Police Caught in the Middle as Neo-Nazis March Again
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By Konrad Schuller
BERLIN. A neo-Nazi march planned for Berlin on Saturday had police braced
to again play their difficult and often-thankless role as a buffer between
the right-wing extremists and the left-wing foes eager to do battle with
them.
Loyal followers of rightist groups have been kept posted through the daily
"briefings" flickering across various websites. Those with the proper
equipment and software could even hear the throaty slogans: "Here is the
national resistance," was typical.
"On Nov. 4, " announced the website of Kameradschaft Germania (the Germania
Brotherhood), "thousands of National Socialists are going to march on
Berlin." It promised a "struggle for the streets."
For followers without an Internet connection, a recorded message could be
heard by calling the "national info-telephone."
The demonstration will be the third by neo-Nazis in Berlin this year,
following marches past the Brandenburg Gates in January and March.
Passersby are likely to encounter the frightening, if surreal, sight of
skinheads with grimly frowning eyebrows and tattooed skulls ("Blood and
Honor," in Gothic lettering) walking in formation, trying not to shiver in
the cool temperatures expected for Saturday; in younger neo-Nazi circles,
marching in anything more than a T-shirt and leather bomber jacket is
considered a sign of weakness. A few older sympathizers among them,
however, usually dress more sensibly, in hats and rubber-soled shoes.
Group leaders with all the charisma of mid-level administrators lead the
way. When the marchers assemble, one of them, usually amid blaring
loudspeaker music, orders the crowd control team brought along for the
occasion to parade front and center: "First troop, five steps forward!
Second troop, one step! Hands out of the pockets! Germany demands
discipline! There will be no smoking here! There will be no drinking!"
Extensive preparation has gone into Saturday's march, which is bound to
attract even more attention than usual, given the high prominence an
apparent resurgence of right-wing extremism in Germany has been given at
the political level. Berlin municipal officials, perhaps wary of giving the
neo-Nazis a small propaganda victory if they were again rebuffed by the
courts in an attempt to prohibit a neo-Nazi march, had not as of Friday
afternoon made any attempt to ban the gathering. Instead, as is customary
with any large demonstration, they called a "sponsor's meeting" to which
the police and the organizer, the former National Democratic Party (NPD)
executive board member Steffen Hupka, were invited.
Mr. Hupka is currently facing dismissal from the NPD because the party --
apparently frightened by the federal and state governments' intention of
asking the Federal Constitutional Court to ban it -- has ordered members to
lie low for the time being. A march through central Berlin cannot be
considered keeping a low profile, but Mr. Hupka does not care; he belongs
to the particular faction of the extreme-right scene which believes that
caution, even for tactical purposes, is cowardice.
It is this faction which has put the demonstration machinery in gear, using
the underground, decentralized structures of the German neo-Nazi scene. The
Internet and recorded telephone messages of the semi-underground networks
have been updated, and travel routes and arrival times coordinated.
As of Friday night, the police deployment has not been announced, but it
was expected to be huge: An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 of them were put on
the streets for a neo-Nazi march in Düsseldorf last weekend. They are
required by law to protect the rights of even extremist demonstrators, and
will have to "greet" the neo-Nazis as they arrive by the busload on the
outskirts of the city and then accompany them to assembly points being kept
secret from the public and counterdemonstrators.
At this point, the police will surround the neo-Nazis, forming tight,
heavily protected groups as they ride S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains into the
central city. At some point -- no one knows exactly when -- stones and
other dangerous objects will inevitably rain down.
Asked how he feels about having to protect neo-Nazis, a policeman shrugs.
"Anything else would be insanity," the officer explains. "The leftist
anarchists are lying in wait for these gentlemen. If we let them into
Berlin on their own, their bald heads wouldn't stay so buffed for very
long."
Still, while police officers know they have a duty to prevent all-out
clashes in the streets, and to protect the constitutional right to free
assembly even of a group committed to destroying the democratic
constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, the work can take an
emotional toll, not least from the verbal abuse they suffer from the other
side.
"German police protect the fascists," is the endlessly repeated chant of
the counterdemonstrators. Police try to ignore it -- all the while hoping
that no one will recognize them behind their helmet visors.
But if the leftists complain that the police protect their foes, the
neo-Nazis do not see it that way: March leaders need fiery chants and
slogans which will get their xenophobic followers truly fired up against
foreigners, but are well aware that the police are just waiting for an
excuse to declare an end to the march -- which they can do if anyone slips
over the line into out-and-out Nazi propaganda, the dissemination of which
is a crime in Germany and can lead to immediate arrest.
