1. Violence
Right-wing violence is by no means a phenomenon restricted to East Germany alone. But the fact is that an overwhelming proportion of such acts are perpetrated in the five new „Länder“. Although only 17 percent of Germany’s total population live in the East, some 42 percent of all acts of violence motivated by right-wing extremism have been committed there in 2000, according to statistics of the „Bundesverfassungsschutz“, Germany’s domestic security agency. Often, the victims are foreigners or non-white Germans. However, homosexuals, the handicapped and the homeless have also increasingly become targets of extremist attacks; as have left-leaning teenagers, or in fact anyone looking as though he or she might be of the „wrong“ political persuasion (sometimes, merely wearing the wrong clothes is enough to trigger an assault). Most of the offenders are young men. Many are convinced that they are the executors of a popular will. Experience suggests that they are by no means always wrong.

2. Right-wing views
As opposed to previous decades, when right-wing extremism in Western Germany was largely the province of an older generation, today the right-wing extremist camp in the East has a much younger following. While in nationwide polls about 25% of all Germans profess hostility against foreigners, in East Germany this number climbs up to 50%. In the state election of Saxony-Anhalt in April 1998 the German People´s Union (Deutsche Volksunion/DVU) got a total of 12.9% of the popular vote. Among young voters it was the strongest party – with a staggering 32 %. In the most recent federal election (September 1998) more than 10% of the 18-24 year-olds in the East voted for right-wing parties.

3. Explanations
I do not believe that there is a mono-causal explanation for this worrying phenomenon. Rather, I am convinced that today´s right-wing extremism in East Germany is caused by a mixture of factors ranging from from education and upbringing to the present socioeconomic situation in many areas of the former GDR.

Having grown up in the GDR myself – I was seventeen when the Wall came down – I know from personal experience that only a tiny minority of the East Germans had any notion of democratic values or free speech. Such a culture had begun to grow at the grass roots in the aftermath of the anti-communist revolution of 1989. However, that process was cut off by re-unification with West Germany in 1990, when the constitution and with it the whole canon of West German laws and regulations were simply extended to the new Länder. Many Easterners still resent this as an imposition of values from above.

In fact, right-wing extremists have an easy time appealing to values cultivated by the communist regime and which are still flourishing in the East today: collectivism, authoritarianism, anti-individualism and anti-pluralism. Given the present economic situation (real unemployment has reached 40 percent in some places, and many regions are without any hope for recovery), it is no surprise that many people have no confidence in democracy and the market economy.

Moreover, most of the East Germans have no positive experience with foreigners. The GDR was a closed society, practically sealed off against foreigners and without significant ethnic minorities. After 1989, few aliens came to settle in the East for good. As a result, the strangers the East Germans got to see were mostly asylum seekers – people who are not part of local communities, who are discriminated by law in many ways and whom politicians referred to only in negative terms.

4. Youth culture
While right-wing parties and organisations have gotten a worrying amount of support in recent years, this process is accompanied by a cultural trend which is more dangerous by far: Right-wing extremism has begun to extend beyond political splinter groups to become a kind of social movement.

Music, dress codes and idiom carry racist ideology much more successfully than any party manifesto could do. Today, in many rural regions and smaller towns of East Germany, right-wing extremism is no longer a minority phenomenon among the young. It has already become a major, if not dominant, pattern of youth culture. In many school classes nobody protests against racist slogans – not even the teacher. Many parents appear to be entirely indifferent to this phenomenon. In many youth clubs right-wingers have pushed rival cultures out – and the authorities do not provide properly trained welfare workers who could stop it.

The climate of fear created by right-wingers in many local communities has become so pervasive that their mere presence is often threat enough. That is why criminal statistics showing a drop in racist attacks do not necessarily mean a decline in the influence of right-wing groups.

A key strategy of activists connected to the most extremist right-wing party, the National Democratic Party (NPD) since the mid-Nineties has been the creation of so-called „nationally liberated zones“: In other words, no-go-areas for non-believers, aliens, darkskinned

Germans and anybody else who does not conform to their racist ideology. These can range from schoolyards to marketplaces to train stations and even small companies. The extremists are by no means social outcasts – often, they are well-regarded citizens of their towns and villages. They take care of everyday communal problems, they look after public monuments, collect money for child-care centers, and play the guitar in old people´s homes.

Children are growing up in this environment. Nine or ten-year-olds in bomber jackets are commonplace now. Skinhead bands are well-known and surprisingly popular. Germanic runes and pagan mythology, which are used by right-wing extremists to construct a bogus cultural tradition, are topics of general interest. Right-wing behaviour has become something of a fashionable manifestation. Racist opinions are openly expressed and have become mainstream.

This evolving youth culture is certainly rebellious – but only in an anti-modernistic, antiliberal and anti-progressive sense. Trends like this might be influenced by the media –but they are not caused by, nor can they be stopped by them.

5. Music
Music has become an important, perhaps the main carrier, of right-wing extremist ideology. Unlike the traditional mediums of information, it reaches almost all of the young, almost all of the time. Right-wing strategists like the British band leader and founder of the group Screwdriver Ian Stuart have postulated the use of music as a central tool of propaganda. An editor of the NPD-associated fanzine Kreuzritter (Knights of the Cross) put it: „For us music is a weapon. It is better than any flyer. When they listen to a song twenty times, than they have certainly caught the words.“

Germany´s domestic security agency counted more than 100 Skinhead concerts in 1999, most of them in East Germany (the biggest with an audience of about 2000). The concerts are important events for the extremist activists. They are organized conspiratorially, which makes them even more attractive for many youths.
About 50 mail order companies sell albums of about 100 German and dozens of international right-wing bands. Independent anti-fascist groups estimate that 1.5 million CDs were sold in the last eight years. It is a multi-million business. The music is ska, punk, metal or folk, the words are racist and often promote violence. Disturbingly, rightwing

Aesthetics have been seeping into the mainstream music culture – the use of a song by the band Rammstein on the sound track of the blockbuster movie The Matrix being a good example.

