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I don't really agree with that. For the existence of the BRD, the disavowal of the Nazis has been universal in every party. "What Germans did then was uniquely bad, and we should be ashamed about that" was consensus outside of a few fringe parties like the NPD. Granted, in the beginning, the consensus was mostly "let us not talk about it", while after 1968, it shifted to a culture of remembrance. Feeling bad about German atrocities has been a core part of German identity since then, and I think we are better for it.
The AfD, especially in the person of Bjoern Hoecke, breaks this consensus. If I was a smaller country bordering Germany, I would get a bit concerned about a German leader waxing about the 'thousand years of glorious history' of Germany, given historic precedent in that period. I mean, nobody would expect a chancellor Hoecke to try to restore the borders of the Reich in 1914, but then few people suspected that Putin would be willing to start a war of annexation in Europe to restore Russia to the Tsarist glory days.
Hoecke is trying to walk as close to the line drawn by StGB § 86a (which outlaws "Sieg Heil" and the like) without crossing it (and then gets convicted for using the more obscure SA slogan "Alles fuer Deutschland). And where the other parties treat the swastika-tattooed mobs as toxic, the AfD is willing to tolerate them in their voelkisch wing.
Then there is that whole Remigrationskonferenz thing (called Wannsee 2.0 by some). What was said and by whom is contested, but there are credible claims that some called for deporting German citizens if they had the wrong ethnicity, which would be completely beyond the pale. I mean, restricting political asylum is one thing (and unless you have a 2/3 majority, expect the German supreme court to have an opinion on that, because that right is in the constitution), but this is something different. Sending people with US passports back to the birth country of their ancestors is way out the overton window for US politics, and it is similar for Germany.
So no, I don't think that calling the AfD (especially in Thuringia, where Hoecke is the leader) extreme right is wrong.
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Regarding the outcome of the elections, I think this puts the parties in the middle of the spectrum in a bit of a bind. I mean, they can form very large coalitions. Looking at the distribution of seats in Thuringia, if you want a majority without the AfD, you would require some delegates from every other party (except for the SPD) to at least tolerate your government. Given that BSW was formed in a messy breakway from the Linke ('the left'), this seems like a tall order. For Saxony, the situation looks a bit less dire because the conservative CDU did very well. Still, you are stuck with either CDU+Linke+SPD+Greens, or three-partner coalition with CDU+BSW+any, neither of which sound very stable. And four years from now, whoever was formed that coalition is likely going to get punished for it, unless the East Germans are actually satisfied with both state level and federal administrations (fat chance, that).
On the other hand, anyone who had campaigned on not forming a coalition with the AfD (which I gather are basically all of the parties) actually forming a government with them would be a blatant betrayal of the voters trust. In Germany, we have the concept of "Steigbuegelhalter" (literally stirrup holder), which generally refers to the parties which formed a coalition with the NSDAP in 1933 (and were eventually assimilated into it for their troubles). Nobody wants to be that guy.
As an opponent to the AfD, I thus would have liked it better if Hoecke had won 51% in Thuringia, because then he would have to deliver, and show how pushing asylum seekers to other German states would solve the manifold social, demographic and economic problems of East Germany.
Sorry, but it's not just contested; it is simply not credible. We now know that Correctiv was purposefully suggesting the similarity, but never actually explicitly stated that there were these plans. In their recent court case they now did, in fact, claim the opposite: That the reason they didn't explicitly stated such is because there never were these plans. According to Correctiv itself, all participants agreed that this was beyond the pale. You can read more about this at the Cicero or the Übermedien. Both in german, obviously, but google translate exists.
As much as I'd like to hear from other parts of the world, this is why I'm ultimately skeptical of discussing Culture War in non-Anglo countries. Culture War commentary has to be an adversarial collaboration, with both sides being insanely plugged in, to get anywhere close to the truth. Otherwise the mainstream narrative will be able to run circles around anyone who questions it.
Well, at least we have enough of Ze Germans here that it worked out in the end...
I take offense to making fun of our pronunciation! The correct term is Kraut, as being named after the most supreme of foods is an honour.
But yes I agree, though I would extend this to almost any topic in any country. For an example close to heart, looking up first source english papers but blindly trusting their framing of their findings is almost as guaranteed to lead to misconceptions as blindly trusting MSM reporting on the findings.
Yeah the kraut (sauerkraut) is seriously undervalued in America. It's super tasty if done right, goes with almost any savory food, can be self-made easily and cheaply (which is good because if you can even find it in store it's usually subpar), keeps very well and is a pretty healthy food.
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So, summarily I get this:
Did I forget anything important?
I don't have much of a stake in German politics, but it would be important for me to understand whether or not AfD are Nazis or Nazis-in-building. I have a very low tolerance for Nazis, but also American politics taught me that about 99% of times when somebody calls somebody else a Nazi it's a lie. There's still 1% where it's true, about the Nazis which do exist, and some of them even wear swastikas (many others wear other outfits and signage) - but one has to be careful there.
So far, from the list 3 is a little worrying - did he know and used it on purpose, or is it like saying Trump is a Nazi because "Make America Great again" was once used 80+ years ago by some Nazi sympathizers? Hard to make a conclusion here. Is there a pattern of using such slogans and symbols, or is it one time thing? By itself, the slogan does not sound that heinous, but of course if he was attracted to it as a way to say "sieg hail" without saying "sieg hail" it'd be a problem.
