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12/16/2008

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The near-fatal stabbing of Alois Mannichl, the police chief of the southern Germany city of Passau by a suspected neo-Nazi on Saturday shows right-wing extremism in Germany has reached a new and threatening dimension, write German media commentators. But they can't agree on whether the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) should be banned.

Some say the calls for the party to be outlawed, voiced in recent days by leading members of the conservative Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, are a helpless knee-jerk reaction that will do little to tackle the root causes of lingering right-wing extremism in Germany.

The German government already tried once to ban the party under a provision of the constitution that permits neo-Nazi parties to be shut out of politics. However, the country's highest court refused to grant a main hearing in the case in 2003 because some of the senior NPD members called to testify were government informants.

But others say it's worth trying again -- a ban could at least hurt the far right by putting a stop to the public funds the NPD currently gets as a legitimate political party.

Left-wing Frankfurter Rundschau writes:

"If a Muslim citizen were even found with a city map on which the home of a police chief was marked, the whole nation would be shouting 'Stop the terrorist.' But if a neo-Nazi stabs a police chief on his doorstep, the response is the same as ever -- immediate demands for a ban on the NPD. It would make far more sense for investigators to devote the same kind of energy to combating far-right extremism as they do to tackling suspected Islamists."

Left-wing Berliner Zeitung writes:

"(CSU leader) Horst Seehofer wants to forbid the NPD because a suspected far-right attacker almost killed the police chief of Passau. It's a typical reaction. At the start of the year the Christian Social Union had the idea to prevent neo-Nazi marches by means of a targeted limit on the freedom to demonstrate. Recently the interior minister of (the western state of) Lower Saxony, Uwe Schünemann of the Christian Democrats, called for state funding to be withheld from the NPD."

"Politicians are hardly tackling right-wing extremism at all. Instead of publicly dismantling the crude proposals of the far right and strengthening society's resistance against it, one only gets the monotonous demand to outlaw the NPD. By now people should be aware that such a ban won't make the gangs of violent far-right youths disappear."

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"There's something ritual about the debate over right-wing extremism. If something unusual happens, an attack on foreigners or a big demonstration by neo-Nazis, there's a brief outcry but the excitement dies down again. The constant xenophobic incidents such as daubing graffiti or desecrating cemeteries are barely registered by the public. Right-wing extremism in Germany is a problem one likes to push aside. After all, somehow it always affects 'the others', and society's middle ground doesn't feel challenged or threatened. That has changed since the murderous attack in Passau. This time it wasn't some minority that was attacked. The state itself in the form of Passau police chief Alois Mannichl was the target."

"Never before has a single representative of the state fallen victim to such a targeted act of violence. Far-right violence has reached a new, much more threatening dimension. Right-wing extremism in Germany is a slumbering enemy whose danger was long underestimated."

"Outlawing the NPD wouldn't conquer right-wing extremism, no one has that illusion. But it would significantly narrow the far right's room for maneuver for years to come. Not just because its financial base would be dried up, but also because it would no longer be possible to incite people under the guise of giving citizen's advice or holding neighborhood parties while getting police protection."

Conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"The arguments for and against a ban are virtually unchanged. A new attempt would entail high political costs regardless of its outcome. Those costs are the enhanced public image of the party and its possible move underground in the event of a successful ban."

-- David Crossland, 2 p.m. CET