German hostility (term)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pegida -Transparent with reference to "German enemy and smugglers of Islam" Cem Özdemir , who is shown here with a quote from the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet . ( Dresden 2015)

Anti-German hostility is a political catchphrase used in right-wing populist and right-wing extremist circles , which is intended to suggest structural racism against a white majority society by migrants and to justify their own racism.

History of the term

For a long time, the term hostility towards Germans was part of the right-wing extremist discourse on the part of other major European powers such as France and the United Kingdom , and later also the United States . In this narrative, the aim of 'German hostility' was the German Reich from its foundation in 1871, which is why it expressed itself in a subliminal hostility towards Germans. An article in the journal Die Friedens-Warte in 1912 criticized the “brand of 'anti-German hostility'”, which was “imposed” on the then American President William Howard Taft , as “spiteful”.

After the Second World War , the meaning shifted to a revisionist and anti-Semitic meaning. In 1992, Gustav Sichelschmidt , historian and author of the National-Zeitung , attested “ hostility towards Germans ” “an incomparably higher efficiency [...] than anti-Semitism, for example” and made it responsible for numerous pogroms against Germans and both world wars. In recent years the term has seen another shift in the context of anti-Muslim racism.

For some years now, populist and right-wing extremist groups have been using the term with the synonyms Germanophobia , German hatred , anti-Germanism , Teutophobia and anti- Germanism to stylize 'real' Germans as victims of Muslim migrants and their descendants and thus to legitimize their own racism as self-defense. A prerequisite for this perspective is a völkisch understanding of citizenship . Responsibility for this phenomenon is attributed to do- gooders and the political left , which is attributed a "national neurosis" by the Allied war propaganda from two world wars. This view is lacking for two reasons: First, a closer look at the social balance of power and the associated privileges does not reveal any evidence of a shift in the racist discourse. The institutionalized racial profiling are White not suspended. They are also not excluded on the basis of their name, whereas people with a Turkish family name have to write significantly more applications in order to be invited to an interview. Second, the definition of racism includes devaluation based on behavior or appearance that the majority perceive as alien, such as language, origin, skin color, religion or ascribed "culture", which means that the myth of reverse racism cannot be maintained in principle.

In the report “Politically motivated crime in 2019” by the Federal Criminal Police Office , which was published in 2020 , the topic of hostility towards Germany was introduced, which led to heated discussions.

Basic allegations

The different right-wing extremist currents agree in their definition of hostility towards Germans. Both neo-Nazi , new -right and right-wing populist circles see Germans as victims of domestic and foreign aggression. You can find them mainly in two areas:

  1. Discrimination and violent attacks by young people or adults with a migration background against consciously selected "German victims"
  2. Schools in large cities and problem districts where Germans were threatened, spat at and beaten out of hatred of Germany.

Reports of this kind can be found above all in publications such as Junge Freiheit and German Voice . The German hatred begins in the school canteen, in which pork is no longer offered every day , and is shown, for example, in the fact that German students are not voted into sports teams.

The argument goes along a racist, generalized and Islamophobic basic line, in which immigration and “ foreign infiltration ” are defined as the main causes. This correlates not only with the publication of Thilo Sarrazin's book Germany Abolishes Itself , but also with the assertion of the teacher association president Josef Kraus that Muslims generally do not integrate themselves , but rather aggressively profile themselves against German classmates. Götz Kubitschek claimed that they would even create “resident-free zones” in gangs and apply a “schoolyard sharia ”. The result of these "ethnic bridgeheads" is a creeping land grab and Islamization . This argumentation is also based on the culturalist perspective that Muslims cannot be Germans, even though half of the approximately 5% Muslims in Germany have German citizenship.

The right-wing extremist narrative includes, on the one hand, the assertion that the state, the authorities, the media and the “do-goose mafia” consciously cover the supposedly increasing violence against Germans and, on the other hand, that immigrants are given institutional preference even though they are not willing to integrate. Acts committed by foreigners are concealed and concealed by politics and the media. This narrative pattern reverses the perpetrator and the victim , since several hundred people have been killed by right-wing extremists since reunification , including the acts of the NSU with ten victims.

