A Specter Is Haunting Germany: Extremism

An article by: Heinz-Joachim Fischer

The words that Marx and Engels used to refer to communism have acquired a different destination in recent years. In the public debate in Germany, a country in political and economic crisis, “political correctness” risks having counterproductive consequences

“A specter is haunting…”

With these words, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels nearly two centuries ago heralded the political call that then entered world history as the “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” Heralded then, in 1848, presumably after much deliberation. After all, everyone who addresses the public with his thoughts, whether the topics are lyrical or political, whether he is a poet, a journalist, or an advertiser, stumbles over how to begin his address. The beginning should be as brilliant as possible. Marx and Engels were helped by the fact that they studied under the influence of the Prussian state philosopher Hegel (1770 – 1831). Hegel could play with words and concepts in such a way that everyone’s head was spinning. Often to the point of seeing stars.

A specter? He can be evil, or he can be good. Depends on how you perceive him. And so, Marx and Engels, still young, despite the well-known image with beards, some 30 years old, ridiculed this specter and those who feared it. They continued: “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope (Pius IX) and Tsar (Nicholas I), Metternich (Vienna) and Guizot (Paris), French Radicals and German police-spies.”

And now what? Do Marx and Engels now really want to promote communism and ban “holy” harassment against it because such a political cause is necessary, just, and therefore absolutely moral? Or was it the Pope, as Pius IX claims, who condemned communism in his inaugural encyclical of 1846 for seeking to “overthrow human society by socializing property and possessions”? In other words, he affirmed that the Communist Manifesto should be taken seriously, with all possible seriousness and severity. Just as the poignant prelude to the French Revolution was followed by a further gallery of portraits of communism with Lenin and Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and others, proving right the fears of leading politicians and German policemen.

So did Marx and Engels, who were free in their expressions and concluded their 23-page manifesto with the famous – or infamous – call: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, Unite!”

But why such a long introduction? I think it’s simple. Because the specters are back. The specters of extremism. Because now that the specter of communism is thought to have been defeated, new specters are emerging. The danger from the right. Speaking out against democracy and its systems. The slogans of the far-right and right-wing extremists are blown out of proportion and escalate into fascism and Nazism. And a disturbing question: what potential does right-wing extremism have? Is it only a specter that can be driven away with the help of righteous Democrats? Or is it already a monster that must be stopped by the most drastic measures? In Germany, in Europe, in the United States for the upcoming presidential election, and in many other countries? Can anyone who doesn’t want to be governed in a socialist, left-liberal, savior green or “agendary” spirit reasonably be put under suspicion? When necessary, state principles of law and order, security, and respect for difference fall under the suspicion of “safe” right-wing extremism. Is this happening out of a political calculation to stay in power or win elections? Or because those in power want to defeat the monster? Many citizens rub their eyes in amazement. They’ve worked their day, and in the evening, they’re told they’re not real Democrats.

What exactly is going on? Marx and Engels have an answer to this question as well. As already stated, they were trained in the Hegelian spirit and therefore viewed world events dialectically. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The political weather forecast – with the exception of the ill-fated war front – depends on how you view it. The semi-Hitler salute in Germany becomes a scandal in the world press; the inscription “DUX MUSSOLINI” on the marble obelisk in front of the Olympic Stadium in Rome is simply a historical object. Proclaiming aloud “Alles für Deutschland” (everything for Germany) is a criminal offense north of the Alps; anyone who thinks of serving his country in this way, i.e. “mentally,” may bring to his attention the “Verfassungsschutz” (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), a state institution unknown in Italy. This has had a paradoxical effect: German business leaders warn against the right-wing – or far-right or right-wing extremist – Alternative for Germany (AfD) party; the rise of this party could hurt the country’s economy. The rules are evidently not very clear, but everyone tries to strictly follow them.

However, the September 2024 regional elections in three German states (the communist GDR ceased to exist in 1990), Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, showed that Germans in the eastern part of the country are unimpressed neither with the top managers nor with the crusade of the “democratic constitutional arc” parties and their supporters in most media, which has been going on for years. While in the last federal election in September 2021 the AfD was the fifth strongest party with 10.3 percent of the vote, in the regional elections in the state of Hesse (around Frankfurt) in October 2023, it was the second strongest with 18.4 percent, behind the Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) and ahead of Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD); and is currently strongest in Thuringia with 32.8%, ahead of the SPD, second in Saxony with 30.6%, behind the CDU, and had 29.2% in Brandenburg, behind the SPD. The disaster for the three-party government alliance was complete when in Thuringia and Brandenburg, the two small ruling parties (rated below the SPD), the Greens and the Liberals (FDP), did not even make it into the state parliament because of the 5-percent barrier, a situation made even more threatening by the fact that the new leftist parties of the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Movement (BSW, formerly the Left) scored over ten percent. This implies the following: bad – or ostensible – government increases extremist sentiment on both the right and the left. It is therefore all the more surprising that Chancellor Scholz looks more and more awake and stronger with each political defeat. Putting a good face to drive away specters or monsters?

But if we look at the situation soberly – despite the complicated past – Germany is going through a process that has been taking place for years in Western countries. The winds of the comfortable zeitgeist have changed. The political center is no longer shifting to the left, toward socialists, eco-friendly Greens, and caring liberals. Instead, it moves away from solving all the world’s problems through generous migration, from ecological dreams or economic illusions, and much more. Reality has come to western affluent societies. In some countries, politicians realized it earlier, and citizens realized it better. In others, for various reasons, it happened later. When former German Chancellor (2005-2021) Angela Merkel realized that a further shift of her CDU party to the left, towards the SPD and the Greens, was no longer achieving anything, she resigned after 16 years in power. This year she celebrates her 70th birthday. And Christian Democrats have a serious problem honoring her as a former party leader who made serious mistakes, and an even bigger problem explaining why almost everyone followed her so blindly. Be it decisions on the European Union, unrealistic assumptions about the possibilities of climate change, excessive measures against the coronavirus pandemic, uncontrolled reception of all the planet’s migrants with disregard for neighboring countries, hasty abandonment of nuclear energy, an unsecured foreign policy towards the center of Europe, etc. All of this will now have to be paid for, sorted out, and changed.

The conclusion is self-evident: not every German who votes for the left is a communist, and not every German who votes for the right is a Nazi. The voters of parties of any wing or extremist parties, whether left or right, are dissenters, dissatisfied with the ruling government. As in any other country, they make up about a third of the electorate. Turning them into evil specters or even monsters, excluding them from participating in democratic decision-making through all sorts of manipulations – as in France, for example – annoys them and is likely to increase their share, so this method no longer works. Only good, credibly successful policies by those in power will reduce extremism of any kind. To ensure the specter doesn’t turn into a monster.

Journalist, writer, former FAZ correspondent in Rome

Heinz-Joachim Fischer