An analysis of 1980 murder of Shlomo Lewin and Frieda Poeschke reveals that it was disgracefully handled both by the police and the public. On the evening of December, 19, 1980, a double homicide was committed in the German city of Erlangen: A stranger shot and killed the Jewish publisher Shlomo Lewin and his life… Continue reading “The Anti-Semitic Murder Germany Forgot”
The announcements for the next large White Power Music festivals in Saxony (“Skinheads Back to the Roots” in March; “Schild & Schwert” festival in June) and Thuringia (“Tage der nationalen Bewegung” in July) have just been released. Even though the number of visitors decreased by the end of the year 2018 (6,000, 2,200 and 1,100… Continue reading “Saxony and Thuringia – Strongholds of White Power Music in Germany”
Left-wing parties and movements across Europe employing anti-globalisation and anti-EU rhetoric are on the increase. In Germany, the new left movement Aufstehen has joined the trend. The return to the nation is a trend that marks the politics of more and more European left-wing movements and parties. Those many European social democratic parties that took… Continue reading “Can left nationalism stop the rise of the far-right in Germany?”
The year 2019 began quite turbulently for German politics with a politically-charged data leak. One Twitter user published the personal data of politicians, artists and online activists in the fashion of a Christmas calendar, which opened doors every day to reveal private information about its victims. When journalists and security agencies discovered this data leak… Continue reading “The far right in the post-digital condition”
German neo-Nazi bands attempt to appeal more broadly to an audience that is opposed to the government’s position on asylum seekers. Plato once wrote, in an argument postulating the banning of music, that “any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State.” While an extreme position to adopt in its own right, the… Continue reading “Tracking German Neo-Nazism Through Music”
The relatively new party known as the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) and its relationship to right-wing extremism have been the subject of a great deal of intensive discussion among political and social scientists. While one stream of research focuses primarily on the strategic aspects of the AfD, such as its populist rhetoric… Continue reading “The antisemitic turn of the “Alternative for Germany” party”
The German terror group “National Socialist Underground“ is unprecedented – radical right terrorism is not A marathon trial in Germany has come to an end. On 11 July 2018, more than five years after the trial had begun, the higher regional court in Munich handed down the sentences against five members and supporters of the… Continue reading “The Under-Discussed Recent History Of The Radical Right Terrorism In Germany”
Where left-leaning observers warn of a return of totalitarian nationalism, the far right warns of the return of socialist and communist totalitarian politics. With the rise of populist and far-right politics in Europe and beyond, the fear of the return of totalitarian politics has equally intensified. Comparisons with the rise of fascism in the 1920s… Continue reading “The Far Right Imagines a Totalitarian Other”
Adhering to a nostalgia for a more stable time, many observers see in the end of Merkel’s era the beginning of a dystopian future of political turmoil. Six years ago, in November 2012, Angela Merkel was at the height of her domestic and European power. At the domestic level, Germany was perceived as an “island… Continue reading “The End of the Merkel Era”
My study of the radical right in my book Voting Radical Right in Western Europe focused on the institutions that determine the “rules of the game” – in particular, electoral systems and the difference between proportional representation and first-past-the-post systems. I argued that electoral systems need to be taken into account when comparing party systems… Continue reading “Voting Radical Right in Western Europe “Rules of the Game””