Alternative Fur Deutschland The AfD by Thomas Klikauer;

Author:Thomas Klikauer;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: International Specialized Book Services
Published: 2020-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

No.

Political Party

Votes 1932–1933

1

The Nazis fluctuated between

11 and 17 million;

2

The Communists moved from

3.5 to 6 million;

3

The Social Democrats from

7 to 8 million;

4

The Centre maintained its position receiving

5 to 5.5 million;

5

The German-Nationals remained at

2 to 3 million

Faced with electoral decline after reaching its height in 1932, the NSDAP needed Germany’s conservatives to get into power. Hence Adolf Hitler became Reichs-Chancellor in a Nazi-plus-conservative coalition government. With that, Hitler presided over the coalition government in which the majority of ministers were conservatives. They paved the way for Hitler.

Today, the AfD is not likely to gain the majority of the German vote in open elections either. However, Germany’s conservatives are the ones to be watched. Given the history, the link between Germany’s conservatives and the AfD is crucial. Looking at recent election polls and neighbouring Austria, Germany’s AfD can only get to power in a coalition government with Germany’s conservatives. Then as today, there is no right-wing extremist majority in Germany. As a consequence, the best hope for a Nazi-style Machtergreifung is a brown-black hazelnut coalition government71 – brown being the traditional colour of Nazism because of Hitler’s brown shirts, the SA, and black for Germany’s conservatives. Early attempts for a brown-black direction have been made in the state of Saxony in the former East of Germany that is increasingly seen as a Neo-Nazi/AfD state. In Saxony, CDU boss Christian Hartmann (a conservative and ex-policeman) once favoured ‘an alliance with the AfD’.72 However, this did not eventuate. By the end of 2019, Saxony was governed by what Germany’s political culture calls a Kenya Coalition reflecting the colours of Kenya’s national flag: black (CDU), red (SPD) and green (The Greens) as Germany’s conservatives had rejected a coalition with the AfD.

3. The AfD as a non-violent party

Whilst the Nazi party of the 1930s actively supported its street fighting organisation, the SA, the AfD has no such organisation apart from the rather loosely organised Pegida that is nowhere close to resembling Hitler’s SA. Despite marching side by side with Neo-Nazis in the Chemnitz rally in 2018, the AfD presents itself in a non-violent image.73 On many occasions and at least as an official party line, AfD leaders have spoken against violence. Yet the AfD camouflages its intolerance and its implicit support of violence. It insinuates political violence with statements like ‘this is the last chance to save our fatherland [insinuating] if the AfD cannot achieve this without violence, then the latter is the way forward’.74 Officially, the party will denounce violence at any time needed.

This is the phenomenon of Dog Whistling,75 i.e. issuing statements that on the surface and to many ordinary people look innocent but that send a clear message to AfD supporters. Playing the saviour of the German Volk has a long tradition. Erika Mann, daughter of the Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann, has described those saviours of Germany in her anti-Nazi book.76 To save Germany, the Nazis used terror. They engineered a longing for brutality and violence. Before 1933, Nazism meant an attack on the state’s monopoly of violence.

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