Christian Berntsen is nothing if not enthusiastic. An activist with Bunt statt Braun, a group dedicated to combating right-wing extremism in the northern German city of Rostock, Berntsen has been instrumental in helping plan and stage events dedicated to commemorating the xenophobic, 1992 assault on an asylum-seekers home in the city quarter of Lichtenhagen. The list of activities is long: films, podium discussions, international cooking courses in local schools and presentations by local and regional politicians of all stripes.
“The city is working hand-in-hand with us when it comes to the remembrance program,” Berntsen says ardently. “And the events have been extremely well received and well attended.”
The effort in Rostock is indeed impressive. The city has gone out of its way to ensure that the kind of hateful violence that flared up two decades ago does not make a reappearance. But elsewhere in Germany, particularly in the east, the situation offers decidedly less cause for optimism. There are, to be sure, myriad groups pursuing goals similar to Bunt statt Braun, but entire regions remain where foreigners are afraid to venture, towns dominated by neo-Nazi thugs and repeated attacks against those who look different. Twenty years after the despicable Rostock violence, Germany’s xenophobia problem remains daunting.
Read Ceasar’s “Gallic Wars” for an interesting comparison of the Gauls (in Modern France) and the Germanic peoples over 2000 years ago.
Little has changed since then.
i’m thinking… Breaking News ???
It wouldn’t surprise. There is no reason why Nazism cannot rise again. But then, nor is there any reason why it must be Germany in which it arises.
Sam Peckinpah finishes his film “Cross of Iron” with a quote from Bertolt Brecht: “Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.” In my view it is clear that Peckinpah sees “the bitch” as meaning more than just Germany, but rather the attitudes and beliefs which gave rise to Hitler. He blames the whole of German society for the rise of Nazism, but in such a way that another society could also foster it.
At the conclusion of “Come and See” (Idi i Smotri), Klimov’s protagonist shoots a portrait of Hitler lying on the ground of a Byelorussian village which has been devastated by German troops. With each shot, the portrait changes to reveal a younger face of Hitler. When it becomes Hitler as a baby, Fliora can no longer bring himself to shoot it. One of the issues raised by Klimov is thus the extent to which any human can become Hitler if the conditions are right.