Transverse front

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Anti- democratic strategies in the Weimar Republic to combine the opposing ideologies of nationalism and socialism in order to achieve political power are referred to as cross front in the narrower sense . Representatives of the Conservative Revolution had been striving for such alliances theoretically since around 1920, and the then Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher in practice in 1932.

A cross front in a broader sense is the cooperation or mixing of left and right positions in order to increase approval of anti- emancipatory positions and to create cross- camp alliances of action “across” existing left and right-wing political positions. This was attempted by parts of German neo-Nazism as well as left-wing groups and parties with nationalist tendencies.

Whether the historical term can be applied to any alliances of left and right political forces is disputed. It is therefore proposed that only cross-camp alliances with anti-emancipatory "content overlaps" such as anti-Semitism , racism , homophobia , Islamism and anti-feminism be called cross-fronts . The extremism research explains such alliances also matching "authoritarian dispositions, collectivist friend-enemy constructions and conspiracy theories anti-Semitic explanations of the world" at right- and left-wing sections of the population.

Germany

Weimar Republic

Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher (1932)

Cross-front concepts historically emerged after the November Revolution in 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919 in Germany. They were part of anti-democratic, right-wing theories of National Socialism . Proponents of these theories wanted to detach socialism from Marxism in order to be able to reinterpret it as a national people's community that should be constituted as an authoritarian and elitist leadership state . Representatives of such theories were Oswald Spengler ( Prussianism and Socialism 1920), Arthur Moeller van den Bruck ( The Third Reich 1923), the Juniklub , the Politische Kolleg , the Tat-Kreis and others. They propagated an authoritarian German state that should eliminate Weimar democracy, open itself to the Soviet Union and reject orientation towards Western values ​​and especially towards the USA .

After Reich President Paul von Hindenburg had appointed General Kurt von Schleicher as Reich Chancellor, Schleicher strove for the Reichswehr to work together with right-wing Social Democrats , the ADGB and the "left" wing of the NSDAP around the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser in order to stabilize his authoritarian leadership. Contacts of these groups are occupied; whether a political coalition was discussed is controversial. Schleicher's attempt failed, among other things, because of Adolf Hitler's claim to leadership in the NSDAP. In January 1933 he agreed with Schleicher's competitor Franz von Papen on an alliance under Hitler's leadership.

The right-wing Hofgeismarer Kreis of the SPD, nationalist trade unionists like Walter Pahl and the magazine Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus had for their part demanded and promoted rapprochement with German national conservatism and the left wing of the NSDAP for years. They represented slogans such as “Through socialism to the nation”, defined the task of the trade unions as “serving the national community” and preferred a national corporate economic order to “overcome the liberal capitalist class society ”. Against this background, the Neue Blätter welcomed Hitler's chancellorship and dictatorial measures in June 1933 as a historic opportunity to realize these goals and to end the orientation of the workers' movement to the "ideas of 1789" ( freedom, equality, brotherhood ).

National Socialism

Gregor Strasser (1928)

Since it was founded in 1920, the NSDAP saw itself as a collection movement for “national socialists”, so it represented the linking of these directions in its name and program. The anti-capitalist wing of the NSDAP was mainly represented by the SA founder Ernst Röhm and the Strasser brothers. They lost the intra-party power struggle against Adolf Hitler and his supporters, who interpreted anti-capitalism in an anti-Semitic way or replaced it with radical anti-Semitism, without affecting the capitalist relations of production. Otto Strasser therefore resigned from the NSDAP on July 4, 1930 together with some of his supporters. With his appeal “The Socialists are leaving the NSDAP” he hoped in vain to be able to split the NSDAP.

After the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933, the remaining national socialists in the NSDAP quickly lost their influence. Hitler enforced his sole rule step by step and had the organizations of the workers' movement (trade unions and left-wing parties) banned, dissolved and their leadership cadres murdered. In 1934, during the “ Night of the Long Knives ”, he finally had his possible internal and non-party competitors (including Ernst Röhm, Kurt von Schleicher, Gregor Strasser and others) murdered.