In 2000, Josef Schüßlburner used the term hostility towards Germans - based on xenophobia - and claimed that the authorities, unlike the latter, did not regard the former as anti-constitutional. In 2006, the extreme right-wing nonconformist wrote : "For years national circles have been warning of increasing anti-German hostility and the ghettoization of areas such as Berlin-Kreuzberg, Berlin-Neukölln, or Duisburg-Marxloh". In 2008, an article by Bürger in Anger on the Politically Incorrect blog , in which a law against "anti-German" statements was demanded, received a greater reception . Henry Nitzsche , who had resigned from the CDU two years earlier, supported this demand and the "finally to get off the guilt cult ". Jan Sturm ( NPD ) took up the issue of racism against Germans again in 2007 and 2013. In 2013, Akif Pirinçci published a polemic called Das Schlachten has begun on the blog Axis des Guten , which used the fatal act of violence in Kirchweyhe as a hook and gave the term and its narrative authenticity in right-wing extremist circles. Through his conspiratorial style of a deliberately kept secret "creeping genocide " against Germans by Muslims, he developed into a basis for right-wing extremist argumentation. The truth of this conspiracy is less relevant than equating “anti-Germans” with sedition - i.e. racism - or even genocide, especially since Section 130 StGB protects minorities and not the majority of the population with a view to German history . In 2014, Dieter Stein started a campaign against “foreigner crime” and “hostility towards Germans” at Junge Freiheit and stated: “Violent acts hostile to Germany are taboo in the media and politics: whether sexual assault, rape or when a horde of semi-strong› southerners ‹is in the subway station Chooses a ›German potato‹ out of hatred in order to beat her into a coma "The AfD citizenship and parliamentary groups in Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania turned back to § 130 in 2016 and 2017 and requested that defamations be made against the‚ German people ' to be listed in it. Ralph Weber (AfD) demanded in his application in the Schwerin state parliament "Combat anti-German hostility" that § 130 be measured with "the same yardstick" as for statements against other sections of the population, and at the same time complained of an "intellectual battle of opinion" that took place in this Paragraphs mainly directed against the AfD and like-minded people. In 2018, the AfD parliamentary group under Jens Maier moved in the same direction in the Bundestag.

In the hegemonic discourse

The term “anti- German hostility” originally used in the right-wing populist milieu was uncritically adopted and reproduced in a broader social discourse after a conference of the Education and Science Union (GEW) in Berlin in October 2010 under the title “The dispute over so-called anti-German hostility”. As early as 2009, a controversial article about the increased bullying of “German” schoolchildren by those with a migrant background was published in the GEW's member magazine. Although the conference decided against the further use of the term hostility towards Germans , it was picked up by politics and the media, for example in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and in particular by the then Federal Minister for Family Affairs Kristina Schröder (CDU). She pushed the topic and described hostility towards Germans as racism. However, according to sociologist Maisha-Maureen Auma, "Racism [...] is not an individual prejudice, but [...] an expression of social power relations." Two years earlier, as a Hessian member of the Bundestag, Schröder had articles on Politcally Incorrect and Junge Freiheit on her website linked and warned of an increase in “anti-German hostility”. She relied on a study by the criminologist Christian Pfeiffer , who, however, distanced himself from this interpretation in several interviews. In 2012 the book Neukölln is everywhere by Neukölln Mayor Heinz Buschkowsky (SPD) was published, who spoke of the "hated German" as the enemy of young migrants and of so-called feelings of foreign infiltration among Germans. At the center of his story was the disappearance of pork from snacks and a "cartel of ideological left-wing politicians [and] do-gooders" that silenced critics. Schröder and Buschkowsky were well received in the bourgeois press as well as in right-wing extremism.
In the years that followed, the term was used sporadically in politics and the media.

