Washington Post on growing neo-Nazi threat in Germany

The scandal surrounding the bothched police investigation into the NSU (National Socialist Underground) murders puts a spotlight on neo-Nazi activities in Germany.  Now the Washington Post is sounding the alarm: 

"Although security services were keeping an eye on neo-Nazi groups, official assessments declared that the threat of right-wing terrorism was insignificant. But while resources were being concentrated on Islamist extremism, a small cell of neo-Nazis went undetected while it killed 10 people, nine of them with immigrant backgrounds, over seven years.

Police never suspected a right-wing connection — they found it only after the neo-Nazis virtually dropped into their laps after a bungled bank robbery. Last week, Germany installed a new head of its equivalent to the FBI. He has sworn to overhaul the country’s intelligence services."

The most prominent neo-Nazi group in Germany is the National Democratic Party of Germany - The People's Union (NPD). The party, which was founded in 1964, promotes a racial kind of nationalism and calls for Germany's borders in 1937 to be reinstated. For some time there have been calls to ban the party (Parteiverbot).  Should that happen, the neo-Nazi activist Christian Worcht has founded a new party - Die Rechte  - The Right Party.  Worcht hopes to replicate the success of Die LINKE - the Left Party, which has won state and municipal elections in eastern Germany.  

There's plenty of information on Die Rechte on the party's official Web site - including an eighteen-page position paper(pdf warning).  The primary concern of Worcht and Die Rechte appears to be preservation of German identity - with the greatest threat coming not from Muslim immigrants but rather from America:

Die Deutsche Kultur mit seinen zahlreichen Prägungen ist in der ganzen Vielfalt zu erhalten und zufördern. Insbesondere Vereine, die sich mit der Pflege von Traditionen, regionaler oder gesamtdeutscher Geschichte, Kunst und Musik verdient machen, sind staatlich zu fördern. Gleichzeitig sind übermäßige fremde Einflüsse, wie z.B. die Amerikanisierung zurück zu drängen und durch ein Wiederentdecken der eigenen Kultur zu ersetzen.

(German culture in all its splendor and manifestations must be preserved and advanced. The government must support especially those local clubs whose mission is to foster the pan-German traditions in history, art and music.  At the same time, we must do everything in our power to suppress foreign influences - especially the Americanization - and replace it by rediscovering our own heritage.)

It is interesting that the anti-Americanism of the RIght Party mirrors the anti-Americanism of the Left Party. 

Comments

[Volker]

Your purposeful mistranslation of key elements of this text is sickening.
And no I'm no friend of the NPD or the right.

Nowhere in the German text will you find "splendor", neither does it read "we must do everything in our power to suppress foreign influences" nor "especially the Americanization" and your use of "pan-German" is more than obvious.

[David]

Okay, then, how would you translate "gesamtdeutsch"??

What's sickening is the program of Die Rechte.

[koogleschreiber]

The best way to keep rightwing extremism politically irrelevant in Germany is to not ban the NPD.