German AfD rightist triggers fury with Holocaust memorial comments

[webfact]

German AfD rightist triggers fury with Holocaust memorial comments

By Madeline Chambers

REUTERS

 

Bjoern Hoecke, top-candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the upcoming Thuringia state election, addresses a news conference in Berlin September 1, 2014. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/Files

 

BERLIN (Reuters) - A senior member of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Wednesday that media had misrepresented comments he made about Berlin's Holocaust memorial and the need to rewrite history books to focus more on German victims.

 

A speech by Bjoern Hoecke, the AfD's leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, on Tuesday triggered anger across Germany and even caused one member of the radical Left party to report him for incitement to racial hatred.

 

The AfD's anti-immigrant rhetoric has won support among Germans worried about the influx of more than a million migrants in the last two years. With polls putting it on 12-15 percent, the AfD is tipped to win seats in the federal parliament for the first time in September's national election.

 

"Germans are the only people in the world who plant a monument of shame in the heart of the capital," Hoecke, said in a speech to young members of the party in Dresden, the cradle of the anti-Muslim PEGIDA movement.

 

The Holocaust Memorial, located near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, comprises a large number of grey granite slabs of varying heights, arranged in a grid pattern - a sombre reminder of the millions killed during the Holocaust.

 

Germany's Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Hoecke's speech had sent shivers down his spine.

 

"Never, never must we allow ourselves to let the demagogy of a Bjoern Hoecke go unchallenged," he said.

 

Thomas Oppermann, who heads the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the German parliament, told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper that Hoecke had exposed himself as a Nazi.

 

However, Hoecke said in a statement that any suggestion he had criticised the Holocaust memorial was "a malicious and deliberately denigratory interpretation of what I actually said". He said he had made clear in his comments that the Holocaust was a disgrace and that Germany had a monument to it.

 

"In my Dresden speech I wanted to ask how we Germans look at our history," he said, adding there were other aspects to German history as well as guilt, such as poets and composers.

 

"This laughable policy of coming to terms with the past is crippling us. We need a 180 degree turnaround in our policy of memory," Hoecke said, drawing applause from young AfD supporters.

 

Re-education imposed on Germany after 1945 had largely pulled up Germans' roots, he said. "There were no German victims any more, only German perpetrators," he said.

 

ANGER

 

Diether Dehmn, of the Left party, said he was reporting Hoecke for incitement. He also said Hoecke had been emboldened by a Constitutional Court ruling on Tuesday which rejected a ban on the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD).

 

Burkhard Lischka, the SPD's domestic policy expert, said Hoecke's remarks revealed a growing radicalisation of parts of the AfD and urged Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV) to place the nationalist wing of the party under observation.

 

"The BfV must finally set its sights on the AfD if it does not want to be accused of being blind in the right eye," he told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

 

Some members of the AfD, which includes moderate conservatives, distanced themselves from Hoecke's comments.

 

"Mr Hoecke's unilateral approach damages the acceptance of the party among citizens," said senior AfD member Alice Weidel.

 

Dieter Graumann, a former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told Bild daily Hoecke's speech was "outrageous", especially from a politician in a party set to win seats in parliament.

 

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-01-19

[manarak]

Has the speech been recorded or is there a transcript, so that any claims of misrepresentation can be refuted?

[DM07]

It is all over the media!
This is what Germans should be ashamed about, bigly!


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[retarius]

It's been 80 years….time to move on.

[optad]

Ignored that  golden mantra.....

 

Don't mention the war! 

 

 

[Enoon]

Deja Vu:

 

 

Eichmann

 

 

Edited January 19, 2017 by Enoon

[jak2002003]

2 hours ago, retarius said:

It's been 80 years….time to move on.

Yes, move on.  But, don't forget the past or try to lie about what happened.

 

Have to keep reminders of what happened in our history, so we can learn form them and not make the same mistakes again in the future. 

[Cats4ever]

The horrors of the Nazi era should never be forgotten. From my limited exposure, Germany has largely moved on. The memorial is a reminder not a "guilt trip". The far right are a problem in many countries.

[Calach]

Well, Germans are the only people in the world that committed a deliberate ethnic genocide of such an industrial scale and level of organization. 

 

Currently they're one of the most peaceful and progressive people in Europe, thanks to post-war purge and introspection. No one reasonable thinks today Germany and Germans have anything to do with those of 1940, that's why it's called memory and not shaming. 

 

10 years ago I would have found that kind of controversy to be intellectual terrorism, and that's kind of true. We had the same "intellectual terrorism" in France in the 90's when any comment on immigration or colonial history passed as racist even if it wasn't, it got looser around 2005 and far right-wing intellectuals started to be invited on television more often, political leaders to entertain nationalistic and xenophobic feelings more freely. 12 years later Front National is around 30%, and the opinion and public debate widely shifted to the right. Even what some left-wing party leaders say today would have been considered unacceptable 10 years ago. We thought the world of relative peace and tolerance we grew up in was permanent, hence why not let far-right guys have the freedom of speaking whatever crap run through their minds, we hadn't anticipate how easily the worst instincts rise back and spread when not contained. Unfortunately the only thing that works to do so isn't reason and debate, it's intellectual terrorism, or at least extreme vigilance (but public debate is never subtle). 

[bandito]

19 hours ago, Enoon said:

Deja Vu:

 

 

Eichmann

 

 

 

Like the proverbial 2 drops of water, uncanny.

[sanemax]

19 hours ago, Cats4ever said:

The horrors of the Nazi era should never be forgotten. From my limited exposure, Germany has largely moved on. The memorial is a reminder not a "guilt trip". The far right are a problem in many countries.

 

   The Nazis were left wing socialists the clue is in their name .

(The "zi" in Nazi , stands for "Socialist")

[stevenl]

 
   The Nazis were left wing socialists the clue is in their name .
(The "zi" in Nazi , stands for "Socialist")

That name was misleading. Nazis are left wing socialists? Sorry, are you trolling or do you really have no clue?

Sent from my ROBBY using Thaivisa Connect mobile app

[Baerboxer]

9 hours ago, sanemax said:

 

   The Nazis were left wing socialists the clue is in their name .

(The "zi" in Nazi , stands for "Socialist")

 

National Socialist German Workers Party. They were National Socialists not Socialists.

 

Still, that Thatcher government was a bit left wing too. 

[DM07]

10 hours ago, sanemax said:

 

   The Nazis were left wing socialists the clue is in their name .

(The "zi" in Nazi , stands for "Socialist")

If you raise a pig and call it "Horse", can you win the Kentucky Derby with it?