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Ab sofort erscheinen auf Publico ausgewählte Texte auch in englischer Übersetzung. Den Anfang macht dieses Onlinemagazin mit „Der Merz-Faschismus und seine Vorläufer“, der sich mit der Verzerrung und Instrumentalisierung der deutschen Geschichte zu politischen Kampfzwecken befasst.

Seit der Rede von J. D. Vance auf der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz und der CBS-Reportage über die Einschränkung der freien Rede durch die deutsche Justiz, gibt es in der Anglosphäre eine verstärkte Aufmerksamkeit für Vorgänge in Deutschland. Außerdem dient Englisch mehr und mehr als Lingua franca auch für viele Leser in Mittelosteuropa, Skandinavien und in der französisch- und spanischsprachigen Welt. Die Sprachbarriere macht den Fluss der Informationen bisher noch langsam. Einzelheiten beispielsweise über die Verfolgung der freien Rede nach dem Messeranschlag von Southport in Großbritannien oder über die um Jahre verspätete Aufklärung der Hintergründe zu den rape gangs im Königreich sickerten nur sehr langsam nach Deutschland ein, da nur wenige Medien sie ungefiltert weitergeben.
Umgekehrt würden englischsprachige Leser gern mehr über Vorgänge in Deutschland wissen, vom Zustand der Meinungsfreiheit über die innenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen bis zu der Energiepolitik, die zwar fast jeder außerhalb als abschreckendes Beispiel wahrnimmt – allerdings meist, ohne Details zu kennen.

Publico freut sich darauf, englischsprachige Leser zu gewinnen. Die Übersetzungen gestalten sich übrigens auch in Zeiten der künstlichen Intelligenz nicht ganz einfach; die Programme erzeugen zwar grundsätzlich verständliche Texte, die allerdings noch nicht den Duktus des Originals treffen. Der vorliegende Text wurde deshalb noch von einem Muttersprachler überarbeitet. Das bedeutet eine Investition für ein kleineres Medium. Publico freut sich, wenn Leser bei der Verbreitung der englischen Texte helfen, die selbstverständlich auch unter Angabe der Quelle nachgenutzt werden können.

There is a bit of Weimar in today’s Germany – but not the way the leftists are telling us

When we read mainstream articles about current German politics, they are replete with evocations of the Third Reich and the rise of AfD party. This parallel is wrong. But there is one that does apply: So-called anti-fascists and their Weimar antecedent street militias

On January 29, the Christian Democrats in the Bundestag put a five-point plan to limit migration to a vote, which was also supported by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. It was the first major crack in the so-called “firewall” or cordon sanitaire maintained by the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Germany and all other parties in Germany against the AfD.

On that day, Marietta Slomka, host of ZDF’s (public-service television broadcaster) flagship news program „heute journal”, delivered a lecture on German history and her version of. Slomka began with the liberation of Auschwitz, which, marked its eightieth commemoration on January 27, 2025, and compared that to the Christian Democratic Union’s motion to limit migration for the first time since Angela Merkel opened the German borders by decree in 2015. The genocide of the Jews did not happen “overnight” Slomka warned. The National Socialists had “enablers,” she said, “and they came to power by democratic means.” Her not-so-subtle implication was that Friedrich Merz is playing the role of a Franz von Papen, carrying water for a new Nazi Party returning under a different name, with AfD head Alice Weidel as a lesbian Adolf Hitler. In the CDU’s immigration motion — which has no binding effect on Scholz’s minority government, by the way—she saw echoes of the Enabling Act with which the Nazis seized power 1933.

She placed particular emphasis on the phrase “by democratic means.” According to Slomka, we should not be fooled by the fact that the vote in the Bundestag was a perfectly normal act of parliament. The gist of her diatribe, which was not explicitly labeled as commentary, aligned almost exactly with the take of all her co-conspirators in the legacy media, their allies in the left-wing parties and their support networks: the formally correct but morally wrong application of democratic rules may lead to the end of democracy, that, in turn, leads to that shibboleth that is inevitably used to lend arguments of this kind the air of absoluteness: Auschwitz. She was certainly not the first legacy pundit to link the debate over Europe’s disastrous open-borders policy to the genocide of the Jews.