Last September, the federal government banned the German section of the international Skinhead network Blood&Honour. Some hundred music CDs, propaganda material and a mere 73.000 DM (37.000 Euro) were confiscated. The ban will not smash B&H. Their inner circle is quite used to being banned, many of them have been cadres in similar organisations. Only two weeks after the ban, B&H organized a major concert.

The following day, they issued a statement: „Even without Blood&Honour our struggle will go on! This government must realise that several thousand cops are necessary to prevent us from organizing concerts.“ A month later, the newest edition of the B&H fanzine was mailed to its followers.

6. Use of the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web gives extremists a wide-reaching and low-cost option for propaganda, organisation and recruitment. Germany´s domestic security agency has counted up to 500 homepages run by right-wing extremists – up from 32 in 1996 and more than 200 in 1998. The US site Stormfront is considered to be the very first rightwing
extremist page. It was set up in March 1995 by the American neo-Nazi Stephen Donald Black. One of the first German sites contained a public appeal to fight antifascist activists, another belonged to an organisation that takes care of imprisoned rightwing extremists.
The World Wide Web is increasingly popular among extremists. Stormfront itself explains why: „The Internet has, for the first time, provided individuals and small organisations with the means to effectively compete with the controlled media monopoly. The major television networks and the big publishing conglomerates no longer control what news the world will hear.“ With almost the same words, German Voice (Deutsche Stimme), the NPD’s party paper, talks about the www and reaches the conclusion that it must be „a focal point of national counter-publicity“.

In the World Wide Web one can find written information as well as pictures, video and audio files. All the German right-wing parties have sites, as do a number of several violent groups („national comradeships“). Dozens of mail order companies offer books, T-shirts, music and other propaganda products. Extremists communicate in newsgroups and chatrooms. The extremist Radio Germania and Radio Wolfsschanze broadcast via the net. In order to escape German law, many right-wingers host their pages at internet providers in the US. Via internet based systems like mp3 or Napster, all kinds of rightwing music can be spread much easier. On the other hand, this non-commercial route of dissemination deprives some organisations and activists of an extremely profitable business.

The Internet is an excellent way to reach the young. Browsing the web is more popular than reading papers. And some extremist pages look quite respectable. In the Internet, nothing can be banned, and filters rarely work. Users, particularly the young, must be taught to evaluate information.

7. Mainstream media
Although the mainstream media have universally joined in the condemnation of rightwing extremism, they have actually contributed to the shaping of racist views. For example, reports on foreigners or minorities have spread ethnic and racial stereotypes.
During the debate on political asylum German media used negative terms (people coming to Germany usually have been dubbed as a „flood“). Challenged, they would respond that they were only mirroring politics.

Many campaigns trying to counter racist views do not have much impact because they have an unfortunate tendency to preach to the converted. Nevertheles they play an important role in defining the public climate.

The influence of the mainstream media is limited, especially among the young and East Germans. Few of them read national quality papers. Only the local papers, (commercial) TV and the yellow press even reach those who are most susceptible to racist views.
Journalists reporting about right-wing extremism should avoid scandalisation. Alarmism does not help – in fact, it often has the reverse effect. Defamatory reports only lead to a closing of the ranks and might provoke a governmental overreaction – which in its turn could lead to a limitation on societal freedoms in general.

Some articles on the extremist right (in German)

Die importierte Moral, DIE ZEIT 15/1999 http://www.zeit.de/1999/15/199915_ostmoral.html
an analysis on the political culture in East Germany
Eine desolate Truppe, DIE ZEIT 17/1999 http://www.toralfstaud.de/texte/dvu
how miserable the extremist DVU performs in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt
Vernünftige junge Leute, DIE ZEIT 24/1999 http://www.zeit.de/1999/24/199924_npd.html
how the NPD is trying to seep into the East German society
Mitten im Minenfeld, DIE ZEIT 7/2000 http://www.zeit.de/2000/7/200007_miteinander.html
a new strategy against right-wing extremism in Saxony-Anhalt
Ganz normal rechts, DIE ZEIT 28/2000 http://www.toralfstaud.de/texte/schule
a visit to more or less racist school classes in Saxony
Aus deutscher Nacht, DIE ZEIT 30/2000 http://www.zeit.de/2000/30/200030_nacht.html
what happens on a very normal saturday night in East German towns
Gewalt ohne Führer, DIE ZEIT 32/2000 http://www.toralfstaud.de/texte/gewalt
there is right-wing terror in Germany, but no terrorism yet
Kampf den Nazis, DIE ZEIT 34/2000
http://www.inter-nationes.de/d/frames/presse/dossier/d/staud-d.html
a leading article on what could be done against right-wing extremism
Gegen rechts, aber billig, DIE ZEIT 41/2000 http://www.toralfstaud.de/texte/bluff
how the federal government fails to counter right-wing extremism
and interviews with politicians on the subject:
Ich schäme mich für dieses Land, DIE ZEIT 31/2000
http://www.inter-nationes.de/d/presse/dossier/d/dossier-rechts-d-f.html
Ich wollte es nicht wahrhaben, DIE ZEIT 39/2000
http://www.toralfstaud.de/interview/stolpe