Counter rallies in Kaufbeuren show split between supporters of AfD and locals who acknowledge the Bavarian town’s Nazi past

Soaring church spires, the 1,000-year-old town centre unblemished by second world war bombing or graffiti, snow-capped Alps in the middle distance – Kaufbeuren, in Bavaria, can count many blessings.

Unemployment is in the low single digits, the Luftwaffe backed away from plans to move its training school for Eurofighter and Tornado jet technicians elsewhere and crime is at a historic low.

However, as voters prepare to elect a new European parliament next month, deep-seated fears have gripped a significant share of the electorate in one of the most affluent pockets of Europe’s top economy and delivered it to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The bond between the party and its voters appears unshaken even by a cascade of recent scandals. The AfD’s lead candidate for the election, Maximilian Krah, was forced by his party leadership on Wednesday to resign from its board and stop campaigning after he told Italy’s La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force which ran the death camps, were not all criminals and could only be judged on the basis of “individual guilt”.

  • suction@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    6 months ago

    That guy taking a selfie definitely is a so called “Russo-German”, ie a Russian person with German ancestors. Germany (unfortunately) allowed many of these people to obtain German citizenship with no real background check. Now it turns out that a majority of them love Putin and look down on Western values. These jokers all vote far-right and even drive around with huge “Z” symbols on their 4th hand Audis.

      • suction@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        …while they enjoy the freedoms and economic opportunities, and in the case of Germany, high-grade social security of those Western countries they hate so much.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      6 months ago

      There are enough Nazis in Germany without having to blame a minority of Russian born ones tbh

      • suction@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Minority or not, they are a huge problem because Putin is using Russian minorities in other countries as a pretext to invade claiming they’re being unfairly treated. That’s a separate problem from them being Neonazis, of course, but it adds up. And they are not only Neo-Nazi followers, but agitators, so they are more guilty than your run-of-the-mill AfD NPC.

        It’s better we have them put under extreme scrutiny, similar to the other Neonazi groups which are being observed by the authorities.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    Like the recent event in Sylt. You can easily find the Nazi sympathisers wherever the rich gather.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    “It’s a catastrophe – the worst government we ever had,” said civil servant Manuela, 55, who was from a neighbouring town and, like most of the AfD supporters, declined to give her surname. She brought her teenage daughter to the rally. Despite the low rates of violent crime, she said her family no longer felt safe on the streets due to “Islamists”.

    Anti-AfD activists booed and whistled from the sidelines as Krah addressed the rally. Manuela said: “They call us Nazis just because we’re patriots. The world laughs at us because no country is as dumb as Germany, with our exaggerated tolerance and diversity. They’ve been telling us for decades we should carry this guilt, and so we should rescue the whole world and be its dole office.”

    Hey Manuela from paragraph two, you should talk to Manuela from paragraph one.

    Also… Manuela. Is that a German name?

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Manuela is a very German name, so much so a German rapper actually made a song about it.

      But of course its origin isn’t Germanic at all. Which I doubt people with such convictions care about.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Manuela or Manuéla is a feminine Portuguese, Spanish and Italian given name. The name is a variant of the masculine “Manuel”, which is in turn derived from the Hebrew name “Emanuel”, meaning “God is with us”.[1]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuela_(given_name)

        Sounds like that German rapper doesn’t believe in German purity.

        Edit: I posted this before the person above edited their post.

    • Ooops@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Hey Manuela from paragraph two, you should talk to Manuela from paragraph one.

      Pointing out that this idiocy only works with a massive amount of cognitive dissonance is nothing new…

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        And there’s a very well-known TV show and filmmaker from Scotland named Armando Ianucci. I wouldn’t say Armando is a Scottish name.

            • atomicorange@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              6 months ago

              If it’s popular in Germany, given by a German parent to a German child and based on a Hebrew root word, I’d argue it’s a German name as much as it is Portuguese, Spanish, or Italian.

              It’s all semantics though, I assumed your original question was about how common the name was in Germany, not about its linguistic roots. It seems fairly common. If you’re looking for a deep dive on the history of the name I’ll let you do your own research because I honestly don’t give a shit and you’re being kind of rude.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    To be fair, not all right-wingers are Nazis and it’s not helpful to draw them as equals.

    But right-wingers can and do use Nazis when they are useful to their political goals, which is still to rip us off.

    Not all right-wingers are Nazis. Doesn’t mean they’re not evil.

    • chillhelm@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Yes. But the state still has to prove that what you did was a) a Nazi thing and b) that you either knew or should have known it was so.