Neo-Nazism

Since 1970, parts of German neo-Nazism have specifically pursued cross-front strategies. The groups founded and inspired by Michael Kühnen , such as the Action Front National Socialists (1975–1982), related positively to National Socialism. Kühnen responded to an interview question in 1989: Left-wing autonomists and neo-Nazis are united in the fight against the bourgeois order, decadence and democracy. Therefore, they could fight it together. "When we have eliminated the pig system" (a term used by the left-wing terrorist RAF ) "we can still shoot each other out as to which order is better."

National revolutionaries , national Bolsheviks and autonomous nationalists , on the other hand, distinguish themselves from National Socialism with their self-names. You try to maintain a right-wing extremist worldview without being associated with the murderous consequences of Nazi politics. Since 1975 Henning Eichberg has given national revolutionary ideas a renaissance. He took up theories of the Conservative Revolution after 1918 and tried to establish them as the New Right in the sense of a discourse sovereignty. He came from the circle of Otto Strasser (NSDAP) and based himself on the writings of the Weimar national Bolsheviks Ernst Niekisch and Karl Otto Paetel , the social democrat Ferdinand Lassalle and the Zionist Martin Buber . Groups such as “The People's Cause” and the “National Revolutionary Coordination Committee” with the magazines Rebell , neue zeit , laser or we ourselves emerged . They condemned the “ Third Reich ” of the National Socialists as “anti-national” and, on the other hand, praised the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 , which was based on German national ideas . Their liberation nationalism, regionalism and the struggle against the “superpowers” ​​in East and West connected them with groups of the “ New Left ”. The concept of ethnopluralism, on the other hand, separated them from universalism . They propagated a “ third way ” between communism and capitalism or liberalism and supported separatists in Northern Ireland , Corsica , the Basque Country and Palestinian groups as “liberation movements” within the framework of nationalist anti-imperialism . Some national revolutionary groups were strongly oriented towards progressive left movements. The groups around Eichberg disbanded or stopped working parallel to the founding of the Greens from 1980. Eichberg has been active in Denmark in the red and green Socialistisk Folkeparti since 1982 .

Autonomous nationalists in the Black Block with anti-capitalist and National Socialist slogans

The Autonomous Nationalists are supported by violent, actionist young right-wing extremists. They specifically adopt ideas and symbols from the left-wing scene in order to subvert them and find approval there. They appear in demonstrations wearing "left-wing" clothing features such as Palestinian kerchiefs and T-shirts with Che Guevaras printed on them. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony, such “cross-camp strategic considerations [...] are based on a small part of right-wing extremists that is still marginal within the scene”. The appearance of neo-Nazis at the Monday demonstrations against social cuts in 2004 should also be seen in this context. Anti-Americanism and partly anti-Zionism from parts of the peace movement against the Iraq war and international deployments of the Bundeswehr would offer points of contact for right-wing extremists.

At a demonstration by the NPD in Dortmund in 2003, and then also in Berlin, a “ black block ” with the appearance known from autonomous groups was formed. The Berliner Kameradschaft Tor started a campaign for a nationwide “national black bloc” that was directed against NPD stewards and against left-wing antifa, and which by 2012 was joined by around 10,000 neo-Nazis. They use the autonomous appearance specifically as a means to win young people over to physical confrontations with opponents and to co-opt them for “national socialism”.

According to information from the Federal Criminal Police Office , neo-Nazis wanted to join the left-wing mass protests before the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 . The fight against the market economy and globalization are seen as a supposedly common ideological denominator . The “Autonomous National Socialists” criticism of capitalism condemns international capital, which they consider to be directed by “the Jews” in the sense of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, in favor of national capital. The globalization policy of the autonomous right is limited to the struggle for “national awareness” and “national progress” against “international solidarity”.