literature

  • Melanie Blum: Why we talk about racism and what we mean by it . In: DGB Bildungswerk Thüringen eV (ed.): Module for non-racist educational work . Erfurt 2008, pp. 198–202.
  • Elmar Brähler, Oliver Decker: Escape into the authoritarian: Right-wing extremist dynamics in the middle of society . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2018. ISBN 978-3-8379-7461-4
  • Bernhard Steinke: Anti- German hatred . In: Bente Gießelmann, Robin Heun, Benjamin Kerst, Lenard Suermann, Fabian Virchow (Eds.): Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , Wochenschau-Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 2015 ISBN 978-3-7344-0155-8 , pp. 77-89.
  • Bernhard Steinke: Anti- German hatred . In: Bente Gießelmann, Robin Heun, Benjamin Kerst, Lenard Suermann, Fabian Virchow (Eds.): Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , Wochenschau-Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 2nd revised and expanded edition 2019 ISBN 978-3734408199 , pp. 79-91.
  • Yasemin Shooman: The Topos " Anti- Germans" in Right-Wing Populist Discourses. In: Alliance “Stop right-wing populism” (ed.): Right-wing populism in Berlin. Racism as a link between the “middle” of society and neo-Nazism? Berlin 2011, pp. 45–47.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ AfD speech at "Pegida": Festival of Fake Quotes , tagesschau.de , August 15, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms 2015, p. 76.
  3. ↑ Intercultural Council in Germany e. V. (Ed.): Material booklet "International Weeks Against Racism 2012" , Darmstadt 2011, p. 10 f. ( PDF ).
  4. ↑ " Anti- Germans" - What is that supposed to be? In: mut-gegen-rechte-gewalt.de. Courage Against Rights Violence, October 18, 2010, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Hans-Helmuth Knütter : German hostility . Yesterday, today and tomorrow ...? . Mut Verlag, Asendorf 1991, p. 10 f.
  6. ↑ F .: The anti-German ulterior motive in the American arbitration treaties . In: The Peace Watch . tape 14 , no. 2 , February 1912, p. 48 ff ., JSTOR : 23793175 ( archive.org ).
  7. ↑ Gustav Sichelschmidt: The eternal hatred of Germans. Backers and beneficiaries of anti-Germanism . Arndt Verlag, Kiel 1992, p. 9.
  8. ↑ a b Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , 2015, p. 83.
  9. ↑ Interkultureller Rat in Deutschland eV (ed.): Material booklet "International Weeks Against Racism 2012" , p. 11.
  10. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , 2015, p. 86.
  11. ↑ Migrants in Germany: Discrimination because of the name alone. In: sueddeutsche.de . Retrieved November 4, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Information and documentation center for anti-racism work : Glossary: ​​Rassismus , accessed on November 4, 2019.
  13. ↑ Politically motivated crime in 2019 - NEW! - As of: 06/22/2020. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Marc Röhlig bento: "German hostility" is now a category in the police statistics - and that is dangerous. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Mohamed Amjahid, DER SPIEGEL: Crime Statistics: The New "German Hostility" - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Lamya Kaddor: "German hostility" ?: Why this new police category is a scandal. June 15, 2020, accessed on July 24, 2020 (German).
  17. ^ Jana Frielinghaus: Grotesque analogy (new Germany). Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  18. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , 2015, p. 77.
  19. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Short dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , 2015, p. 78; Simone Rafael: Berlin-Kreuzberg remains nazi-free , Belltower.News ( Amadeu Antonio Foundation ), April 27, 2014, accessed on November 3, 2019.
  20. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Short dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms , 2015, p. 78 f.
  21. ↑ Michael Paulwitz , Götz Kubitschek : German victims, foreign perpetrators. Violence by foreigners in Germany. Background - Chronicle - Forecast. Edition Antaios , Albersroda 2010, p. 150.
  22. ↑ Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Ed.): Muslim Life in Germany . Nuremberg 2009, p. 11.
  23. ↑ Josef Schüßlburner: Official ideology control through unconstitutional reports on the protection of the constitution . In: Hans-Helmuth Knütter, Stefan Winckler (ed.): The protection of the constitution. In Search of the Lost Enemy Universitas, Munich 2000, pp. 155–204, here p. 158.
  24. ↑ Eike Sanders, Rona Torenz: From Teutophobia to German hostility. In: monitor, circular from apabiz ev , No. 48, 2010, p. 3.
  25. ^ Scandal politician Nitzsche leaves the CDU , welt.de , December 15, 2006, accessed on November 3, 2019.
  26. ↑ a b c Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . 2015, p. 82; Who is Akif Pirincci? News from Hetzer , Der Tagesspiegel , October 22, 2015.
  27. ↑ "Racism against Germans?" , Berlin Conditions 2007, Berlin right wing ("Berlin Blog" by Apabiz eV ), accessed on November 6, 2019.
  28. ↑ Akif Pirinçci: The Slaughter Has Begun , achgut.com, March 25, 2013, accessed November 3, 2019.
  29. ↑ Alexander Häusler: Topics of the Right . In: Fabian Virchow, Martin Langebach, Alexander Häusler (eds.): Handbuch right-wing extremism , Springer VS Wiesbaden 2016, p. 158
  30. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms, ²2019, p. 85.
  31. ↑ Maria Fiedler: Bill in the Bundestag: What lawyers think of the AfD initiative to incite the people. In: tagesspiegel.de . April 25, 2018, accessed November 7, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Interkultureller Rat in Deutschland eV (Ed.): Material booklet "International Weeks Against Racism 2012" , Darmstadt 2011. P. 10 ( online )
  33. ↑ Interkultureller Rat in Deutschland eV (ed.): Material booklet "International Weeks Against Racism 2012" , Darmstadt 2011, p. 9 f. ( PDF ).
  34. ^ Controversy about terms: GEW wants to abolish hostility towards Germans. In: tagesspiegel.de . November 18, 2010, accessed November 4, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Schröder became a victim of German hostility , Die Welt , October 10, 2010, accessed on November 3, 2019.
  36. ↑ Maisha-Maureen Auma : Racism at the Federal Agency for Civic Education / bpb, November 30, 2017, accessed on November 3, 2019.
  37. ↑ kristina-koehler.de (on web.archive )
  38. ↑ Patrick Gensing Minister Schröder and the Danger from the Right: Not Up to the Responsibility , tagesschau.de , November 16, 2011 (accessed via web.archive, November 3, 2019.)
  39. ↑ Heinz Buschkowsy: Neukölln is everywhere . Ullstein, Berlin 2012. p. 37, p. 126–128
  40. ^ Bernhard Steinke: German hostility . In: Short dictionary of right-wing extremist combat terms, ²2019, p. 79.