In January 2024, the state-funded platform “Correctiv” (Germany’s “Media Matters”) drew this same parallel in its “exposé” about a meeting at a Potsdam hotel – where, among other things, the repatriation of migrants was discussed – comparing this meeting to the 1942 Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials coordinated the bureaucratic details of the already ongoing extermination of Europe’s Jews. Granted, even in “Correctiv’s” so-called exposé, there wasn’t a factual connection but a geographical one, based on the flimsy argument that the villa of the Wannsee Conference is barely five miles away from the Potsdam venue as the crow flies. Granted, what the small and politically meaningless group discussed at that hotel wasn’t significantly different from what German chancellor Olaf Scholz had said a few weeks earlier in Der Spiegel magazine: “We need large-scale deportations.” So according to the formula parroted by all mainstream media since the “Correctiv” campaign, through the thinly veiled gist of Slomka’s argument to the nationwide marches painting bland apparatchik Friedrich Merz as the avatar of looming fascism – anyone who dares critique Germany’s disastrous No Borders policy automatically becomes the second coming of National Socialism, leading, inevitably, to the next mass murder.

Conversely, only the cheerleaders of unrestricted migration to Germany can claim the moral stance necessary to set them apart from National Socialism, in this view. The migration maximalists’ rally cry of “Support us, or you’re a Nazi” is a further escalation of the German left-wing establishment’s argument that too much democracy is a dangerous thing—since Hitler came to power democratically. That’s why, the reasoning goes, tools are needed to ensure that elections produce the “correct” results. Which brings us back to Slomka’s line about “democratic means” and her warning that, if misused, they could quickly lead to ruin. This meta-narrative—neither entirely new nor particularly original beyond its current specific context—not only distorts actual history, it is nothing less than a self-serving manipulation by people who only accept democracy when their side wins.

The Enabling Act of March 24, 1933, with which Hitler gutted the Weimar Constitution, was not, in fact, executed “by democratic means”. On the contrary, the rule of law and the Weimar constitution would have prevented it, which is why the National Socialists first had to brutally tear them down. By the November 1932 parliamentary elections, the NSDAP had already lost momentum, dropping about a million votes compared to the presidential election 1932 in which Hitler came in second place after conservative candidate Franz von Papen. So much for the newly reactivated narrative that democracy paved the way for the Nazis. Their takeover was actually arranged by Franz von Papen with the help of the aging Reichs President Paul von Hindenburg, who, under pressure from his son Oskar and von Papen, appointed Hitler as Reichs Chancellor on January 30, 1933—despite Hindenburg’s view after the November election that the NSDAP might at best serve as a junior coalition partner under a conservative chancellor.

From their new position of strength, the National Socialists also pressured Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag on February 1 and call for a new election on March 5. The political clashes that followed no longer adhered to the rules of the Weimar Republic. The Reichstag fire gave the Nazis the opportunity to crack down on freedom of the press, speech, and assembly with the “Decree for the Protection of People and State” on February 28.

The Social Democrat’s ability to campaign was restricted – and the Communist Party (KPD) was effectively shut down. Its 81 Reichstag deputies were placed in “protective custody.” Despite this suppression of rival parties on one side and the governmental resources now at Hitler’s disposal on the other, the NSDAP did not secure the expected absolute majority, winning only 43.9 percent of the vote. They were only able to form a coalition with the Black-White-Red Combat Front, but even that alliance fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to suspend the constitution.

The Enabling Act was not, as many believe, an original Nazi invention but a tool used by previous Weimar governments. None of the republic’s many design flaws unleashed quite as much destruction as this legal instrument, which was originally intended to stabilize the country in emergencies. The Enabling Act opened a legal avenue to pass laws that violated the constitution. However, there was a hurdle: unlike other laws, it couldn’t be enacted by the Reich government via emergency decree, but required a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag. This now proved a significant obstacle to Hitler’s plans. With all 81 KPD deputies in custody, 26 SPD parliamentarians either imprisoned or fleeing SA terror, and two other Reichstag members absent due to illness, 109 mandate holders were missing from the decisive session on March 24. The remaining SPD members declared they would not support the Enabling Act; the Center Party and Bavarian Party offered no unconditional backing. The required two-thirds majority remained out of reach.

So, just before the session began, the NSDAP pushed through a change to the rules of procedure—unconstitutional in itself—stipulating that deputies absent “without excuse” (i.e., those imprisoned or in hiding) wouldn’t count toward the total number of seats. This effectively shrank the Reichstag by 107 mandates with the stroke of a pen. Even then, Hitler’s coalition lacked the necessary two-thirds, as the SPD caucus stood firm. That was taken care of by SA units storming the Reichstag, shouting, “We want the Enabling Act, or there’ll be hell to pay.” Under these circumstances, members of the smaller parties had good reason to fear for their health and lives if they refused to comply.