Especially neo-Nazi Free Comradeships such as “Die Kommenden”, the “Third Front” and the magazine Fahnträger speak of “National Bolshevism” . A particularly active cross-front strategist is the Thuringian neo-Nazi Patrick Wieschke . According to his own statements, he uses “almost only left sources” for right-wing extremist training courses in order to gain the neo-Nazis' authority to interpret social issues. To this end, the groups he led took part in the first Hartz IV demonstrations in 2004. The Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten , founded in 1999, however, disbanded itself in July 2008 due to persistent failure and declared the cross-front idea to have failed.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the NPD has for its part been conducting targeted cross-front propaganda to mobilize left-wing extremists and Islamists for their actions. To do this, it adopts their slogans such as “Against US imperialism”, “Cheer up international solidarity” and “Fight against Zionism”. Lars Rensmann explains the congruence of these slogans from the interaction of right-wing and left-wing extremists as well as Islamists who have agreed on common anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic and anti-American positions.

Other

Before the founding of the federal party Die Grünen (1979–1980), many regional “green lists” with the slogan “Not left, not right, but in front” separated themselves from the existing left-right scheme of politics and claimed the ecological issue to be relevant across campuses . Some of these lists were built up and supported by organized neo-Nazis. Conservative ecologists like Herbert Gruhl distinguished themselves from neo-Nazi attempts at infiltration, but represented a similar ethnic concept of nature in terms of content. Greens coming from social emancipatory traditions classified these directions as eco-fascism . A majority of the Greens excluded this direction from the federal party in 1980.

The Pirate Party Germany , founded in 2006, attracted supporters from very different political directions. Most of them refused to classify the party in the left and right scheme. Its federal chairman Sebastian Nerz considered this scheme to be historically outdated. Many members understood the party as a “non-ideological” “over-party” oriented only to “factual” arguments of reason. Individual members concluded that the party should not distinguish itself from any conventional, right or left-wing extremist party. Because of this tendency to cross-front project also found Maskulisten and interest critic part of a consensus among the pirates. In contrast, left-wing members demanded a clear orientation of the party towards feminism and anti-racism . Because this positioning was rejected by a majority, most representatives of the left wing of the party resigned by 2014. The attempt at a cross-wing cross front with the pirates had thus failed.

Right-wing populism

Today cross-front efforts are particularly visible in German right-wing populism . These include the social scientist Wolfgang Storz, the journal Compact by Jürgen Elsässer since 2010, the Internet portal KenFM by Ken Jebsen since 2011, the party Alternative for Germany since 2013, the vigils for peace , the anti-Islamic demonstration alliance Pegida and its regional offshoots (e.g. B. Legida in Leipzig) since 2014. Characteristic of this new cross front are a powerful independent counter-public and simple populist fronts: "People against elites, truth against the lying press ". According to surveys, supporters of this network affirm the idea of ​​democracy, but they hardly trust democratic institutions at all. This network also includes the former spokesman for the German fraternity, Michael Vogt , who disseminates conspiracy theories with his own internet media and congresses under the motto lateral thinking . He claims, for example, that the USA initiated the mass exodus from war zones with the aim of destroying the German people, understood as a blood community.

Jürgen Elsässer formulated the goals of this “lateral front” in the first edition of Compact as follows: The aim was to build a “ popular front ” from the general population so that they could fight for the lack of sovereignty . The left must conduct an “open dialogue” with the right and vice versa, in order to overcome “dogmas” and break “taboos” and thus enable a common “resistance” against the powers that ruled the German people. As an example of such a breach of taboo, Elsässer referred to the social democrat Thilo Sarrazin (“ Germany abolishes itself ”). He located the ruling foreign powers in the sense of secondary anti-Semitism in the USA, which is supposedly determined by Zionism , and the capital of the "East Coast" which is based there and is supposedly controlled by a few people . In doing so, he tried to establish Compact as an essential "alternative medium" for German right-wing populism and against the mainstream media . According to Patrick Gensing , German right-wing populists are also increasingly using social networks to brutalize the political debate, to spread calls for violence and contempt for minorities far beyond their own supporters. The aim of this cross-front propaganda is a close alliance with Putin- ruled Russia in order to enforce an authoritarian nationalist system.

Outside of Germany

Greece

In January 2015, the socialist party Syriza formed a government coalition with the right-wing populist Anexartiti Ellines . Other European socialists criticized this cooperation as a lateral front with negative consequences for the left in Europe.

