Party ban?

German citizens and political leaders alike are appalled: For ten years, a group of neo-Nazis has ben carrying out a series of murders targeting immigrants - apparently without the country's intelligence services recognizing that there was a network behind the murders.

To make matters worse: The so-called "Kebab murders" (most of the crimes were perpetrated against Turkish kebab shop owners) were not solved by intelligence officers, but rather only when two of the men now thought to have been responsible committed suicide after a botched bank robbery. Had the bank robbery gone as planned, the violence would have likely continued.

In response, German political leaders have made emphatic calls for the country's far-right National Democratic Party, the NPD, to be banned once and for all, after a first attempt failed in 2003. The Federal Constitutional Court, at the time, rejected the government's arguments for a ban, saying too many intelligence informers had infiltrated NPD ranks.

The leader of Germany's Social Democrats, Frank Walter Steinmeier, on Tuesday, called for a new attempt to be made. The head of Germany's police union also said the NPD should be banned. Even Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, who were previously against such a move, now say they would back a ban.

But that may be difficult: according to German daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger quoting intelligence sources, there are up to 100 paid informants in the NPD today, significantly more than in 2003, when 15 percent of the party's members were informants.

Deutsche Welle spoke with four leading extremism experts about the consequences of such a ban: Eckhard Jesse, from the Technical University of Chemnitz, Christoph Butterwegge, of Cologne University, Christian Pfeiffer, the director of the Lower Saxony Criminological Institute, and Hajo Funke, from Berlin's Free University.

A ban doesn't solve the problem

The extremism researchers all agreed that while there was sufficient legal justification to ban the NPD, the actual implementation of a ban would be difficult. Not all agreed on whether an all-out ban would even make any sense.

Eckhard Jesse, from Chemnitz, said he thought an NPD ban would be highly impractical. Extreme right-wing attitudes would not disappear if the party were made illegal, he said. Many members would form new organizations, and many hardliners would become even more radicalized, causing the complete opposite of the intended effect.

Jesse said that the authorities should watch the numbers. The NPD, right now, is a small and obscure party that attracts hardly more than one percent of German voters. In addition, informants embedded in the party made its observation easier.

Danger of radicalization

Political scientist Butterwegge of Cologne University agreed that banning the NPD could create the danger of further radicalizing right-wing extremists. However, he said he supported a ban, as long as it's not the only political action taken.

"I think a ban on the NPD could send a powerful message to German society that we are not going to tolerate right-wing extremism in any form," he said, adding that such an effect would only happen if the government handles the ban well.

A wide-ranging explanation for the ban would be necessary, Butterwegge said. Not just the NPD as an organization would have to be observed, but rather its ideology. The idea that Germans are superior and belong to a greater race is the driving force behind right-wing extremism, and going along with it is the social Darwinist argument that the strongest must rise to the top of society.

Liberal immigration policy

But not only is this kind of thought dangerous, Butterwegge emphasized. There was once the warning by conservative former Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber of a “racially polluted society,” he said, or the comment by then-CDU state party leader of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, who insisted it was more important to have “children than Indians” - intended as a call for Germans to have more kids rather than inviting skilled immigrants to take up well paid jobs.

These kinds of statements only fuel racism, said Butterwegge. Instead of promoting prejudices against migrants, responsible leaders should create a more liberal and tolerant immigration policy, he argues. Then, it would make sense to get rid of organizations, like the NPD, he said.

Extremism researcher Funke supports a ban on the NPD, but is quick to point out that it should not remain the only weapon in the fight against far-right thinking. The danger that the NPD could simply dissolve into other organizations is limited, Funke argues. There are already highly criminal and violent groups, which define themselves as substitute national socialist organizations. But with the appropriate political will, these groups are easier to ban than political parties.

Christian Pfeiffer, from Lower Saxony, says it is very annoying that the NPD is able to spread its extremist ideology with the help of tax money, but that he still opposes a ban. Pfeiffer thinks political leaders must counter the NPD with good arguments in the public debate. Far-right propaganda must be debunked for the “rubbish” that it is, he argues. That is the way to convince the coming generations, he says. Just banning the NPD, he notes, “is making it too easy on yourself.”

Autor: Günther Birkenstock / gb, glb
Editor: Andreas Illmer