Drawing on his paper delivered at the recent conference of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, German historian Martin Jander surveys the intellectual and political history of modern German antisemitism in the post-Nazi era. He warns that a united Germany’s democratic culture is being eroded by complacency as to the threats against Jews and other vulnerable minorities.
Introduction
After the military defeat of National Socialism, a democratic order was established in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with crucial support from the Western Allies. Antisemitic terror from various actors could now call this order into question. It is not antisemitic terror alone, but rather the inadequate handling of this terror by German democrats that could cause massive damage to the Republic.
In a groundbreaking publication from 2024, historian Ronen Steinke laid out the foundations for analysing and criticising such a transformation process in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany.[1] In the face of antisemitic terror, he argues, the German state is failing. A ‘justice problem’[2] is becoming apparent. The rights of Jews, immigrants, refugees, and civil society actors are not protected in the FRG to the same extent as the rights of non-Jewish, non-immigrant, and non-refugee citizens.
A key supporter of the FRG’s democratic foreign and domestic policy, former President Biden, is now out of office. The US government under President Donald Trump has made it clear that it intends to promote right-wing populism throughout Europe, including in Germany. Political scientists even fear that the US could transform itself into an authoritarian order. [3]
However, the problems of democratic culture and the inappropriate handling of antisemitism began even before the new international constellation and before the Hamas massacre in Israel. The transformation of the Federal Republic into an ´illiberal democracy`[4] is by no means inevitable. So far, the FRG has successfully mastered key steps toward the new founding of a democratic republic after the Shoah. But today the FRG must master these steps without the help of the USA.
Part 1: Antisemitism after the Shoah
Analysis and criticism of antisemitism limits its insight when it considers antisemitism primarily in the context of capitalism or modernity.[5] Antisemitism is much older, and occurs primarily in societies influenced by Christianity and Islam.[6] Antisemitism can therefore be better understood and rejected in analyses oriented toward social ethics rather than those narrowly focused on critiques of capitalism. Antisemitism is not an instrument of a social class designed to conceal its domination.[7] It is an attitude of people, in which they can indulge. It is also, of course, one from which they can turn away.[8]
The oldest form of Christian antisemitism in Europe and Germany consists in demonising Jewish culture as being not a source of universal values. Modern left-wing and right-wing political philosophies build on this Christian demonisation of Jews. They attack Jews and Israel as a fundamentally unethical, destructive force.
The left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist-oriented antisemitic terror in the Federal Republic of Germany today cannot be understood without its National Socialist precedent, but also its far-reaching, more ancient Christian history in Germany. Its perpetrators seek in various ways to relegitimise the most rightfully discredited motif in German political culture.
To this day, large sections of German society have to be painstakingly taught, through literature, films, and political education, that antisemitism is directed not only against Jews, but also against the foundations of every democratic order: the idea of the equal value of all people. Antisemitism is an attack on Jews and on democracy.[9] Antisemitism is not synonymous with racism or other ideologies of inequality. Antisemites perceive Jews, unlike other racially-labeled groups in society, as a powerful, ethically violating, and influential group.[10]
The fact that much of the criticism of Israel’s policies is motivated by antisemitism is also largely misunderstood in Germany. To destroy the great hope of all Jews, ‘Eretz Israel,’ the German Nazis mobilised support among Islamic-oriented radicals in the Middle East. This cooperation gave rise to antisemitic Islamism, which was already mobilised in the war against the founding of Israel in 1948 and today guides political action not only by Hamas but also by the political elites of Iran.[11]
There are two main reasons for the hesitant recognition of antisemitism in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the need for constantly repeated explanations of its true causes and effects.
- With the almost complete annihilation of European Jews, there was a lack of Jewish authors who could have advanced analysis and criticism after 1945, particularly in Austria, the GDR, and the FRG. Studies critical of antisemitism generally emerged only where individual Jewish survivors, usually in contact with survivors in the USA, Israel, Great Britain, and other predominantly Western societies, produced corresponding analyses.[12]
- It took the descendants of the perpetrators a long time to confront the issue.[13] In developing an analysis and critique of antisemitism, they had to critically examine the thought and behaviour patterns acquired by their parents and grandparents during their primary socialisation. These learning processes are still ongoing and by no means stable.
