 anti islamic Rally in Dresden (National Monitor)

The Guardian reports Lutz Bachmann, a founder and leader of the German anti-Islamisation group known as Pegida, has stepped down after controversial photos surfaced of him at his hairdresser posing as Adolph Hitler. Bachmann says the photo and its caption “He’s Back” is an homage to a 2012 best selling book of the same name.

Bachmann has also gone on record to apologize for comments made on his Facebook profile in which he called immigrants “cattle” and “garbage.” The comments and the photograph were posted by Bachmann in September 2014, weeks before organized Pegida demonstrations began in the east German city of Dresden, where demonstrations have been held every Monday night since October.

Kathrin Oertel, a Pegida spokeswoman, says that Bachmann’s resignation was the “only possibility for the movement,” and that, “As an association, we reject the Facebook postings made by Lutz Bachmann in September which have now come to light in the strongest possible terms. They do nothing to nurture trust in Pegida’s goals or its protagonists.”

 

Oertel went on to simply dismiss Bachmann’s pictures of him posing as Hitler as “a joke” and “satire, which is every citizen’s right.”

Bachmann and Pegida leaders deny being racist, stating that they are simply “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West” (in German: Patriotische Europaer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, which forms the acronym Pegida). In a televised discussion on Monday, Bachmann and other Pegida leaders distanced themselves from Pegida demonstrators uttering racist remarks.

Warning against liberal migration and asylum policies under the term “Islamisation of the West,” pro-Pegida demonstrations in Dresden and other German cities have begun to attracted tens of thousands while allowing Pegida and its issues to jump to the forefront in German politics.

German intelligence agencies allege the former Pegida leader is now a target for Islamist terrorists who have stated on social media that they intend to kill him. Because of the threats to Bachmann, the planned Pegida demonstration in Dresden has been canceled.

Due to the cancellations in Dresden, the Pegida movement has begun to shift focus to the German city of Leipzig, where police in riot gear were forced to form a human barricade to separate the approximately 15,000 Pegida demonstrators from a crowd of counter protesters.

When asked why she had come to the demonstration, one German woman replied, “I’m German. I don’t want my daughter to end up wearing a burka.”

Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, insists she will defend the right of German citizens to demonstrate saying, “I have an interest that demonstrations are possible in every part of Germany, regardless of whether I like the content or not.”

In the meantime, German state prosecutors have been investigating Bachmann on charges of sedition and inciting popular hatred.

Now that Lutz Bachmann has stepped down, the future of Pegida is in question. Despite Bachmann’s resignation Oertel insists, “Pegida will go on.” Members of the Pegida movement have vowed to return to the streets of Dresden, with Oertel insisting that Pegida would “not allow itself to be muzzled.”