Hitler’s Tone

Shock Mom and Dad: Become a Neo-Nazi [Excerpts]
 
German young people, faced with liberal parents who are tolerant about sex, drugs and rock and roll, are increasingly rebelling by turning to right-wing extremism. Neo-nazi fashion, music and ideology have become an ever important part of German youth culture.
 
This defensive posture is referred as Deutschtümelei, or sticking up for everything German. It's an us-against-them attitude, us-against-the-Russians, the Turks, the Albanians. Young Germans no longer know how to differentiate between foreign thugs and peaceful foreign-born German citizens. And they are convinced that their generation should no longer be held responsible for Hitler's crimes.
 
Wouldn't it be better to go to the police or speak with the parents? "They," says Stefan, "don't have a clue about what's going on. And the police don't even bother to show up anymore. They don't care."
 
Quietly and persistently, a new youth culture has developed in both the eastern and western parts of Germany. It's Germanic and xenophobic and potentially explosive.
 
While the German government does its best to ban neo-Nazi demonstrations at memorials for victims of the Nazis, right-wing extremism is gaining new adherents in schools, concert venues and at youth gatherings. The "nationalist mood" has become "chronic and wide-spread" in former East Germany, says Bernd Wagner, an expert on extremism. But young people in these areas are unlikely to encounter many foreigners there. According to a current study by the Bavarian State Office for Political Education, their right-wing extremism is a protest -- even a revolt -- against the West's more liberal, middle-class values.
 
If everything's allowed what's there to rebel against?
 
Many parents and teachers are completely perplexed by their children's xenophobic tendencies. These are fathers and mothers who came of age in the 1960s, who provided their children with a liberal upbringing, and whose greatest fear was that their kids might be taking drugs. They have been completely taken by surprise by the right-wing sentiments of German young people. Take, for example, a mother from Bremen who moved to the country with her husband and three children a few years ago. "Everything is wonderful here," she thought at the time. Two-and-a-half years later, when the woman threw her son out of the house, his parting words were "Heil Hitler!"
 
The boy had become increasingly drawn in by the local right-wing scene. The parents saw all the physical signs, but none of it meant much to them. How could they have known that sweaters by Lonsdale or Pitbull are especially popular among right-wing extremists? "After all, they're expensive clothes, so all I thought was that they must be good, brand-name quality." There was one incident that worried them a bit, but for the wrong reasons. One of their son's new friends showed up wearing a jacket labeled "Bierpatrioten" (Beer Patriots), the name of a right-wing band. But the mother took it as a sign that perhaps her son was drinking too much.
 
One of the most damaging aspects of neo-Nazi activity in the countryside is the silence of the parent generation. Local officials and the police still refer to neo-Nazi efforts as a fringe activity, and they refuse to acknowledge the potential for conflict with violent foreign gangs in Germany's smaller cities.
 
The collective silence concerning both the violent immigrant gangs, as well as German Nazi youth, is especially beneficial to right-wing extremists. The neo-Nazis have long since changed their tactics when it comes to young people, no longer relying solely on tired slogans to get their message across. Now they organize camping trips, soccer tournaments, hikes and concerts, as well as running youth clubs.
 
The federal government, whose chancellor has called for a "revolution of decent citizens," plans to spend 180 million euros by 2006 for programs to combat right-wing extremist ideology. The main focus will be educational programs in schools. The result of many students' lack of knowledge about Nazism can be devastating. According to youth expert Brigitte Kather, even upper-middle class students are becoming increasingly uninhibited when spreading anti-Semitic clichés.  She has heard one student come out with "It's obvious that he's rich. After all, he's a Jew" when referring to a businessman.   And a high-school student in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood defined "Jews as people who receive money because their parents were murdered."
 
In the meantime even the police and officials from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution have started trying to reach teenagers with educational campaigns. "We must address the social realities," warns one of the government agents, "or someone else will" (Cziesche, Neumann, Schmid, Schmidt, Verbeet, Winter, Der Speigel, June 9, 2005).
 
[TBC: Proverbs:22:6Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
See All... tells us that if we as parents, "train up a child in the way he should go . . . when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The trouble is, in Germany, most parents no longer know what is "the way he should go . . ."]