Slovakia

HaGalil and Jürgen Elsässer described the government formed in 2006 from the social democratic Smer - sociálna demokracia , the national-conservative movement for a democratic Slovakia and the right-wing populist Slovak National Party as a cross front in an article about the young world .

Italy

The Italian neo-fascists Roberto Fiore , Gabriele Adinolfi and Peppe Di Mitri propagated as "Terza Posizione" or "Third Position" a movement that, similar to earlier German cross-front theories , tries to break away from communism and capitalism or pretends to do so. Third Position propagates a soldier-rural-ecologically correct lifestyle of largely autonomous new or wild men in the sense of the charismatic Romanian right-wing extremist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu , combined with radical ethnopluralism , elements of Catholic social doctrine and support for national liberation movements . The movement founded by Fiore and his like-minded people in 1979 uses the Celtic cross and, in Italy, the wolf angel as symbols. After Roberto Fiore was sentenced to imprisonment in Italy in connection with the attack in Bologna in 1980 and temporarily went into hiding or had to leave the country, he helped advance third positions in Great Britain and France and became Secretary General of the European National Front .

Logo of the National Bolshevik Party of Russia

Russia

In Russia, both the former National Bolshevik Party of Russia and the Rodina Party worked with an ideological background that used both left and right-wing extremist ideas. In Russia, there are several prominent writers such as Eduard Limonow and Alexander Prokhanov behind the connection between left and right-wing extremist ideas .

Iran and Venezuela

In 2006, Mahmud Ahmadineschād , then President of Iran, and Hugo Chávez , then President of Venezuela, formed a bilateral "alliance against the US Empire". Under this anti-imperialist motto they agreed on close economic and military cooperation. It turned Ivo Bozic content intersections of the respective state ideology of clerical fascism in Iran and a state socialism in Venezuela found on the support of the Iranian nuclear program to the common anti-Zionism in the sign of "solidarity with the Palestinian people" against Israel . This "cross front" of two ideologically contradicting regimes continued among the successors of the two presidents, for example when Nicolás Maduro granted Iran observer status in the economic alliance Bolivarian Alliance for America (ALBA).

