The Obscure Imprints of the German Elections

Op-Ed

The German elections of September 24, due to the country’s specific political, financial and historical strength, have undoubtedly been at the center of international and European interest. Their results were marked by the winning of the Christian Union CDU / CSU led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, even with a lower percent, 33%, than that achieved in the Federal elections of 2013 (41.5%), the contraction (20.5% down from 25.7% in 2013) of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Martin Schulz, and also by the entry in the Federal Parliament of the AfD party, the most dangerous far-right party in Europe due to the size of Germany and to the dramatic historical events that changed the course of the 20th century.

Germans, it is more than obvious, are grateful to Chancellor Merkel for their well-being; their high standard of living, compared with that of other European peoples; for combating unemployment effectively (the unemployment rate is at historically low levels, only 3.9% of the workforce); and, of course, for the budget surpluses. So, for all these reasons, they gave her a fourth term in the Chancellery, something achieved previously only by Konrad Adenauer, the reformer of postwar Germany and Helmut Kohl, the father of the reunification of Germany.

On the other side, Chancellor Merkel’s victory and the formation of a government with potential partners, whoever they may be, obviously implies the continuation of a policy of extreme austerity and faithful implementation of the "sacred" rules of budgetary discipline, since it serves Germany in a very visible way. However, the implementation of this policy, for years now, has already strained and overstretched the Southern European countries and especially Greece and therefore, along the road, it will lead, with mathematical precision, the entire European project to a serious risk of collapse.

At the same time, the historically high percent (12.6%) of the far-right xenophobic and anti-immigrant “Alternative for Germany” (AfD), which, for the first time was able not only to enter the Bundestag but also to become the third largest party in Germany as a whole and the second largest one in the eastern federal states, is a particularly obscure imprint of the German elections and considerably enhances the right-wing populists and extremists across the continent. It is the first time since the Second World War and the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945 that such a thing has happened, a fact that undoubtedly constitutes a negative milestone in German history.

At this point, it should be noted that in the elections of September 2013, the party AfD, which was born that same year from the reaction of a number of Germans against the Southern European countries, took 4.7% percent of the votes and did not enter Parliament. However, with its current entry, the hardcore far-right and xenophobic members of AfD, for many people considered authentic heirs of the Nazis, are bound to exert strong pressure on Chancellor Merkel to change the liberal democratic face she showed on immigration, terrorism and security matters, for example, the open borders policy which resulted in the entry of many refugees and migrants in Germany in September 2015. Of course, in reality, this policy is not motivated by philanthropic feelings but it is based on Germany's interest, as every year the country needs half a million immigrants in order to continue its existence as an economic power and in order to effectively support its social system.

The statement made by the co-chairman of the ,AfD party, Frauke Petry, during a speech in Stuttgart, where she compared a society incorporating migrants to a “compost heap”, her approach on surveillance of the border by German guards who will shoot any refugee or immigrant attempting to pass illegally, but also the statement of the other co-chairman of AfD Alexander Gauland a few days before the 2016 Euro regarding the great black German-Ghanaian player of Bayern and of the German National Football Team Jerome Boateng, -“People consider him a good player, but they would not want him as their neighbor”- indicate in the clearest way that this party has indeed inherited the loathsome traditions of the assault battalions of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party of Adolf Hitler in the decade of 1930, regarding the Aryan race.

What is the reason, however, for the frantic rise of this racist political formation which wants, among other things, to change the attitude of Germany in order to stop the manifestation of remorse for the horrible Nazi crimes? Definitely a key cause is the refugee and migration crisis which has recently assumed gigantic proportions and which overstretches European countries and, of course, Germany. On this basis of ongoing refugee and migration flows, instead of the developed world building a democratic and progressive refugee and immigration policy showing compassion and solidarity, the spiky flowers of evil grow, and inhuman, fascist policies and hatred rhetoric emerge triumphant against persecuted and unfortunate people who fled their homes under the most tragic circumstances, seeking light far from the horrible, deadly darkness of war and extreme poverty, with hope for a better and more peaceful future.

Moreover, another important reason for the rapid rise of the far-right AfD is the full use, by the officials of this political formation, of Islamic terrorist incidents and of criminal events who connect them to the influx of refugees and immigrants from Islamic countries: during the election period, they made sure to remind voters about the Berlin Christmas massacre and the sexual attacks against young German women by Arab immigrants at New Year 2016 in Cologne.

Finally, the seeds of extreme and xenophobic views are much better incubated as a new "snake egg" in prosperous northern societies that feel threatened by the "poor people" of the south, to whom they have attributed various negative stereotypes, and of course, by the refugees and immigrants.

In conclusion, the imprints of the German elections are obscure for the poorer Southern Europe countries in difficulty, since the German policy of austerity is not going to change even a little, for the democratic citizens of Germany and for the whole of Europe which watches with horror the nightmarish onslaught of the fascist, racist and xenophobic political entities.

Isidoros Karderinis is a novelist, poet and columnist. He has studied economics and has completed postgraduate studies in the tourism economy. Articles of his have been republished in newspapers, magazines and sites worldwide. His poems have been translated into English, French and Spanish and published in literary magazines and literary sections of newspapers. He has published seven poetry books and two novels. His novels and three of his poetry books have been published in USA and Great Britain.

Isidoros Karderinis