Could It Happen Again?
EXACT figures as to the total number of neo-Nazis in Germany today are difficult to come by. However, an agency monitoring political extremism in the Federal Republic estimates that there may well be over 20,000 members of what it calls extreme right-wing organizations. These are divided into many groups, few of which have a membership reaching the hundreds.
This would seem to speak against a powerful resurgence of Nazism, for what would Nazism be without a Hitlerlike leader capable of uniting all these differing factions under his leadership? Until now, no such new political messiah has arisen, not even Michael Kühnen, who is one of Germany’s more noted neo-Nazis. Kühnen was described by another neo-Nazi as “the Führer Adolf Hitler’s right hand on earth.” And of Hitler he said: “The Führer is as holy to us as Jesus is to the Christians.”
Then, too, the circumstances in Germany today are quite unlike those of the pre-Hitler era. Unemployment is high but nothing like the 30 percent it reached in the early 1930’s. Inflation at present is modest compared to the 1920’s, when within two years an article went up in price from 35 marks to 1,200,400,000,000! Patriotism and militarism are today practically nonexistent. And the present German constitution contains safeguards against the reestablishment of a dictatorship.
Still, many feel that neo-Nazism must not be underestimated. Bonn University historian Karl-Dietrich Bracher warns: “In the 1920s too there was a situation in which only small groups existed, not a large organization.” And as terrorist attacks have shown in country after country, it takes only a few highly dedicated individuals to pose a danger far out of proportion to their numbers.
The Dangers Elsewhere
Early this year Kühnen was sentenced to over three years in prison for his neo-Nazi activities. Before being taken into custody, he reportedly had used his time, after fleeing Germany, “to polish up the radical right” in Switzerland. A Swiss newspaper reports: “With satisfaction he could perceive that here in this country his ideology ‘is being most capably represented by several groups.’”
Also, Hitler’s homeland, Austria, which he incorporated into his Third Reich in March of 1938, is not without such groups. Some older Austrians look back with a certain longing to that period in history when the Nazis ruled their country. Such older ones are upset over today’s promiscuous youths with their sloppy clothing and drug culture, and the older ones are prone to complain that “such a thing could never have happened under Hitler.” They may even reminisce about the Hitler days when “you could walk the streets at night without fear.” Some may choose to overlook the regime’s excesses and declare: “What we need today is just a little Hitler.”
But neo-Nazism is to be found in places other than Europe. According to a Frankfurter Rundschau report, almost 10,000 Nazis escaped to various South American countries at the end of World War II. Could they pose a threat? About the danger of a resurgence of Nazism in Paraguay, the magazine ABC revista published a series of interviews with prominent authorities. It quoted Doctor of Law Jaime S. Edan as having said that “Nazism is alive but lying dormant.” A noted politician agreed, saying: “National Socialism has not died.”
And what about Nazism in the United States? The founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated in 1967. But his ideology still exists in a number of neo-Nazi groups. Ten years after Rockwell’s death, Time magazine pointed out that although “the whole Nazi cult is politically impotent and dwindling in numbers, its potential for stirring hatred and creating violence remains high.”
So Could It Happen Again?
Speaking of neo-Nazism in Germany, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung concluded: “In view of Germany’s historical background and the criminal Nazi regime, right-wing activities may not present an acute danger, but in any case they are a disgrace.” And the newspaper Die Zeit was even more definite in declaring: “A revival of the Nazi movement in West Germany is an absurd notion, primarily because the circumstances that paved the way for the rise of Nazism no longer exist.”
Thus the danger of a “little” Hitler—or a “big” one, for that matter—arising to restore Nazism to the position it had under Hitler seems at the moment quite remote. A 17-year-old German student asserts: “We have been sufficiently warned. We will see to it that such a thing never happens again.”
Perhaps it never will. But Nazism has no monopoly on oppression or on ruthlessness. And time has shown that Hitler was not the world’s last dictator. As people continue experimenting with various kinds of governments, oppressive regimes arise. How can we guard against falling victim to them? An answer can be found by once again casting a glance at Hitler’s Third Reich.
[Blurb on page 6]
A neo-Nazi said, Hitler “is as holy to us as Jesus is to the Christians”
[Blurb on page 7]
Nazism has no monopoly on oppression