At the same time, Hitler sweet-talked Ludwig Kaas, the Center Party chair, promising that his government would not touch federalism and would consult opposition parties (except the SPD and KPD) before introducing legislation—promises he never had any intention of keeping. Through the SA’s threats of violence and Hitler’s knack for deception, the last reservations of conservative deputies crumbled. That secured the majority against the Social Democrats. The Enabling Act, with which the NSDAP effectively nullified the constitution and concentrated all decision-making power in the Reich Chancellor—the “constitutional charter of the Third Reich” (Ernst Fraenkel)—was thus not achieved through “democratic means” but through a mix of deceit and thuggery. The notion of a historical parallel never applies, because historical periods unfold sequentially, not side by side. If anything, one might occasionally speak of a continuity. But that continuity certainly doesn’t stretch from the end of the Weimar Republic and 1933 to the present day.

There is of a historical echo we are witnessing, however, just not the ridiculous equation of the colorless Friedrich Merz with national socialism. It is the well-organized mass marches of left-wing forces and their affiliated groups on CDU offices in lieu of legitimate political argument – are an echo, if not a repetition of Germany’s past. If history is to serve as a warning for the present, it’s in the moment when black-uniformed militias invade the offices of an opposition party to intimidate staff. And when green politicians like Bundestag member Johannes Wagner post a video of a torchlight march at the Brandenburg Gate with the comment “We are more,” deducing that the conservative candidate must submit to a green-left agenda.

Because these supposed majority conditions exist only temporarily and only on the streets, when party politicians, their “non”-governmental organizations, subsidized celebrities, and fellow travelers with doomsday visions of democracy’s impending implosion form marching blocs. That still doesn’t change the fact that two-thirds of Germans want a limit on “asylum” and migration, while the green party that calls any change to immigration policy a throwback to fascism remains stuck at 13 percent in polls. The more the alleged moral authority of the left diverges from the wishes of the actual majority of Germans, the more frequent well-organized rallies against “Merz fascism,” threats against Union politicians, and violent mob attacks become.

As mentioned, what’s happening with the “We are more” marches and the intimidation of CDU staff hasn’t yet reached the extremist street combat methods of the late Weimar Republic, let alone the means by which the National Socialists dismantled the constitution and rule of law in early 1933. What happened in those decisive months back then is described in detail in this text to underscore the differences. But it’s undeniable that today’s German street-fighting methods do resemble those of the Weimar era. So if a public broadcaster’s host wants to invoke the past as a warning, it should be in this direction and for these reasons.

That’s precisely what the state broadcasters are not doing. For instance, North German Broadcaster NDR reported on the occupation of the CDU party office in Hanover, the threats against CDU campaigners, and similar actions under the headline: “After AfD Vote in Parliament: CDU Complains about Attacks.” The underlying message is clear: “That’s what you get.”

When demonstrating farmers in Bavaria in 2024 honked their tractors outside a green Party meeting, democracy itself was in danger, according to public broadcasters and other media. Back then, even the debunked fairy tale that farmers had stormed a ferry in Schlüttsiel with econ minister Robert Habeck on board was enough to send newsrooms into high alert. Agriculture minister Cem Özdemir detected “wet dreams of coups” and demanded that the farmers’ association immediately distance itself. No ARD outlet or ZDF would have chosen the headline: “Greens complain about attacks.”

Ole Nymoen, a podcaster with a strong presence in public broadcasting, publicly declared his “full solidarity” with the left-wing extremists who recently vandalized a historic tavern in Berlin-Dahlem because the Young Christian Democrats were holding an event there with Manuel Ostermann, deputy head of the German Police Union. From publicly funded media, broadsheet weekly Die Zeit to the greens and their chancellor candidate, there exists a semi-open acknowledgment that boils down to this: Whoever is “fighting fascism” in German can resort to extraordinary measures and deserves to be defended, legitimized, and criticized in minor points of execution, if at all. Meanwhile, a CDU politician who submits a parliamentary motion to limit migration, which the AfD also supports—something the Union couldn’t even prevent—“has opened the gates of hell” (as SPD Bundestag whip Rolf Mützenich put it) and finds himself in league with Auschwitz, according to Marietta Slomka.