      So if you show the Hitler salute, you’ll be arrested and fined. If you give a speech in which you suggest that immigrants need to learn “the liberating power of work” (referencing the Motto of Auschwitz “Arbeit macht Frei” “Work makes Free”) that is totally fine.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Saying bad things about israel is super illegal in Germany. Actual antisemitism isn’t.

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        6 months ago

        This is not true. All forms of antisemitic speech are prohibited in Germany, and it is enforced.

        Yes, German authorities have been silencing pro-Palestine protesters, and falsely imply that they are being antisemitic. It’s an assault against free speech and human rights.

        No, this does not mean that whatever hyperbolic thing you say about Germany in response must be true.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          6 months ago

          Literal NeoNazi parties are rising up while a doctor from Gaza trying to give a lecture gets an EU wide ban. The double standard is clear as day.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    The longer all the other parties bury their head in the sand about immigration the more the far right gains votes.

    It’s one of the biggest issues for people in the West but the left like to pretend none of the real negatives exist.

    Would be good to see a left leaning party care about immigration.

    • TheUnicornOfPerfidy@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      You know that immigration is a net positive for every western nation right? People coming to a country wanting to make a new life contribute to a its society and economy. They also help populations keep growing as birthrates are falling. It would be nice to see these sorts of arguments made more though, if that’s what you mean?

      • Head@lemmings.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        You say that, but have you lived it? I go to anti-AfD protests but I’m still sick of having to walk through neighborhoods where all the women are in headscarves and the teenagers and young men always trying to grope and rob you. There’s an ugly side to immigration that the left does not want to address.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        You know that immigration is a net positive for every western nation right?

        That’s an intentionally misleading statement and is said in bad faith because you can use some stats to make it look like it is good but the full picture can tell a completely different story. But some people like this narrative and stick with it no matter what.

        It depends what you value. If you only care about increasing GDP, keeping business strong by reducing wages, increasing population and increasing rent and land values then yes. Though GDP has been shown to decrease even with record high immigration so that’s great.

        If you care about GDP per capita, or even better Discretionary income then no. If you care about crime the or tax contribution then governments that have released the data show some countries are much better than others.

        You can say all these XXXjobs are filled because we don’t have enough at home. But the issue is we don’t hire enough, there aren’t enough places to fill the jobs so we are forced to get foreigners in from our own policies. Wouldn’t we we better educating and investing in our own people, rather than giving the job they want and can do to another person? If you value culture immigration can be bad.

        It’s such a varied topic but the left has a mantra:

        “Immigration is good from any country in the world and if you have any reservations what so ever you’re racist”.

        Nothing else matters. The conversation is so horrifically closed down by the left that anyone that thinks lowering immigration is good for the country has to look at the fair right.

        • Robaque@feddit.it
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          Recognising mass-immigrantion as non-ideal can be valid if coming from a place of compassion. But with this perspective, mass-immigration is seen as a symptom of wider socioeconomic problems (or non-societal factors such as natural disasters), not as a problem in itself that needs to be “fixed” by sending immigrants “back home”.

          Furthermore, seeing immigration as a cause for socioeconomic problems only comes from a place of racism, ascribing negative expectations to people according to their country of origin / culture / ethnicity. It is clear that you stand with this camp from how you phrased what you think “the left” thinks:

          “Immigration is good from any country in the world and if you have any reservations what so ever you’re racist”.

          It implies that a person’s country of origin plays a factor in whether or not they can be considered a “good” immigrant. That’s racist.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            It implies that a person’s country of origin plays a factor in whether or not they can be considered a “good” immigrant. That’s racist.

            So you’re telling me it’s as easy to integrate your average Syrian into a labour market with dearth of opportunities for people with low educational attainment as it is to integrate your average Nigerian. One’s an illiterate refugee (that is, can’t even read Arabic, knows no second language), the other, in my experience, has a master’s degree and couldn’t find a job back home as the state of Nigeria’s education system is quite a bit better than the rest of their infrastructure as well as economy.

            And, sure, there’s educated Syrians. There’s uneducated Nigerians. More so in their home countries than when looking at the people who arrive here, and seen at the population level yes we can integrate way more Nigerians than Syrians on account of the former taking up way less integration capacity.

            No, not everybody is the same. Not every source country is the same, either. Material conditions are not subject to universalism. It’s called “material conditions”, after all, not “ideal conditions”.


