By Murat Yakın
Last month, the operation against a fascist group that planned to overthrow the government through a coup in Germany had widespread repercussions. The procedure was so extensive that nearly 3,000 officers of the Special Police Forces simultaneously raided 137 locations in 11 federal states, arresting 25 people. Hundreds of people are still being interrogated.
Among those detained are a leader of an ancient noble family known as the House of Reuss, a remnant of German feudalism who ruled parts of the modern state of eastern Thuringia until the 1918 “November Revolution”, a lawyer with a PhD, a doctor, a pilot, a tenor, a judge from Berlin, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, former MP for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and a number of elite officers, including former Special Forces (KSK) Colonel Maximilian E. Among the places searched are the KSK – Special Forces – barracks in Calw, Baden-Württemberg, which was the centre of the previous far-right initiative, namely the “Hannibal network”. This barrack was also the epicentre of a previous attempt.
According to the information shared by the federal prosecutor’s office, the suspects planned to create conditions resembling a civil war with attacks that would lead to power cuts and to take over the political administration by overthrowing the German government. In fact, it is stated that there is a list of names determining who will assume which ministries in the event of the takeover of the administration. According to the attorney general’s office, the suspects reject democratic institutions.
However, there is a peculiarity in this work: There is a coup attempt for the second time in two years in a country like Germany, and considering the scale of the operation and the allegations in the investigation, the low number of arrests is astonishing. It’s like the right-wing extremists are watched over.
All this is happening at a particular stage of the class struggle in Germany, marked by an economic downturn deepened by the pandemic. The economic downturn has raised the anxiety of social conflict among the German population to an unprecedented level. Suppose we pay attention to the results of the survey conducted by RTL last month. In that case, 51 per cent of Germans are very concerned that the war in Ukraine will turn into World War 3, and 38 per cent are very concerned that there will not be enough gas for consumers and entrepreneurs in winter. Again, 51 per cent of the participants are concerned about heating costs, 47 per cent about their own financial situation, and 46 per cent about expensive food.
Annual inflation in Germany, which was 10 per cent in September, rose to 10.4 per cent in October with the latest rise in energy and food prices, reaching the highest level since 1951. Let’s also point out that the government expects a 1.4 per cent growth in the economy this year and a 0.4 per cent recession next year.
As for the second point, Germany is on the road to rearmament for the third time in the last century. Although this new move is tried to be legitimized with the “Ukraine War”, it is closely related to the fact that the search for a new capital accumulation model and the imperialist role that can replace the old model based on exports and an orientation compatible with US imperialism is being voiced louder day by day.
The rearmament of Germany means the re-oiling of the military machine of one of the world’s leading imperialist powers. Nothing explains this situation more than the words of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the Bundestag: Germany is too “big and important” to limit itself to “commenting like an outsider of world politics”.
Unemployment, worsening working conditions, low wages, misery and racism are falling on the German working class in this devastating process. The German ruling classes are increasing their investments in security to maintain their profits and order. It tries to prevent the organization and unity of the working class and the oppressed. Repressive Bonapartist tendencies are getting stronger.
On the other hand, apart from the “Germany, the cradle of European Democracy” hokey-pokey, today in Germany, there are dozens of parties, organizations, local initiatives and “civil society groups” such as Citizens of the Empire, PEGIDA, NPD, DVU, REP, Anti-Antifa, Freie Cameradschaften and so on. They continue their open organization as an unhindered “organization”. Take into account the illegal fascist formation as well. The German ruling classes perceive Fascism not as a crime, but as a “thought”. On the other hand, let’s add that the German Revolutionary movements and Left parties are under heavy prosecution with the discourse “enemy of the constitutional order”. So much so that for decades, the German state has actually imposed a public duty ban on those who are critical of capitalism, especially communists.
A careful look at current German capitalism raises a troubling question: Why are so many of the wealthiest capitalists the children or grandchildren of pro-Nazi industrialists who committed war crimes? At the top of the list of the wealthiest people in Germany are the twin grandchildren of Friedrich Flick, one of the famous industrialists of the Nazi era. Did these born billionaire kids really make this money by working harder than anyone else?
Just two generations ago, more than 20 million people worldwide were enslaved by the Third Reich regime to enrich German industry. It is almost impossible to find anyone who did not benefit from this vicious regime among giant industrial enterprises in Germany.
Finance capital promises human civilization only an economic and social crisis. It rises on corpses all over the world. Democratic structures are collapsing everywhere, and oppressive regimes are being brought before the working masses. Fascist forces are openly supported by the ruling classes.
Fascism is an expression of the bourgeois order under a structural crisis. And it should not be forgotten that it cannot be fought using means limited to the horizon of the current order. For this reason, a struggle focused not on arguing with fascism but on destroying it as an anti-human movement is a necessity. Fascism must be exposed to the whole society and firmly isolated from society by the unity of action of the working class. Fascism is a malignant tumour that must be destroyed.