The fact that the AfD is suddenly no longer the focal point of the marches and attacks, but rather the Christian Democrats, especially the CDU, seems to have caught both Christian Democrat parties completely off guard. They’re now realizing how little it helped them that their own politicians marched along with the 2024 demonstrations following the Correctiv “Wannsee Report”; that the CDU-led government in North Rhine-Westphalia co-funded “Correctiv” with taxpayers money, that Berlin’s CDU-led city government set up ‘reporting centers’ for legal but politically undesirable opinions, and that a politician like Hendrik Wüst used the term “fascists” for the AfD just as casually as the united forces further to his left.

None of this stopped the valiant defenders against fascism from projecting “All Berlin hates the CDU” onto the Victory Column, storming their offices, and ensuring that their street campaigners needed police protection in some places. Slowly, it’s dawning on them that what’s gathered under the “Reject Fascism” banner isn’t concerned democrats with a bit of leftist flair, but a well-organized street militia that wants to ban entirely everything to its right, or at least bring it to heel.

Until recently, many CDU officials dismissed this depiction as a right-wing narrative. Now they’re reluctantly realizing they might have been wrong; that there might be some truth to this right-wing narrative. Some might register that with a hint of Schadenfreude.
“It should not be spared to all those who today wield a glib tongue and hold sway, to experience at least once in their lives the shock of exclusion, the cult-like dominance of the differently minded who don’t persecute but merely exclude, banish, excommunicate, disconnect—it should be imposed on them, the feeling of not belonging,” the playwright and essayist Botho Strauss wrote in“Lights of the Fool: The Idiot and His Time”. This isn’t so much gloating mockery, but the hope that the experience might spark a process of realization.

What does the ultra-green Robert Habeck think of all this, who told Der Spiegel a few months ago that he’d considered quitting politics after being stuck on a ferry due to protesting farmers? On one hand, he praised the peaceful demonstrators against Friedrich Merz and distanced himself from attacks on CDU facilities, without addressing whether or how the broadening of the “fascism” label—mainly by the greens and their allies—has to do with these protests and assaults. On the other hand, it’s now part of his rhetoric to hold up the great conservative chancellors as a cautionary example to Merz.

The last German chancellor with conservative traits was Helmut Kohl. His case is a great study in how summoning the specter of fascism has been part of the left’s magic toolkit for decades. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 hit the Western left far harder than the chick in the “firewall” in January 2025. Back then, it literally left them speechless. For a few days, even weeks, the country lacked its constant progressive alarm siren. But it soon started blaring again, proclaiming the dawn of a Greater Germany, a danger to all of Europe, a calamity. The usual broad left alliance, with eager participation from greens like Claudia Roth, marched in lockstep behind “Never Again, Germany” banners. That shameless milieu immediately hauled the Auschwitz trope onto the stage, framing Germany’s division as punishment for the Holocaust. Helmut Kohl, whom Habeck now casts as a shining example to shame Merz, was seen by a broad alliance—including the Greens—as opening the gates to a Fourth Reich back then.

No one expressed it as subtly as Günter Grass, whose SS membership card still lay undiscovered in a filing cabinet at the time: “Against every trend driven by mood and rabble-rousing, against the purchasing power of the West German economy—even unity can be had for hard Deutschmarks—yes, even against a right to self-determination that other nations enjoy undivided, against all this stands Auschwitz, because one of the preconditions for that monstrosity, alongside other older impulses, was a strong, united Germany.”

Summoning the labels of Fascism and National Socialism whenever their argumentative dominance wavers has long been part of the left’s readily available routine. Today’s performance differs from 1990 only in that the cast of participants includes public broadcasters, churches, unions, and even parts of the CDU, all the way to the far left. More recently, they’ve added the tactic of praising the good non-leftists of the past. The rule here is: When a progressive in Germany praises a conservative, that conservative is either dead or retired. Everything to the right of the greens is suspect, if you ask their party leaders.

The big question now in Germany is how long this grab bag of historical distortion, the weaponization of Auschwitz, mass protests, hate rallies, and intimidation, will succeed in propping up the “firewall”.

The U.S. Democrat presidential campaign already turned out differently than they’d hoped. The greens are nonetheless copying it down to it’s last detail: elevating their candidate to a savior figure, demonizing the opponent as a fascist, staging the election as a final battle for democracy, and ignoring bread-and-butter issues like the economy and migration.

On X, a meme went around before the election circulating with the message: “Come to the big demonstration against the left. Location: Your polling station on Feb 23.”
Now the voter has spoken.