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Subject: New Face of Violence Challenges Germany; Solutions Debated for Recurring
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 10:44:02 EST
Message-ID: <39.1992Nov26.104402@AmeriCast.com>
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New Face of Violence Challenges Germany; Solutions Debated for
Recurring Problem<By Marc Fisher=Washington Post Foreign Service=

BERLIN, Nov. 25 - A wave of terrorist violence shakes the German
people to the core. Intellectuals worry about their country's
ability to nourish democracy. After a series of bombings and as-
sassinations, frustrated legislators grant the police sweeping
powers. Honest citizens find themselves being stopped on the
highway or searched in their homes.

The scene is West Germany - in the 1970s, when the left-wing Red
Army Faction and other terrorists threatened the state's stabili-
ty. The government then responded with tough measures that did
not put the extremists out of business, but did effectively per-
suade the country and the world that Bonn would not tolerate a
campaign of terror.

Now, more than a decade later, with Germany embattled by neo-Nazi
terror attacks against foreigners, the government stands accused
by its critics of failing to crack down on right-wing radicals.
While Chancellor Helmut Kohl insists his government is doing
everything it can to halt the violence, his ruling coalition and
much of German society struggle to find the right tools to quash
the small neo-Nazi movement and cap the larger reservoir of
anti-foreigner sentiment.

Following the firebombing that left three Turks dead in the
western city of Moelln on Monday, German politicians and commen-
tators are once again recalling the anarchy and division of the
1919-33 Weimar Republic.  "Weimar began exactly like this," wrote
Josef Joffe, foreign editor of Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
citing growing complaints about an ineffective government
response to the violence and new calls for citizens to arm them-
selves.

Kohl today rejected the comparison with Weimar, a government that
dissipated in a spiral of extremist violence. "It is deeply un-
just, no matter where this is being written, inside and outside
our borders or across the ocean, to impute a widespread hatred of
foreigners to our people," Kohl said. He added that unless Ger-
many gets a grip on the growing violence, it is in danger of
suffering a deep crisis in public trust of democratic institu-
tions.

Kohl delivered his most impassioned defense of Germany's foreign
residents to date, telling parliament that "without these
foreigners, the affluence of this country would not have been
possible at all." Citing foreign workers' contributions to the
economy, he reminded Germans that "we must not forget that we
asked many of them to come here" through "guest worker" programs
aimed at filling menial jobs Germans were reluctant to take.  Op-
position leader Bjoern Engholm said German democracy faces its
greatest trial since the end of World War II, but the Social
Democrat concluded that "history is not repeating itself" because
democracy is so well anchored in the country that it cannot be
deposed by a minority of extremists.

The government is expected to move in the next few days to ban
several of the most prominent neo-Nazi groups, a move many cri-
tics have demanded for more than a year.

But legislators, academics and police remain sharply divided on
how best to stop the anti-foreigner attacks. Although there is a
growing consensus that right-wing violence should be combatted as
sharply as left-wing terrorism was attacked in the 1970s, an im-
portant difference remains: While Germany's conservatives accept-
ed broadened police powers to combat a leftist enemy, German li-
berals now are reluctant to sacrifice hard-won civil rights pro-
tections to sanction a harsh crackdown on the far right.

"The successful arrests in the '70s came mostly from leads from
the public that followed major shows of police strength," said
Hans-Josef Horchem, a former German domestic intelligence offi-
cial who now runs the Institute for Terrorism Research. "The jus-
tice system then showed a determination to hit hard that we have
not seen this time.

"When hundreds of police officers surrounded a few anarchists at
the world economic summit in Munich last summer, the liberal pol-
iticians and journalists cried 'Police state!' But this month,
the same people "The solution is: Find them, arrest them and sen-
tence them - quickly and harshly."< - Hans-Josef Horchem, terror-
ist expert>

asked where the police were when the same anarchists attacked
(German President Richard) von Weizsaecker" at a pro-foreigner
demonstration in Berlin. "What do we really want?"

A survey released tonight by the Wickert Institute found 77 per-
cent of Germans who were questioned ready to accept a temporary
suspension of civil freedoms "if terror by the left and the right
could be stopped that way."

But while many German politicians focus on legal means to stran-
gle the far right, arguing for special laws against anti-
foreigner attacks, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-
Schnarrenberger has repeatedly argued that existing laws are
tough enough to handle the violence.

"We shouldn't repeat the discussion of the early '80s," she said,
referring to a period when parliament endlessly debated proposals
to curb antinuclear protests by allowing police to arrest anyone
who remained at a demonstration after authorities issued orders
to disperse.

But the justice minister does support strengthening the law to
make illegal the neo-Nazis' three-fingered version of the Hitler
salute. Germany now bans any symbol of the Nazi regime, including
the stiff-armed salute Hitler demanded.  Neo-Nazis have gotten
around the ban simply by holding back a single finger.  "The old
laws are enough," Horchem said. "The problem is the government
hasn't taken enough of a stand against this trend. The solution
is: Find them, arrest them and sentence them - quickly and harsh-
ly." Lenient sentences handed out to youthful extremists have
been roundly criticized here, and some politicians want to pass
laws to force judges to be tougher on violent neo-Nazis.

While one debate focuses on police and the courts, another
focuses on the country's treatment of its 6 million foreign
residents and its ambivalence about integrating foreigners into a
nation that still defines citizenship by blood.  "There are mil-
lions of 'foreigners' in Germany," said the eastern German weekly
Wochenpost. "We call them 'fellow citizens' when we make
speeches. That is no longer sufficient. They must become ci-
tizens. Now. Before it is too late."

The newspaper also joined von Weizsaecker in calling for Germany
to set up a legal immigration system. A bevy of academics have
called on Kohl and other government leaders to discard rhetoric
that repeatedly argues that Germany "is not an immigration coun-
try" - a message some sociologists believe contributes to the po-
pularity of nativist slogans such as "Germany for the Ger-
mans."<02:31 11-26C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)