from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 09 May 2024 11:38
https://lemmy.world/post/15199463
Recent assaults spark national debate over Germany’s increasingly raw political climate, with some seeing echoes of its dark history.
One politician ruthlessly beaten while hanging campaign posters. Another assaulted in a public library. Yet another, pushed and spat on by suspects who were part of a group of people allegedly calling out “Heil Hitler.”
A string of violent attacks on politicians in Germany — including a brutal assault on a member of the European Parliament in Dresden — has shaken many and sparked a national debate over the increasingly raw political climate in the country, with some drawing comparisons to the kind of political violence that accompanied the rise of the Nazis.
Recent attacks on politicians are “reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history,” said Hendrik Wüst, the conservative premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, in an interview on German public television.
#world
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Additional attacks this week — including one on the former mayor of Berlin, SPD politician Franziska Giffey, assaulted in a public library by a man who struck her from behind on the head with a “bag filled with hard contents,” according to police — further raised alarm across the country.
The recent spate of attacks left politicians vowing action to reign in violence directed at political party representatives.
On Tuesday evening, Faeser met with ministers from German states to discuss measures — including sharpening legal penalties for attacks on politicians — to curb the violence.
Many Germans saw the 2019 murder of Walter Lübcke, a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician who had supported Angela Merkel’s welcoming of refugees, by a neo-Nazi as a somber turning point the country’s postwar history, marking the first time a politician was assassinated by a far-right extremist in Germany since World War II.
German police said at least one of the attackers on EU lawmaker Ecke in Dresden appeared to have been influenced by a right-wing extremist ideology.
That was evident when Jörg Urban, the chairman of the AfD in Saxony, condemned the attack on Ecke — but then appeared to blame the SPD.
The original article contains 895 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’ll just leave this here:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
Huh? This was an internal purge within the Nazi party. How is that related?
You really can’t see how a historical example of widespread political assassinations pertains to an article featuring a political assassination, simply due to the target not being the same people?
Nobody died this time but other than that i agree it doesnt matter if the rivals are in the same party or not.
The attacked member is neither part of the AfD nor is she dead. So no, I cannot see it.
What this is comparable to is the SA, if anything, or rather a stochastic terrorism variant of it that is guided through social media propaganda. But comparing this to the assassination of the socialist opposition within the Nazi party is just ludicrous.
If you read the actual article, it mentions a political assassination that did succeed. Regardless, political assassination is political assassination, it is never justified in a society where the law applies to all people, regardless of the target. We need to take a stand against extrajudicial political violence period, unless we want to encourage more chaos and criminality in our societies. People that believe in violence are unlikely to stop at just some violence, that would be inconsistent and irrational.
I don't read Axel Springer trash but I certainly don't recall the AfD assassinating one of their own party for not following the extremists line.
I was not saying they did, was I? I guess you don’t read a lot of stuff.
That's highly ironic, because you should start by reading the wiki that article you posted, since you clearly lack the understanding of what happened in that event. Hence why you try to make it applicable to events that have absolutely nothing to do with it. Nice insult though.
So, you think some political assassinations are justified, or do you think the article does not have any political assassinations in it? It’s one of the two.
I do. Staufenberg's attempt to assassinate Hitler for example. Nazis killing Nazis is just a win win situation for everyone else. But I can see how Nazi sympathizers struggle to understand this.
I guess we disagree then.
I can make an exception for Hitler during WW2, but outside of that, people should not be simply killing the people they disagree with. That’s how you get Putin’s Russia.
Calling Nazis "people you disagree with" is already enough of a dogwhistle that tells us exactly what kind of person you are. And yes, if some mobster in Russia wants to eff Putin, he should go for it.
You can try to say I’m whatever you want, I don’t really care. What I’m more concerned about is living in a country with democratic values.
Perhaps it’s being an American, where we have various freedoms, but disagreements should be handled with words and debate. If you cannot beat someone with your words, you don’t deserve to win.
Regarding Putin, unfortunately, that would probably not make anything better. Just more chaos, and the war would continue. There’s plenty more Putins behind him, and whoever offs him is probably not a nice guy.
Yes, very interesting choice of words.
Oh boy, and I'm out. Murica!
Bye. Try not to assassinate people just because you disagree with them and want their power.
Unlike you I'm not a Nazi, but I will very much make use of my constitutional right to fight Nazis.
Fine and dandy. Though simply killing them because you don’t like them makes you just like them. That’s why we hate them after all, they just killed too many people.
Better to use words to convince.
Stop preaching this false narrative of "just because you don't like them". There's reasons why we don't like Nazis. I as a German know this very much better than you uneducated Muricans who think listening to far right pundits is part of some sort of balancing act for their enlightened centrism.
It’s not about liking them or not liking them. It’s about killing people without a trial, without fairness, during a time of peace. It does not matter who they are.
The law should apply to all people the same.
We're not at peace, evident by Nazis attacking us and attempting to overthrow our governments.
No, this is no war, that’s a childish take. Go to Ukraine or Gaza or South Sudan if you want to know war. This is still peacetime, and the law should apply to all people the same. Even Nazis. We have prisons for people that break the law, and we can vote to change our leaders and laws.
Both Ukraine and WW2 started like this. Propaganda, thugs, disinformation, violence against democratic institutions by antidemocratic forces. Stop this naivety, especially since you're from the US and about to re-elect a fascist while Nazis march through your streets and government buildings.
You think simply going out and killing them would be the best way to solve the problem? What would stop them from killing us back? There’s more than just a couple of them.
I think you need to stop fantasizing those scenarios up.
I don’t know, I’m the one arguing for the law applying to everyone, and using the democratic and legal processes. Not very fantastical at all.
It’s not. Well, the SA (who got purged that night) is relevant because they were the literal brownshirts, the NSDAP’s goons on Weimar Republic streets. Lot of political violence going on back in the days. The Nazis had the SA, the communists the Rotfront, Socdems were part of a wider alliance and the nationalists/monarchists also had one.
Right-wing stochastic terrorism has been simmering on low flame for a long time, if you want a more direct parallel I’d point you to the NSU.
Agitation-wise I think this time around CDU and FDP are the main culprits, especially when it comes to stuff being done to Green politicians. Their rhetoric is pouring petrol on various conspiracy narratives. I’ll just leave this here (there’s English subtitles).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
I’ll just leave this here
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I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You're preaching to the choir. I very frequently call them Blauhemden and already explained the stochastic terrorism aspects of it.
That makes sense but I hope it’s a spelling error.
To no one’s surprise, really.