LAUSR

As Germany’s new radical right enters federal parliament based on its recent election success of 12.6 per cent resulting in 92 seats, many have been asking who is this new radical right party called “Alternative for Germany” (AfD)? Are they Nazis? Has Germany moved to the right? In 2017, the new Nazis no longer call themselves Nazis; they call their party AfD (Shalal 2017). Yet the AfD has extremely strong tendencies towards Nazism (cf. Aderet 2017). Many have recognised this “including [Germany’s] Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel who had labelled [AfD] leaders of the party ‘real Nazis’” (Hoerner 2015; Guàrdia 2016; Neuerer 2017). Some AfD supporters even want to construct a “new railway from Berlin directly to Auschwitz” (Zeit 2017). This is not Germany in 1933. It happened in the German city of Jena on the 15 September 2017. The AfD is the classical wolf in sheep’s clothing often camouflaging its more outright Nazi tendency through the myth of the “concerned citizen” (AFD Watch 2018). Today, the party’s new parliamentarian leader –Alice Weidel– can openly be called “Nazi slut” after a recent court ruling (RT 2017). A former Goldman Sachs banker, Alice Weidel is one of those AfD leaders who link capitalism to fascism. This link reminds many of philosopher Max Horkheimer’s words of 1939, “whoever is not willing to talk about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism” (Law 2014). Founded in 2013, the AfD is the parliamentarian wing of its street fighters called “Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization,” known under its German acronym Pegida (Dostal 2015; cf. Geiges, Marg, and Walter 2015). What enabled the AfD’s rise is a shift in Germany’s political culture towards the radical right, marked largely by three events: a hyped-up nationalism in the wake of the fall of the Berlin wall followed by West-Germany’s “annexation” of East-Germany during the early 1990s; the soccer cups in 2006 and 2010; and finally Chancellor Merkel’s welcoming of thousands of refugees in 2015 (Guardian.com 27 August 2017). Germany’s re-unification gave rise to nationalism, engineered largely by the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s so-called “spiritual-moral turn” towards nationalism. After the world soccer cup it became increasingly normal to show nationalism openly, for example, by flying the German flag, something not seen before 2006. Finally, Merkel’s refugee policy is framed by the AfD as an attack on the German “Volksgemeinschaft” (Staas 2017), a Nazi term describing a racially cleansed community (not society!) based on an Aryan race. Excluding them from the Germanic Volksgemeinschaft, the AfD calls refugees “dirt” as they spoil Germany’s racial hygiene. AfD “behind-the-scenes” boss Alexander Gauland prefers another Nazi word –völkisch– indicating xenophobic racism and anti-Semitism (Biermann 2016). Gauland andNazi SlutWeidel believes that the government consists of pigs rulingGermany on behalf theAllied Forces. In anOrwellian twist, the AfD frames Germany as victims of the Allied Forces. In their view, Germany is not just governed by foreign forces, it is also surrounded bymilitant Islamists ready to destroy its culture that should be a racially purified Aryan culture. Shortly before the recent election, Germany’s main broadcasters, ARD, ZDF, RTL and Sat1, held the usual TV debate. Most of the time, the two main candidates were forced to answer