literature

  • Felix Schilk: Sovereignty instead of complexity. How the Querfront magazine ›Compact‹ deals with the political legitimacy crisis of the present. Edition DISS, 2017, ISBN 978-3-89771-768-8 .
  • Kevin Culina, Jonas Fedders: Querfront. In: Same: United in the enemy image. On the relevance of anti-Semitism in the Querfront magazine Compact. edition assemblage, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-96042-004-0 , pp. 11-20.
  • Ivo Bozic : The transverse front as a global political phenomenon. In: Markus Liske , Manja Präkels (Ed.): Caution people! Or: movements in madness? Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95732-121-3 , pp. 101-110.
  • Regina Wamper , Helmut Kellershohn , Martin Dietzsch : Right-wing discourse piracy: strategies for the appropriation of left-wing codes, symbols and forms of action. Unrast, 2010, ISBN 3-89771-757-3 .
  • Stefan Breuer : Anatomy of the Conservative Revolution. 2nd revised and corrected edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft WBG, Darmstadt 1995, ISBN 3-534-11802-2 .
  • Kurt Sontheimer : Anti-democratic thinking in the Weimar Republic. The political ideas of nationalism between 1918 and 1933. 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-423-04312-1 .
  • Axel Schildt : Military ratio and integration of the trade unions. On the cross-front conception of the Reichswehr leadership at the end of the Weimar Republic. In: Richard Saage (ed.): Solidarity community and class struggle. Political conceptions of social democracy between the world wars. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-518-11363-1 , pp. 346-364.
  • Axel Schildt: Military dictatorship with a mass base? The cross-front conception of the Reichswehr leadership around General von Schleicher at the end of the Weimar Republic. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-593-32958-1 .
  • Karl Otto Paetel : National Bolshevism and National Revolutionary Movements in Germany. History, ideology, people. (1965) Verlag Bublies , Schnellbach 1999, ISBN 3-926584-49-1 . (Note publisher profile)
  • Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf : Left people from the right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960, ISBN 3-548-02996-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ivo Bozic: The cross front as a global political phenomenon. In: Liske / Präkels: Beware of the people! , 2016, pp. 102-104
  2. ^ Lars Rensmann : Democracy and the image of the Jews. Anti-Semitism in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-322-80454-9 , p. 103
  3. ↑ Kevin Culina, Jonas Fedders: Querfront. In: Same: United in the Feindbild , Münster 2016, p. 11 f.
  4. ↑ Volker Weiß : Modern Antimodern. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and the change in conservatism. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 3506771469 , p. 251
  5. ↑ Arno Klönne: Right-wing extremism in “civil” society. "Not yesterday's ghost". LIT, Münster 2000, ISBN 3825851230 , p. 99
  6. ↑ Reinhard Kühnl: The National Socialist Left 1925-1930. Hain, Mannheim 1966, pp. 64-67, 79-81, 248-261.
  7. ↑ Otto Gritschneder: "The Führer has sentenced you to death ...": Hitler's "Röhm Putsch" murders in court. Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37651-7 .
  8. ^ Ivo Bozic: The cross front as a global political phenomenon. In: Liske / Präkels: Beware of the people! , 2016, p. 101
  9. ↑ Transverse front - what is it? Verassungsschutz.sachsen.de, May 16, 2006
  10. ↑ Alexander Thumfart: Right-wing extremist worlds of experience. On the way to the middle of society. University of Erfurt, 2012, PDF p. 24
  11. ↑ Jan Schedler, Alexander Häusler (Ed.): Autonomous Nationalists - Neo-Nazism in Motion. Springer, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-93219-4 , p. 80
  12. ^ Die Welt, January 25, 2007: There is a threat of Islamist attacks in Heiligendamm
  13. ^ Holger Witzel : Brown-Red Kungelei . stern.de, May 23, 2007
  14. ^ Lars Rensmann: Democracy and the image of the Jews. Anti-Semitism in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany. Wiesbaden 2004, p. 257 f.
  15. ↑ Silke Mende: "Not right, not left, but in front": a story of the founding Greens. Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, ISBN 3486598112 (preface)
  16. ↑ Jan Peters: National “Socialism” from the right. Documents and programs of the green-brown reactionaries. Berlin 1980, ISBN 3882203056 , pp. 56-61
  17. ↑ Jutta Ditfurth: Relaxed into barbarism. Konkret Literatur Verlag, 1996, p. 207; Kevin Culina, Jonas Fedders: United in enemy , Münster 2016, p. 17
  18. ↑ Kevin Culina, Jonas Fedders: combines the image of the enemy , Münster 2016, p.17 f.
  19. ^ Wolfgang Storz: "Querfront" - career of a political-journalistic network. Otto Brenner Foundation , April 1, 2015 (PDF), p. 24
  20. ↑ Jörg Schindler : Scaremongering: How we miss our lives because of sheer fear. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-403567-3 , p. 72
  21. ↑ Kevin Culina, Jonas Fedders: United in enemy , Münster 2016, pp 5-8.
  22. ↑ Patrick Gensing: Right-wing agitation on the Internet - an underestimated danger. Rowohlt, 2016, p. 2
  23. ^ Ivo Bozic: The cross front as a global political phenomenon. In: Liske / Präkels: Beware of the people! , 2016, p. 102
  24. ↑ a b "Cross-Front Government in Slovakia" HaGalil, July 16, 2006
  25. ^ Frontier government in Slovakia: Questions to the Antifa Junge Welt, July 6, 2006
  26. ↑ Junge Welt defends coalition of social democrats and neo-fascists in Slovakia World Socialist Web Site, July 22, 2006
  27. ↑ Boundless Eurasia ( Memento from March 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: jungle world , No. 45/2002, October 30, 2002
  28. ^ Ivo Bozic: The cross front as a global political phenomenon. In: Liske / Präkels: Beware of the people! , 2016, p. 107 f.