Towards the end of the Weimar Republic there were attempts to establish a Querfront (Cross-Front) of the far left and the right-wing extremists to overthrow the established order. In fact, there was a remarkable degree of fluidity between the communists and left-wing Marxist groups and the NSDAP. What united these disparate groups was an extreme nationalism coupled with a populist anti-capitalist worldview.
Now a new Querfront is being formed by the enfant terrible of the German left, Jürgen Elsässer. Earlier this week the socialist daily Neues Deutschland announced that it had fired Elsässer as editor after the journalist had formed a new organization: Volksinitiative gegen Finanzkapital (People's Initiative Against Finance Capital). "People's Initiative" sounds innocuous enough, but when you read a bit about more about Elsässer's plans you quickly realize it is an ultra-nationalist movement (Volksfront) comprised of patriots from across the political spectrum that must come together to combat American "financial weapons of mass destruction" (finanzielle Massenvernichtungswaffen). Supra-national organizations such as the EU or the UN are helpless against the relentless attack of the "Anglo-American" aggressors. Furthermore, the current crisis is just a "drop in the bucket"; the Americans are plotting a "final thrust" (Hauptstoss) that will bring "Old Europe" to its knees and make Germany forever a slave state of American interests. Elsässer outlines the main point of his new movment on the blog Duckhome:
Hauptaufgabe der Volksfront ist die entschädigungslose Nationalisierung des Finanzsektors und die Abdrängung des anglo-amerikanischen Finanzkapitals aus Europa, in der Perspektive ein eurasisches Bündnis.(The main task of the Volksfront is to nationalize the financial sector without compensation and to force the Anglo-American finance capital from Europe while building a Eurasian alliance.)
This is the old Nationalist-Bolshevist dream: the "Eurasian" alliance between Germany and Russia against the decadent west. Thus the Putinization of the German Left is now complete.
The neo-Nazi NPD was quick to welcome Elsässer's new movement. The NPD representative Holger Apfel stated that Elsässer had "broken the ice" with the right-wing sympathizers in Germany and his movement would overcome the "dualism" of right and left in a common struggle against the forces of globalization and imperialism. The neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit also writes favorably about Elsässer and his new project. Everything came to a head last weekend when Elsässer gave a speech in Berlin about this new movement and the threat of American FInanzkapital. According to the Tageszeitung, a Holocaust denier by the name of Gerd Walther was in attendance. Congratulations, Jürgen! Your Volksfront is attracting some first-rate talent.
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