The facets of the relegitimisation of antisemitism are very diverse in the successor societies of German National Socialism. I would like to give a brief overview of the developments in what were initially two, and now only one, German successor societies to National Socialism. (For reasons of time, I will omit Austria, which also belongs in this context.)
Part 2: Expulsion of the GDR’s Holocaust Survivors
The way Jews and Israel were treated differed in the two German successor societies. This became apparent shortly after their founding in 1949.
The Chancellor of the FRG acknowledged German society’s guilt for the Holocaust in a speech on September 27, 1951, and the German Parliament approved a treaty that recognised reparations to the State of Israel in the amount of 3 billion marks over the next fourteen years; 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments were made to the State of Israel as the heir to those victims who had no surviving family.
The GDR launched a massive campaign of repression against Jews in 1952 and 1953. In the wake of Stalin’s anti-cosmopolitan campaign,[14] the anti-Jewish incitement in the GDR media became so loud that about half of the GDR’s Holocaust survivors, approximately 2,500, left the country.
The repressions against Holocaust survivors were justified by the GDR on the grounds that (1) Jews would be agents of imperialism who wanted to destroy the construction of socialism; that (2) they should not receive compensation for the crimes committed against them by Nazis because they had acquired their property through capitalist robbery; and that (3) they followed an anti-human ideology: Zionism.
The repression and the big wave of Jewish refugees who left GDR in the early 1950s remain a political issue to this day. The successors to the former ruling party of the GDR, now called “Die Linke,” have never apologised for this massive attack on Jews and Zionism after 1945.
And this attack has rarely been addressed academically. The antisemitic narratives associated with it, in which Jews are viewed as promoters of capitalism, imperialism, and an allegedly anti-human Zionism, are widespread in the FRG, partly because this first outbreak of antisemitism after 1945 is rarely discussed publicly (the book Divided Memory, by the US historian Jeffrey Herf, is an exception).[15]
Part 3: Integration of perpetrators and reversal of guilt
Social integration and the termination of denazification in 1948 promoted a mental defence against guilt and a reversal of guilt in both German societies, which is still effective in large parts of German society today. The surviving perpetrators refused to acknowledge their crimes. Their children and grandchildren viewed their parents and grandparents not as perpetrators, but as victims or even as resisters.[16] In extreme cases, as was already evident in the famous ‘group experiment’ of the ‘Frankfurt School,’ Jews, Israel, and the United States were demonised as Nazi agents.[17] The researchers called this ´Schuldabwehrantisemitismus` (Guilt-avoidance antisemitism).
Such a reversal of guilt can also be promoted by equating National Socialism with Stalinism. In its extreme form, this equation implies that the National Socialist war of annihilation is equable with the self-defence of the Soviet Union.[18]
This mental defence against guilt and reversal of guilt is also fundamental to the refusal to perceive attacks on Israel as antisemitic. The Nazi Germans promoted this terror during World War II. In doing so, they supported Arab enemies of the Jews. This collaboration gave rise to “Islamism.” But Nazis failed to exterminate the Jewish community in the British Mandate. Their children and grandchildren refuse to understand this history and project the Nazi crimes onto Israel. They fantasise about the terror of the PLO and, today, Hamas as legitimate resistance against Jewish crimes.
This mental defence against guilt and reversal of guilt are fundamental to two forms of antisemitic political terrorism in Germany: that which originates from the political left and that which originates from the political right. The equation of the policies of the USA, Israel, and the Soviet Union with the terror of National Socialism promotes this. Robert Wistrich calls this ‘Holocaust inversion.’[19] It constitutes a reservoir that can be repeatedly mobilised for antisemitism and the legitimization of political terror against Jews and Israel.
Part 4: Antisemitic terror by actors from the political right
The first forms of organised terror by right-wing political actors from Germany developed during the war against the founding of Israel. A number of Germans participated in the Arab states’ war to destroy the newly founded state. One report mentions ‘53 Germans and Britons’.[20]
Further early forms of organised terror by right-wing political actors developed in West Germany, with the support of terrorist attacks aimed at forcing Tyrol’s secession from Italy. Pan-Germanist-oriented actors had supporters even within the ranks of the conservative party CDU.[21]
A political party aligned with National Socialism has failed to establish itself in the FRG before the unification of FRG and GDR in 1990. The first party to attempt this, the “Socialist Reich Party,” was banned in the FRG by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1952.[22] The “National Democratic Party of Germany” (NPD), founded in 1964, was able to enter state parliaments but not the German Bundestag in the FRG.[23] In 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled against banning it, arguing that the party, although attempting to destroy democracy, was too weak.
