The first African-born MP to enter the German parliament has announced he will not be standing in next year’s federal election, weeks after he revealed the hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received.
Karamba Diaby, 62, who entered the Bundestag in 2013 in a moment hailed as historic by equality campaigners, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and to make room for younger politicians.
Diaby said the racist slurs and death threats were “not the main reasons” for his decision, having frequently emphasised he would not be cowed by threats. But they are widely believed they have played a part.
He has increasingly faced racist abuse in recent years. His constituency office in Halle, Saxony Anhalt, has been an arson target, and has had bullets fired through the window. Some staff have faced blackmail attempts to stop them working for him and have been subjected to and threats, Diaby said.
After the war most Nazis were allowed to keep working in government (and elsewhere) cause who else knew how to run the country?
And it’s less they got rid of them, and more others came over and kicked their arse forcing them to “get rid of them”.
There was a process : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification
That process was a bad joke.
I don’t think so.
Only now are Nazis getting a foot hold again, at the same time they are getting a foot hold across the world. It is the after effects of the 2008 crash and Putin putting his thumb on scales where he can (troll farms and corruption).
The fact Germany doesn’t stick out as more Nazi that France, or the US, or others, means the original denazification worked.
What? France famously did not get rid of its own collabos, and the US was always fascist leaning even back then. Given how ridiculously aggressive the AfD campaigns, I’m actually more worried about their 16% than I do about the RN’s 30%.
No, they surely didn’t just gain a foothold again. Many processes for “denazifizierung” were just a rubber stamping of the claims of the perpetrators. It’s so ridiculous and well known that the term “Persilschein” was coined because of it. High ranking judges in the federal courts were Nazi perpetrators that even by the standards back then never should have been able to hold a job in the justice system ever again.
Places like the BND or BfV were more like SS- and other Nazi perpetrator pension schemes. Himmlers daughter, glowing Nazi for her whole life, worked for the BND as a secretary in the 60s under a false name. And they knew who she was.
Also, a big part of the student protest in the late 60s also was that many of their professors were just plain Nazis. Law commentaries like the “Palandt” or “Schönfelder” were named after Nazis and the names just changed in 2021.
In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s West Germany was a poster-child for Denazification and democracy, and Nazi propaganda was and is illegal in Germany.
Even Scandinavian country Sweden, hailed for their liberal policies, had more Nazis than Germany.
But after reunification the weed began to grow back. AfD popularity is very much driven by the old Communist east Germany, which was also totalitarian.
Maybe it would have been better if East and West Germany hadn’t been reunited?
Nations need to learn that you can’t just flood your natin with immigrants and expect shit to sort itself out. And yes, the irony is biting.
At a minimum immigrants should be required to declare they respect basic norms and requirements in our societies, and breach of them could result in expulsion.
I’m thinking norms like respecting equal rights for women, respect our democracy, and respect other minorities, and respect that their religion is not more important than our laws.
I think to some degree the extreme right is rising because this lack of respect results in lack of respect the other way too. Which is harmful both ways, both to our democracy, and to the many immigrants that actually make an effort.
Really not too feasible. Al those eastern Germans can just lie and then vote for nazis and extremists anyway. You have to integrate in an hands-on approach or not let them in in the first place.