            Second thing to note is that the countries that are still growing population-wise will stop doing that within the next decades, and with that their economy and emigration pattern will shift: We can’t keep relying on immigrants to plug our pension funds, it’s not sustainable. Or do you suppose we should make sure there’s always enough war abroad to generate enough refugees.

            • Robaque@feddit.it
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              6 months ago

              So… are we gonna pretend that colonialism played no part, and continues to play no part (via capitalism), in today’s “material conditions”?

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                edit-2
                6 months ago

                You mean while Syria spent 400 years under Ottoman rule Nigeria was busy raiding for slaves and selling them? The socio-political conditions in the countries are almost flipped in comparison to the past, Nigeria has some vaguely but not terribly authoritarian socdem-thirdway thing, while Syria is straight-up fascist: Modern-day Syrians are practically slaves, Nigerians aren’t.

                Or did you just want to use the c-words as a thought-terminating cliches? Is any of those forces stopping the Syrian government from increasing literacy? Are those forces in the room here with us? Maybe if the Syrian government spent money on throwing books at people instead of poison gas canisters the situation would look different. But it doesn’t. Syria is a hellhole. Modulo Rojava, of course, but that’s not where the refugees are from that’s where refugees go.

                What do you suppose we do with Syria? Invade and rule it for a while to teach them our superior ways? I’d say that’d be quite colonial. I certainly wouldn’t mind the US stopping to implicitly back Turkey in its anti-Kurdish stance as well as Russia going so bankrupt they can’t prop up Assad any longer.

                • Robaque@feddit.it
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  6 months ago

                  Look, I’m always down for learning more about history, but who’s “Nigeria”? To who was “Nigeria” selling slaves to? Modern states are never representative of specific / homogeneous cultures, let alone individual peoples, let alone societies from before the state was even formed. After skimming a few wiki articles, it’s clear that the region has had its own fair share of struggles against authorities, slavery, and racism, even before European colonisation, some of which continue currently.

                  Still, none of this reached the scale of european colonisation / “the scramble for Africa”, and the continued political and economic influence and control that ‘the West’ continues to hold and wield (neocolonialism / recolonisation). I know nowhere near enough about critical theory, but I’m sure these processes can be understood as a form of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation (I wasn’t able to find a freely available copy, but this article seems like it could be a relevant, interesting read: Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization of the Orisha Religion in Africa and the New World (Nigeria, Cuba and the United States).)

                  Regarding Syria, “my approach” would be simply to support more movements / projects like Rojava (which is clearly not something that ‘western’ political powers are interested in doing). As an anarchist I don’t think liberation from state authority can be achieved through state authority.

  • ParabolicMotion@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 months ago

    As someone who is white, but 0% German, I wonder how things would be if I traveled to Germany and spent some time living in that country. I read another article on Lemmy that said Germans were in a bar, chanting “Germany for the Germans. Foreigners out.” I’ve been called “Nazi” plenty of times on Lemmy because people have disagreed with my views on things like the war in Gaza. I wonder if Germans would think I was just another German there, or if they’d want me to leave.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Its like in most western countries in my experience.

      If you go into a bar in any decent sized city, nobody will bat an eye no matter who you are or what you look like. Once you go to the countryside or into specific bars run by assholes, it gets less clear. Thats not to say all country side people are nazis, but just more conservative on average.

      Also being able to speak the local language usually makes people accept you much quicker wherever you go in the world.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        Also being able to speak the local language usually makes people accept you much quicker wherever you go in the world.

        This is triply true for Germany if you speak the local variety, or at least have a noticeable local accent.

      • teft@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        Also being able to speak the local language usually makes people accept you much quicker wherever you go in the world.

        As someone bilingual who lives in a non-english speaking country, this has gotten me into many places that other english speaking foreigners have missed out on. People love it when you speak their own language to them, even if you aren’t completely fluent.

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 months ago

    And that is why you do not use things like calling someone a Nazi inflationary. It has the exact opposite effect.

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        How is that what I said?

        Calling people that want X but do not see themselves (and are not) anywhere near far right Nazis means that the word loses all meaning. “I am a Nazi? I guess all the other people they call Nazis are/were not that bad then”

        • finishsneezing@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          Absolutely true. However, the lines between proper Nazis and AfD/its sub-organizations is very blurry. Even courts and the secret service for the interior have said so recently. Still, calling people Nazis who support and vote for Nazis and their allies is not quite correct.

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            6 months ago

            Yes, everything is blurry, no question. By blanket calling all of them Nazi the word loses it’s meaning. Those that previously would be like “Nazis are bad” find themselves called just that. That is all I am saying. It does not help.