The organised antisemitic terror from the political right, which is still effective today, developed in the former FRG in the wake of the rebellion of the children of the National Socialists against their parents in the 1960s. This rebellion led to a comprehensive social debate about the responsibility for National Socialism and the beginning of a social transformation in which the perpetrators were given names and faces – the names and faces of the parents of the rebels.
It is quite significant that an attack by a right-wing political network, targeting television transmitter masts, took place on 18 January 1979, while the first episode of the series ‘Holocaust’ was being broadcast. [24]
A second strand of right-wing political terror that is still effective today, the ‘Reichsbürger’, also dates back to the 1970s. [25] Its background lies in Willy Brandt’s new Eastern policy which started 1970. The recognition of the border with Poland and thus the acknowledgment of the abandonment of former territories of the German Reich was viewed by right-wing terrorists as a betrayal of Germany. In their eyes, the German Reich still exists and the democratic FRG is a dictatorship which has been imposed on Germany by the USA and the Jews.
Antisemitic terror from the political right was not able to develop in the same way under the GDR dictatorship. However, the large number of desecrations of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues,[26] and even a pogrom against Algerian workers in Erfurt lasting several days,[27] demonstrate that antisemitic terror from the political right also thrived in a dictatorship that legitimised itself politically on the left. Only the Ministry for State Security (MfS) conducted research into its networks in the GDR,[28] and only since the fall of the GDR have there been academic analyses of the topic.
Part 5: Antisemitic terror by actors from the political left and the GDR
The Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR’s dealings with the State of Israel remained different until their demise. While the Federal Republic recognised the State of Israel in 1965,[29] the GDR never did.
After Israel’s Six-Day War, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) expanded its terror against Jews and Israel to Europe. A second wave of antisemitic terrorism by left-wing antisemitic actors became visible in Germany.
Since the end of the 1960s the GDR supported the terror of PLO and others against Israel militarily.[30] In addition, activists from the 1968 Generation Revolt in the FRG began to build terrorist networks. They emerged from the crumbling social-democratic Socialist German Student Union (SDS). These sects, in cooperation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other Palestinian structures, carried out attacks on Jews and key positions in Federal Republic society and cooperated with international terrorism against Israel.[31]
The head of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, justified military support for Israel’s enemies with anti-imperialist ideology and the claim that Israel treated the Palestinians the way the Nazis treated Jews.[32] Ulrike Meinhof and other exponents of political terror in the FRG justified their terror against Jews with almost the same ideology.[33]
There are also few precise analyses of the terror perpetrated by left-wing political actors against Jews and Israel. Once again, a work by historian Jeffrey Herf with the title “Undeclared Wars against Israel” is an exception.[34]
The GDR, which was the first country in the Soviet sphere of influence to establish a PLO embassy in Europe, supported, albeit secretly, the terror of the radical left-wing networks in the Federal Republic.
A political party that represented the goals of the ruling party of the GDR in the FRG, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), was initially banned in 1956.[35] A successor party was able to establish itself in the FRG in 1968 as the German Communist Party (DKP). However, it never managed to enter the Bundestag.[36] It was only after unification that the renamed ruling party of the GDR, the SED, had a faction in the Bundestag. It is called “Die Linke” today.
