On the AfD and the neo-Nazis – Maik Baumgärtner and Ann-Katrin Müller Der Spiegel:

‘The organizers long kept the meeting's location secret – the invitation vaguely stated only the region: "The Nienburg (Weser) area" in the state of Lower-Saxony, located between Hannover and Bremen. The guests arrived inconspicuously. Just over 50 people gathered at the Hof Frien, a farm with a restaurant and event center, in nearby Uchte, Lower Saxony, at the end of February to talk about "The Wild 20s."

The invitation to the secretive "strategy meeting" had been issued by the youth wing of the extreme right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) from Lower Saxony. Other members of the youth wing of the party, the Young Alternative (JA) traveled from other states including Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse to the event.’

(…)

‘There is a long list of cases with a neo-Nazi connections in the AfD – and it runs right up to the national executive committee. For example, a member of the last national executive committee is said to have written texts under a pseudonym for an NPD-affiliated magazine in the past, and one of his colleagues reportedly published a book of National Socialist songs during his student days. Both officially belong to the more "moderate" wing of the AfD.’

(…)

‘For top AfD officials like Thuringia's state chapter leader Björn Höcke, the incompatibility list has meant little, if anything. He now makes public appearances with people whose organizations are on this list, as he did last October. On the other hand, Höcke has tried for years to conceal his friendship with militant neo-Nazi and NPD national chairman Thorsten Heise.
The growing proximity with the neo-Nazi spectrum comes at a time when the AfD is doing better than ever in public opinion polls. According to surveys, one in five people nationwide would currently vote for the AfD, and even more than one in four in the state elections in the east – although contacts with neo-Nazis are also most intense in the east. What does that say about a party that tries convulsively to pretend in public that it is civic-minded and grounded in the constitution?’

(…)

‘Last year, anti-fascist activists published several photos on the internet showing members of JA and AfD practicing martial arts in Berlin with supporters of the Identitarian Movement and activists from the NPD/Die Heimat and the JN. Among them was Mario Müller, who now works for an AfD member of parliament.
The issue ended up landing on the desk of the Berlin AfD's state executive committee. DER SPIEGEL viewed the relevant email correspondence. A JA member was asked to explain himself by the party leadership, but he didn't show that much understanding. The JA member wrote that he had been to a "municipal sports club." "Did I find out beforehand who was training there in detail? No. Is that something I should have done? No." And: "This club is no more accountable to you than it is to me." He confidently adds that an expulsion from the AfD "would stand no chance in either the party or proper courts."
The tone obviously displeased the party's managing director in the city-state. "I don't want to comment any further at this point on the way you expressed yourself in your first email." Because the case is being discussed in the media and in political circles, he writes, there are still questions to be answered.
But in the end, as so often, nothing happened. When asked for comment, the AfD responded: "There was no reason for further action. Our research showed that it was a normal sports club."’

Read the article here.

AfD stands at approximately 20 percent in the polls, in many states in the east of Germany the party is doing much better. The proximity to neo-Nazis doesn’t bother the AfD voters, it might even excite some of them.

That doesn’t mean of course that Germany in 2023 is Weimar in 1927. It means that Germany appeared to be for a long to be rather immune o the ghost of the past, for obvious reasons, the past was a bit more alive there than in other parts of Europe, but that hesitation disappeared.

I said it before, boredom makes the catastrophe attractive. Or: the catastrophe is born out of boredom.