Left-wing extremists - Germany's underestimated danger?

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Left-wing extremists - Germany's underestimated danger? is a non-fiction book published by the political scientists Harald Bergsdorf and Rudolf van Hüllen in 2011 at Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh . The book is subtitled Between Arson Attack and Bundestag Mandate .

content

The authors treat the term extremism under the aspect of left-wing extremism , since right-wing extremism is already largely outlawed. The personal and social backgrounds of the actors occupy an important place in the book. On the one hand, they deal with different forms of left-wing extremism such as orthodox Marxism , Trotskyism and Maoism as well as the anarchism of the autonomous groups. On the other hand, they describe the relationship between democracy and left-wing extremism, for example in the party Die Linke , which they classify as both extremist and democratic. According to them, there are differences between party members in the west and those in the east. In addition, they introduce parties such as the DKP and the MLPD . Left-wing extremism is fundamentally subject to social criticism and carries with it a will to change the system . He uses u. a. Violence and vandalism . Furthermore, left-wing extremism allows certain argumentation techniques and left agitation to flow into political work.

Reviews

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , the reviewer Helge F. Jani said about the book: Guided by an enlightening impetus, Harald Bergsdorf and Rudolf van Hüllen want to use their concise book to inform about the thought structures and behavioral patterns of left-wing extremism. It is important for them to promote argumentative and substantive discussions with left-wing extremists and to allow 'calm determination' to prevail. In Jani's opinion, however, the book has a certain “list”, because the book can hold it “more as a pamphlet against the PDS successor party and less as a compact overall representation of left-wing extremism”.

The political scientist and employee at the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Andreas Fraude criticized in a review for the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) that “almost a third of the volume is dedicated to the party 'Die Linke', especially since it is right at the beginning of the Statements are attested to be neither a 'perfectly extremist nor a clearly democratic party' ”.

For Pascal Beucker and Anja Krüger in the weekly newspaper Jungle World , it seems like a "clumsy pamphlet against the Left Party, to which by far the largest chapter with 64 pages is dedicated."

In a review in the Zeitschrift für Politik , the extremism researcher Eckhard Jesse writes : “The question in the title is not clearly answered. […] However, the authors put forward arguments about the party's less than democratic character. Unfortunately, they do not differentiate between hard extremism (such as that of the NPD) and soft (such as that of the left). Its basic program shows that this is essentially extremist. Even if the handy volume has some gaps [...], the instructive overview has almost a unique selling point. [...] The subject of left-wing extremism is simply not en vogue, not sexy. "

The sociologist Arno Klönne criticized NRhZ online evaluation of Rosa Luxemburg as Antidemokratin be incorrect. Luxemburg did not fight the democracy of the Weimar Republic “like a civil war”, since it was murdered when the National Assembly met for the first time. She campaigned for democracy and recommended that the left take part in the 1919 election. However, she was of the opinion that genuine democracy could not be achieved without overcoming capitalist class rule. In relation to this he comes to the conclusion: "If students in a high school history course (...) were to present the historical circumstances before and around 1919 in the way the two authors do, they would rightly get a 'deficient'."

The historian and political scientist Friedrich Burschel , advisor on neo-Nazism and structures / ideologies of inequality at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung , described the book as "constitution protection science journalism", in which the "boundaries between academic freedom and civil servant prosecution [...] blur" because both Authors were long-time employees in the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior and at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

Litigation

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) and its chairman Stefan Engel filed an action for an injunction before the Essen District Court in July 2012 . In it, the plaintiffs criticized ten statements made by the authors as false, defamatory and defamatory of the party and of Engel themselves. According to the decision of the 4th Civil Chamber of the Essen Regional Court, the claims that angels were "meanwhile a massive one, referring to the role models Stalin and Mao developed warning personality cult ”and the party runs“ regular cleansing and exclusion campaigns ”to refrain from. The attempt to prove the contentious passages by means of reports on the protection of the constitution failed.

In eight out of ten, however, the side of the defendant law was given, such as the naming of the MLPD as a "cult" that the court as permitted and protected by the Basic Law expressing opinions rated. The MLPD therefore bears 51.4% and Engel 32.4% of the process costs.

No revision and reprint

Part of the print run of 1500 copies has been sold to the Brandenburg State Center for Political Education . According to a publisher's spokeswoman for Neues Deutschland , the Schöningh publishing house will no longer distribute the book after the court ruling because "a revision [...] would not have been worthwhile".

output

  • Harald Bergsdorf, Rudolf van Hüllen: Left-wing extremists - Germany's underestimated danger? Between the arson attack and the Bundestag mandate . Schöningh, Paderborn [a. a.] 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77242-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Andreas Fraude: Collective review: Disparate stocktaking of the political left and left-wing extremism . Federal Agency for Civic Education , February 22, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Helge F. Jani: Review. (PDF) In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 2, 2012.
  3. ↑ Eckhard Jesse : "Skin the cops as flat as sandwiches" . In: Welt Online , January 27, 2012.
  4. ↑ Pascal Beucker, Anja Krüger: The party of extremely normal people . In: Jungle World , April 18, 2013
  5. ^ Eckhard Jesse : Book reviews . In: Zeitschrift für Politik 58 (2011) 4, pp. 454–478, here: pp. 454 f.
  6. ↑ Harald Bergsdorf, Rudolf van Hüllen: Left-wing extremists - Germany's underestimated danger?
  7. ↑ Arno Klönne : How history is falsified. In: NRhZ-Online , October 17, 2012.
  8. ↑ Friedrich Burschel: "Verfassungsschutzwissenschaftsjournalismus" The honorable career path from the university via the secret service to journalism, research and education. In: Online publication of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. May 29, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2017 .
  9. ↑ a b Jutta Steinmetz: Enlightenment or falsification of history? In: Neue Westfälische , October 20, 2012.
  10. ↑ a b Pascal Beucker , Anja Krüger: Splitter party remains sect. In: the daily newspaper . April 11, 2013, accessed October 22, 2013 .
  11. ^ Hubert Gude: Marxists against slouch hat . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 2013 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Stefan Wette: The court largely rejects the Marxists' complaint . WAZ, April 11, 2013
  13. ↑ Pascal Beucker , Anja Krüger: Book on "Left Extremism" from the market. In: New Germany . April 22, 2013, accessed February 6, 2018 .