Part 6: Explosion of antisemitic terror since the fall of the GDR
When the Berlin Wall collapsed at the end of the Cold War and the two successor societies of German National Socialism united, the Unification Treaty and other documents did not mention the responsibility and liability of the Germans for National Socialism. The Prime Minister of Israel clearly expressed his disappointment. He said:
For the German people and for Chancellor Kohl this is a day of major significance. For us this is naturally a day of reflection. While we do not interfere in the drawing of borders elsewhere, we have to remember the unprecedented tragedy inflicted by Nazi Germany on our people, maiming it for generations. We have maintained good relations with the Federal Republic of Germany for many years. We were, therefore, disappointed that in the unity documents no proper public mention was made of the lessons of the Holocaust. It is our hope that united Germany will do its utmost, by all possible means, political, educational and legal, to make sure that what happened in the past will not recur, and that antisemitic and neo-Nazi phenomena will be combatted. We also hope that history lessons will be reflected in the future attitude towards the Jewish people and in particular in the policy of support and assistance to the state of Israel.[37]
Since the fall of the GDR, antisemitic terror by right-wing actors has exploded. From the very beginning, it was accompanied by everyday terror that did not originate from any organised centre. Since the fall of the GDR, 220 people have been killed by attacks of right-wing terrorists.[38] The total number of attacks and assaults from this spectrum against Jews, immigrants, and refugees is almost impossible to count.[39]
This right-wing extremist antisemitic terror became particularly spectacular when the ‘National Socialist Underground’ group, operating from Zwickau, was exposed. Two of the three group members committed suicide. At the same time, the third member distributed a propaganda video for the group and burned down the trio’s accommodation.[40] In the trial against this last member of the group, it became apparent that, prior to the trio’s exposure, the responsible authorities had not searched for them in the right-wing extremist milieu, but rather in the circles of the mostly Turkish migrants they murdered. During the proceedings, the court and public prosecutor made no effort to further investigate the trio’s environment. Even several investigative committees established on the subject were unable to clarify the network’s structures.[41]
The environment for such terror, particularly in the five new federal states, broadened when the group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) began weekly demonstrations in Dresden in 2014. From then on, right-wing demagogues had a weekly public platform, covered by many media outlets, and thus multiplied.[42]
With the emergence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), transformed by actors from the milieu of PEGIDA and other right-wing extremist groups into a nationalist party, a party has been created that today enjoys the support of 20 per cent of German voters. The way this party is being treated at the local, state, and federal levels is controversial within German society.
The ambassador of Israel in Germany and the State of Israel refuses any contact with this political party. The central authority of Jews in Germany says that this party is in no ways a party that Jews should cooperate with. But different to the first right wing party in Germany, the ”Sozialistische Reichspartei” (SRP), the German parliament has not asked the supreme court of the FRG for a ban of that party.
The essential ideological constructs of right-wing radical, antisemitic terror in the Federal Republic today consists of two major ideological narratives. One is that of a “Großer Austausch – Great Replacement”, in which Jewish networks and other globalists are allegedly working to destroy the German nation.[43] The second major construct is that of the so-called “Reichsbürger”. Currently, adherents of this ideology are facing trials in several major cases. They had prepared for an armed coup. [44]
The right-wing extremist and antisemitic terror against Jews, immigrants, and refugees, such as the terror from the Reich Citizens’ movement, is in parts directly linked to the AfD. Former Bundestag member Birgit Malsack-Winkemann of the AfD, who is now facing terror charges along with other members of the Reich Citizens, led other members of the now-indicted terrorists through the Bundestag before her arrest. After the group’s planned military coup, she was to become government’s Minister of Justice.[45]
Part 7: Angela Merkel and the 60th birthday of Israel
Many years after reunification, during the 60th birthday of Israel, the united Germany finally explicitly accepted responsibility and liability for the Nazi crimes. Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Israel in 2008 and declared in a speech to parliament that Israel’s security was part of the sovereignty of the unified Federal Republic.[46]
In her speech she said: Germany and Israel are and will remain – forever – connected in a special way through the memory of the Shoah.” She added: “Antisemitism, racism and xenophobia must never again gain a foothold in Germany and Europe, because anything else would endanger us as a whole – German society, the European community, the basic democratic order of our countries. The following sentence in her speech was of particular importance: Every federal government and every chancellor before me has been committed to Germany’s special historical responsibility for Israel’s security. This historical responsibility of Germany is part of my country’s raison d’état. This means that, for me as German chancellor, Israel’s security is never negotiable. And if that is the case, then these must not remain empty words in this hour of trial.
Angela Merkel didn’t just stop at words. Since that visit to Israel, she has organised regular visits between the German federal government and the Israeli cabinet. The topics of discussion included not only Israel’s security, but also many other common concerns, such as environmental protection and science policy.