4 is worrying if he's really leaning on these mobs and welcoming them and integrating them into his infrastructure on the ground. But is not worrying is it's just some jerks that happen to agree with him on something - I'm sure plenty of jerks agree with me on some things, not all jerks are obligated to be wrong about everything all the time. How important are those mobs for him?
5 would be very bad if it were his party position but the vagueness of the claim is kind of suspicious. Who said that? What exactly did they say? How important this person is in defining AfD policy? Do other AfD policymakers confirm this? Did they endorse or promote such actions? "Somebody maybe said something on a conference" is a great start of a cancel campaign, but poor evidence if you want to figure out what's actually going on. Is there more to it?
1 and 2 don't particularly bother me. Politicians can performatively apologize for anything, and 100% of those apologies mean absolutely nothing - they can apologize for a thing today and do the same thing tomorrow. And Germany does have a long and glorious history - at least no less glorious than any other place, and no less bloody and disgusting at the same time too. Nothing wrong in remembering that, it's what conclusions you make out if it and how it moves you to act is important. The moniker "far right" imply that it moves AfD to act like a Nazis or at least as far towards the Nazis as political limitations will allow. But is this true? So far I haven't seen a proper substantiation of that.
P.S. Oh, and the last point. Plenty of people said Putin would start a war. In fact, Russia has been conducting several wars pretty much since it's establishment in early 1990s - they occupied parts of Georgia, part of Moldova, intervened in Central Asian states and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, there was pretty much no period where Russia was peaceful and isolationist, and Putin with his "tough guy" image never indicated he's going to be any different. And they actively meddled in Ukraine for all that time, too. Full-scale intervention was by no means an obvious outcome, but a lot of people raised it as a possibility - and get laughed at by a lot of other people. Many of the latter still among the decision makers in Europe and Germany, so not sure if their predictive capacities can be used to indicate anything.
This gets a little confusing when you're actually living in Germany. Actual current-day nazis are rare, but pretty much everyone there had a father or grandfather (or grandmother) who worked for them. Maybe not as card-carrying members of the party, but still swept up in the war effort somehow. It wasn't really a choice, the whole country did. So I can see how the endless performative guilt and apologies would get annoying, since it's basically calling out an entire generation of your family.
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I don’t think Putin would agree with this characterization.
He’s spoken of the historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine and used this as partial justification: these borders were made up by the Soviets and didn’t matter at the time since Ukraine wasn’t independent in any real sense.
As far as I know he’s never said that he’s seeking to restore the borders of the Empire or of the USSR. Most charitably, people seem to infer this based on his starting a war and speaking of history. Less charitably it’s a deliberate distortion to make the bad man appear even more bad.
As opposed to other borders that were directly proclaimed by God in a holy revelation? Of course all borders are made up by humans who were in charge of making borders at that time, there's literally no other option. Concluding from that that they don't matter is just saying "I am the sole authority on declaring borders because I am the only person whose opinion matters".
You're saying it as if deriving the intentions of the person from his convictions and his actions is somehow a dirty trick, while believing his words - a words of known and repeated liar - is the only way to know the truth. Of course the real situation is the opposite - it is very easy to lie when speaking directly about one's intentions. However, it's very hard to hide your true intentions consistently through all the pattern of your actions, your references, your interests, your convictions and your propaganda - even if you could do the job convincingly, that would just have the effect of hindering your true efforts, because you henchmen and your subjects would also think the opposite of your true intentions if you're so good. But usually the actual intention shines through well enough, and in Putin's case it definitely does. While literally recreating precisely the borders of the Russian Empire (which btw were never stable anyway) is not the goal, certainly recovering it's former glory is, and any territory that has been owned by it is considered as valid target (even if some currently inaccessible).
Or, on your side, to make the bad man less bad out of contrarianism. I understand it's tempting to think if the state propaganda says Putin is bad then it probably isn't that bad. The tragic fact is he's worse.
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Many borders are accidents of history. If things had gone different, the Texas might still be Mexican, or some other Mexian state might also have joined the US. In feudal societies, it might be down to the order in which some nobles croaked and inheritance was passed along. Sometimes it was just some guy with a straight ruler who could just as well have drawn his line a few arc-minutes further north or south. Sometimes, little details end up being crucial. Hong Kong might have been leased for 50 or 150 years instead of 99. Sure, if the Soviets had organized Ukraine differently, then it might have stayed with Russia when the USSR collapsed. "But I have a reasonable historical claim to these lands" might have flown in 1200 CE, but it does not fly in 2020 any more.
I think Putin wants Russia to become a hegemonic power, as it was during both the Empire and the USSR. Unlike the USSR, he is not motivated by a communist political ideology, but by a blend of nationalism and conservative Christianity, which is why I compared him to the Tsars.
I have not claimed that he precisely wants the territories Russia or the USSR held at any point, but I think the claim that he strives for Russia to be a dominant local power, as it was in the Empire (or during much of the USSR) can be rather well supported. To phrase that as "to restore Russia to the Tsarist glory days" is putting it a bit polemically, perhaps like claiming of an aspiring bodybuilder "he wants to become the next Schwarzenegger".
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If nothing else, wouldn't he at least have shiny new crime stats to show?
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