The neo-Nazis have already been forced to make plenty of compromises over
the years: Much of their propaganda effort must be carried out underground,
and the original Nazi symbols have been off-limits for public display for
many years because swastikas and SS runes belong to an index of banned
symbols in Germany. The extended-arm Hitler salute is also taboo.
If the police see any of these, they can stop the march. If they have
probable cause beforehand to suspect that they will be used, they can
secure a ban on a march -- even a last-minute one -- from the courts.
Further cramping the style of the neo-Nazis, the symbols of their banned
organizations are illegal. And so is the wearing of uniforms.
One result is a perpetual game of cat and mouse over various symbols
between police and justice officials on one side, and neo-Nazis on the
other: the neo-Nazis are constantly bringing new ones forward, but as they
become accepted in the movement officials move to have them banned as
anti-constitutional. The same for flags: one banner seen at the January
march is now illegal. Torches and drums have also been banned, because they
were used in the huge marches organized by the Nazis.
Even the use of certain numbers, which can be used as code to share Nazi
greetings or send a Nazi message, can lead to arrest. One that police are
always on the watch for is 130, a reference to the paragraph in the German
penal code which makes it illegal to deny the Holocaust.
November 3
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000
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Right-Wingers March to Secure Freedom of Speech
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F.A.Z. BERLIN. Some 1,200 right-wing extremist sympathizers marched through
central Berlin on Saturday behind a banner calling for "Meinungsfreiheit"
(freedom of speech), a reference to the federal and state governments'
effort to secure a ban on the right-wing extremist National Democratic
Party.
A huge number of police were deployed to keep between the extremists and
leftist counterdemonstrators, who clashed with police at several points
while trying to stop the march. Police officials finally did stop it at
Alexanderplatz after deciding that they could no longer protect the
marchers, but they could not prevent a later series of battles between the
extremists.
There were about 115 arrests, but no serious injuries were reported. A
demonstration against right-wing extremism is planned for the city on
Thursday.
November 5
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000
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Calls Grow to Release NPD Files
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By Johannes Leithäuser
BERLIN. Parliamentarians from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and
Alliance 90/The Greens coalition parties on Friday called on the government
to release material gathered in support of a ban on the right-wing
extremist National Democratic Party (NPD).
However, the Greens have rejected a move to make changes to a law on
telephone surveillance -- the G-10 Law -- that would strengthen the
admissibility of some information obtained about the NPD through phone taps.
The SPD parliamentary group is now drawing up a proposal to formally
process the NPD ban application in the German parliament, the Bundestag.
The parliament would then ask the internal affairs committee to evaluate
the material presented by German Interior Minister Otto Schily. The
committee would then make a recommendation to the full parliament on how to
proceed.
The SPD's internal affairs spokesman, Dieter Wiefelspütz, said on Friday
that employing the internal affairs committee in this way would leave open
the question of whether the Bundestag would lodge its own application for a
ban with the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Or it could merely agree to
the application brought by the government and the Bundesrat, the chamber
representing Germany's states at federal level.
The legal affairs committee should join in the deliberations on the
material gathered in support of an NPD ban, Mr. Wiefelspütz said, expecting
the Bundestag to vote in favor of a ban sometime at the end of November.
The federal cabinet plans to make a decision on the matter next Wednesday.
It had been agreed, Mr. Wiefelspütz said, that Interior Minister Schily
would inform the Bundestag internal affairs committee of the decision
immediately afterwards.
The NPD material supporting a ban, which was gathered by a special panel of
experts, can only be viewed in a special security room in the Bundestag at
present. However, Mr. Wiefelspütz said talks were in progress with the
Interior Ministry to allow the material to be handed out at least to the
senior internal affairs committee members from the different parliamentary
groups. A 70-page summary of the contents of the material had already been
sent to all members of the committee, Mr. Wiefelspütz said.
Christian Ströbele, a senior Green deputy in the Bundestag, on Friday
opposed changes to the G-10 law to remove doubts about the use of NPD
material gathered by the intelligence services. The law allows the use of
telephone taps to solve "crimes that threaten the democratic order." But it
is unclear whether such methods may be used to gather material as a
preventive measure with a view to a ban application.
November 3
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000
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