海角大神

Ban Germany's right-wing NPD? Neo-Nazi revelations spark debate.

Neo-Nazi enclaves like Jamel, Germany, are closed to foreigners and minorities 鈥� and supportive of the hard-right NPD party. Last week, 74 percent of Germans said the NPD should be banned.

The mural is 2 meters (6.6 feet) high, several meters long, and looks as if it came straight from a 1935 German schoolbook: a young family in farmer鈥檚 clothes, the mother cradling a baby, the father putting his arm protectively around his older son鈥檚 shoulders. Next to the painting in old German font, it reads: 鈥淰illage community Jamel: Free 鈥� social 鈥� national.鈥�

Jamel is what neo-Nazis in Germany call a 鈥渘ationally liberated zone,鈥� a no-go area for foreigners, ethnic minorities, and overt left-wingers. It is one of the places where the National Democratic Party (NPD), Germany鈥檚 legal far-right party, has won the battle for hearts and minds 鈥� and probably did not have to fight very hard. In some villages and towns of this region, the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the NPD easily reached 20 percent in regional elections earlier this year.

鈥淭he authorities have given up on Jamel,鈥� says Horst Krumpen, chairman of the Network for Democracy, Tolerance, and Humanity, a campaign group in the nearby town of Wismar. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have problems with right-wing violence here 鈥� there hardly is any. Our problem is the widespread support for the NPD in the region and the impotence of the state.鈥�

For years, places like Jamel were more or less ignored by the German authorities. In a speech this summer, Germany's Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich called right-wing extremism a phenomenon on the decline, and stressed the threat of Islamic terrorism. But the shocking revelations a month ago about a terrorist cell of neo-Nazis,聽the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which is alleged to have聽killed as many as 10 ethnic-minority citizens as well as a policewoman and carried out several bombings and bank robberies over the past decade, have put such enclaves back in the focus, along with a debate about whether the NPD, which gives a legal voice to extreme right-wing sentiment, should be banned.

Jamel is a tiny village of only a dozen houses, close to the Baltic coast in northeast Germany. It is surrounded by idyllic landscapes, but there are metal shutters on most windows, attack dogs behind fences, a shooting range outside a collapsed barn with a playground in front of it. Everywhere you look there are manifestations of the inhabitants鈥� world: a tall cross with the words 鈥淏etter dead than a slave鈥� on it, flags with Germanic runes and symbols, and signposts pointing to various places in Russia and Poland which used to belong to Germany before World War II. A placard reminds people: 鈥淣PD 鈥� we keep our promises.鈥�

The NPD, which is represented in the regional parliaments of two German states but has never played any role at the federal level, has tried for some time to shed its extremist image. 鈥淧eople can come to their party offices and get help filling out welfare application forms,鈥� says Mr. Krumpen. NPD members are running youth clubs and local soccer teams, and sitting on local councils. Just last month, the party elected a new leader, Holger Apfel, who is regarded as less radical than his predecessor.

In a poll last week, 74 percent of Germans were in favor of banning the NPD. 鈥淎 ban would destabilize the right-wing scene, throw it back for decades,鈥� says Bernd Wagner. The ex-policeman is Germany鈥檚 foremost authority on right-wing extremism. He runs 鈥淓xit,鈥� an organization that helps neo-Nazis leave the scene and reintegrate in society. 鈥淲e need to act,鈥� says Mr. Wagner. 鈥淭he official statistics show a decline in the number of right-wing extremists. But we at Exit see a core of neo-Nazis that is better organized and more radical than before.鈥�

But the German government needs to show a concrete and direct link between the NPD and the terrorists of the NSU. Otherwise it risks a repeat of the embarrassment of 2003, when an attempt to ban the NPD failed, because Germany鈥檚 constitutional court rejected the case. Back then, the NPD was so heavily infiltrated with informers of the domestic intelligence service that the court decided most of the evidence brought against the far-right party would be inadmissible.

The arrest of a former NPD official who is accused of actively supporting the NSU last week could make the case for a ban and push the informer problem into the background, politicians hope. 鈥淚f we can produce a watertight link between NPD and terrorists, we have an important argument on our side,鈥� the Interior minister of Lower Saxony, Uwe Sch眉nemann, told a German newspaper. Bavaria鈥檚 Interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said the support for a ban was growing on a daily basis.

Not everybody agrees, though. Hartfrid Wolff is an MP for the Free Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel鈥檚 coalition government. He sits on the Parliamentary Oversight Committee that controls Germany鈥檚 intelligence services. 鈥淭he failure of the domestic intelligence agency to stop this terrorist gang was a disaster,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut we should not in a knee-jerk reaction try to ban a party that has a considerable electorate. It would be much better to dry up its voter base, win over its supporters.鈥�

Mr. Krumpen has a more practical approach. 鈥淚f we ban the NPD, we don鈥檛 get rid of a single right-winger,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat we lose is a target whose structure and weaknesses we know well enough to fight. Ban it, and the neo-Nazis just go underground.鈥