After the end of Merkel’s term in office in 2021, these regular government talks were not resumed. Even the Hamas massacre in 2023 did not change this politics of the government of chancellor Olaf Scholz that followed.
Part 8: Spread of antisemitic terror by Arab and Islamist actors
Since the signing of the first agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany, states waging wars in the Middle East aimed at destroying Israel have attempted to end the Federal Republic’s support for Israel. Overall, they sought to separate the Federal Republic from the alliance of Western democracies.
Diplomatic and economic means were used to end the Federal Republic’s support for Israel. From time to time, they also intervened with terror. The attack by a “Black September” group on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972 is still well remembered. Eleven of the 14 members of the Israeli team were murdered.[47]
Since the Six-Day War, the PLO had expanded its attacks on Jews and Israeli institutions Europe. [48] It gained politically right-wing supporters for its war of terror from Germany, such as the “Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann”,[49] but also radical left-wing supporters, such as the Baader-Meinhof Group. Some of the attacks were carried out jointly by Germans and Palestinians. A truly detailed analysis of this collaboration has not yet been completed. The antisemitic motives of the German supporters of this terror are still loudly denied.[50]
Islamist enemies of Israel from the Middle East also brought their terror to Europe. Unlike the PLO and PFLP, they do not seek to recruit politically right-wing or left-wing activists with a German background. They attempt to attract religiously oriented immigrants, for example, from Syria. They rely on antisemitic socialisation in the countries of origin, which can be reactivated in Germany.
In 1973, the Islamic Center Munich was founded by Said Ramadan, son-in-law of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.[51] It was only with the Islamic Revolution in Iran that directly religiously motivated Islamist terrorism began to make itself felt internationally, but also in Germany.[52] Only when it emerged that some of the terrorists who flew 2001 planes into the New York Twin Tours and attacked US government institutions had studied in Hamburg did the media begin to address this issue.
The antisemitic side of Political Islam, its roots in Hitler’s collaboration with Haj Amin al-Husseini, is only slowly being considered in academic research.[53] The fact that this antisemitism, which aims at the destruction of Israel and the USA and torpedoes any coexistence of Muslims with non-Muslims in Europe, is only slowly being recognised. Islamist activists in Germany are also involved in supporting political protests against Israel.[54]
The perception that terror is merely imported into Germany by Arab or Islamist actors is false, however. The defence against guilt articulated by Germans and Islamist antisemitism have formed a connection that has not been thoroughly researched so far.
Part 9: Erosion of the rule of law?
A comprehensive study of the reactions of the three branches of government that constitute a democracy – legislative, executive, and judicial – to terrorist threats and acts of terror against Jews, immigrants, refugees, and others has not yet been conducted. Nevertheless, it is evident that the explosion of terror since the early 1990s in the unified Federal Republic has been accompanied by a partial failure of members of parliament, judges, police officers, and security officials to properly respond.
In response to the eruption of violence against immigrants and refugees in the early 1990s, a political majority in parliament amended the constitution and the right to asylum in a way that racists and antisemites could only interpret as a validation of their worldview.[55] Instead of recognising hatred and violence against refugees and others as a problem, defending the constitution and its principles, and countering the hatred politically, through the police and civil society, parliament, by massively restricting the right to asylum, seemed to substantiate the agitators’ views.[56]
The investigative blunders that became apparent after the self-exposure of the most significant National Socialist terrorist organisation in the Federal Republic since 1945, the ‘National Socialist Underground’ (NSU), publicly demonstrated how little the judiciary and police understand the terror against Jews, immigrants, refugees, Sinti and Roma, among others.[57] Instead of investigating in all directions, the responsible police and authorities searched for perpetrators almost exclusively within the circles surrounding the murdered victims. Antisemitic, racist, or ethnically motivated radicals and the murders they perpetrated seemed unthinkable to them.[58]
The journalists’ association ´Correctiv` recently published a collection of 57 people who are listed on death lists of right-wing extremists, but who are inadequately protected by the police and judiciary.[59] One of the cases analysed in the publication is that of the Jewish writer Anetta Kahane. She founded the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. She has been and continues to be subjected to hostility by right-wing radicals, left-wing radicals, and Islamists, not only online.[60] A terrorist, a former Bundeswehr soldier, was convicted by a court for plotting to assassinate her, yet she receives no police protection. To this day, she cannot move around in public without a bodyguard. She has to pay for one out of her own pocket.
Since 3 October 1990, according to data compiled by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and journalists, 220 people have been murdered by right-wing extremists motivated by antisemitic, racist, and other factors. A reporter for the magazine Stern, Walter Wüllenweber, stated in a 2020 report: ‘Since reunification, right-wing extremists have killed ten times as many people as Islamists and left-wing extremists combined.’[61]According to Stern in 2020, only 17 per cent of the murders with racist motives were investigated by the police. Of the perpetrators identified, less than half were convicted by the courts. Two-thirds of those convicted received fines or suspended sentences. Overall, only 2.5 per cent of the 220 perpetrators received prison sentences.
In the first comprehensive study of terror against Jews in the Federal Republic of Germany, Ronen Steinke has compiled all publicly available figures and background information. His chronicle at the end of the book spans more than 100 pages. From the detailed recounting of some of the attacks and their subsequent judicial processing, a pattern emerges. Often, the Jews attacked are blamed for the attacks against them.
For example, shortly after the murder of the Jewish publisher Shlomo Lewin and his girlfriend Frida Poeschke in Erlangen on 19 December 1980, investigators claimed and disseminated in the media that Levin had served in the Israeli army under Moshe Dayan. This claim was completely false. Ronen Steinke found similar errors in many cases. Convictions of the responsible perpetrators were rare or nonexistent. In his publication, Ronen Steinke emphasised that the errors made by the police and the judiciary revealed the same pattern as in the manhunt for the ´National Socialist Underground` group. It is also called ´victim blaming`.
Radicals are also actually present in the police, intelligence services, and military, where they are building networks. In Hanover, a police officer who was responsible for assessing the security of the local Jewish community recently attracted attention, having spoken at Querdenker demonstrations and fantasised about a coup.[62] There was even a former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) who outed himself as a right-wing extremist agitator and was subsequently dismissed from his position. [63]
Courts often fail to adequately prosecute and convict blatantly antisemitic perpetrators. A particularly dangerous legal error was made by the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf, which did not classify an arson attack on the synagogue in Wuppertal in 2014 as an antisemitic act, but rather classified it as a criticism of Israel’s policies. [64]
The mechanism of ´Holocaust Inversion`, the ´Schuldabwerantisemitismus` is not only widespread in society. Members of parliament, police officers, and judges are not immune to it either. If their failures are not addressed and made public, they could ultimately lead to the destruction of the rule of law.
Part 10: Transformation into an ´illiberal democracy`?
The military destruction of National Socialist rule and the establishment of a democratic republic in the Federal Republic of Germany, which was made possible with significant help from the Western Allies, is a success story that lasted for decades and hardly seemed possible in 1945.
Its six essential elements are: (1) the connection with the United States of America and NATO in a Western Alliance of values; (2) the slow development of a culture of remembrance that focuses on the experiences of Germany’s victims; (3) the development of a lively civil society that rejects restrictions on civil and human rights; (4) the democratisation and integration of the five new German eastern states; (5) the participation in a unifying democratic Europe; (6) so-called ‘special relations’ with the State of Israel, which have been considered part of state sovereignty since Angela Merkel.
But political scientists and many NGOs also recognise the resistance to this development. For many decades, democratic progress applied only to West Germany and was underpinned by economic prosperity. From the very beginning, there was considerable resistance to a democratic republic, the alliance with the USA and Western democracies, the recognition of liability and responsibility for German crimes, and of the divided nation. Political antisemitic terror is one element of this resistance. Its different branches represent attempts to relegitimise antisemitism.
These various attempts to relegitimise antisemitism in the FRG originate from different actors. One of these actors, the GDR, no longer exists today. The left-wing antisemitic terrorist groups that shared its ideology do not longer exist. But their ideology, antisemitism from the left, does exist. It experienced a major resurgence with the Hamas massacre on 7 October 2023, especially in the cultural institutions of the FRG.
The various forms of antisemitism in the Federal Republic have a large reservoir of support due to the social integration of large parts of National Socialist society into the successor states of German National Socialism.[65] The widespread avoidance and reversal of blame is also evident among representatives of the police and judiciary.
A significant threat to the continued existence of the Federal Republic of Germany as a democratic society today comes from those involved in antisemitism, which is still legal, and terrorism with a right-wing extremist face. Approximately 20 per cent of the country’s citizens support this party. The result of the 2025 Bundestag election makes a coalition of the CDU/CSU and AfD parties possible in purely mathematical terms. Such a coalition of right-wing radicals with conservatives has already existed in Austria.[66] The conservatives of the Federal Republic of Germany are currently ruling out the formation of such a government coalition. So far, the Federal Republic has not taken advantage of the opportunity to ban the AfD.
The antisemitism of Islamist actors, which emerged from the cooperation of German National Socialism with Arab partners, develops in the environment of institutions of political Islam.[67]
My very brief overview also makes it clear that, first and foremost, academic research on the processing and analysis of post-Shoah antisemitic terror is not very well developed. Not only has the act of antisemitic state terror in the GDR been virtually unanalysed, but there are still significant gaps in the analysis of the antisemitic components of terrorism from the left, right, and Islamist spectrum. It is therefore not entirely surprising that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches often fail to adequately address these phenomena.
In the Federal Republic, before and after unification, an extremely active democratic civil society has emerged that is mobilising everything in its power to counteract the erosion of democratic culture, a prerequisite for its democratic institutions. However, if the staff of the legislative, executive and judicial branches, the leading actors of the democratic parties, do not listen to their warnings, then the erosion process cannot be stopped.
[1] See: David Schraven (Hg.), Menschen im Fadenkreuz des rechten Terrors, Essen 2021. Ronen Steinke, Terror gegen Juden. Wie antisemitische Gewalt erstarkt und der Staat versagt, Berlin 2024 (aktualisierte Neuauflage).
[2] Quoted from: Ronen Steinke, Terror gegen Juden. Wie antisemitische Gewalt erstarkt und der Staat versagt, Berlin 2024, p. 28.
[3] See: Steven Levitzky, Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, New York 2018. Steven Levitzky, Daniel Ziblatt, The Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, New York 2023.
[4] See: Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. W. W. Norton & Company, New York/London 2007.
[5] See: David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism – The Western Tradition, New York 2014.
[6] See: Hyam Maccoby, Antisemitism and Modernity. Innovation and continuity, London 2006.
[7] Erich Cramer has shown that many German marxist sholars were not able to understand antisemitism: Erich Cramer, Hitlers Antisemitismus und die „Frankfurter Schule“, Düsseldorf 1979.
[8] For a good presentation of the history of antisemitism from this perspective, see: Yehuda Bauer, The Jews, A Contrary People, Berlin 2014.
[9] See: Samuel Salzborn, Antisemitismus als negative Leitidee der Moderne, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2010. And see: Lars Rensmann, Demokratie und Judenbild. Antisemitismus in der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wiesbaden 2004.
[10] See: Jeffrey Herf, Vergleichende Perspektiven zu Antisemitismus, radikalem Antisemitismus und amerikanischen weißem Rassismus, in: Stephan Grigat, Jakob Hoffmann, Marc Seul, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Erinnern als höchste Form des Vergessens, Berlin 2023, pp. 107 – 150.
[11] See: Matthias Künzel, Israels Schuld? Warum über die NS-Anteile am Nahostkonflikt nicht gesprochen wird, in: Fatma Keser, David Schmidt, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Gesichter des politischen Islam. Berlin 2023, S. 436 – 457.
[12] See: Jeffrey Herf, Jews, Germans and Israel, Lecture at a workshop of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation Herf, January 24th, 2020 (https://www.belltower.news/vortrag-jeffrey-herf-jews-germans-shoah-and-israel-95051/ (accessed March 21st, 2025).
[13] See: Mario R. Lepsius, Das Erbe des Nationalsozialismus und die politische Kultur der Nachfolgestaaten des ‘Großdeutschen Reiches’. In: M. Haller, H.-J. Hoffmann-Nowotny, & W. Zapf (Hg.), Kultur und Gesellschaft: Verhandlungen des 24. Deutschen Soziologentags, des 11. Österreichischen Soziologentags und des 8. Kongresses der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Zürich 1988 (pp. 247-264). Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag 1988.
[14] See: Arno Lustiger, Stalin and the Jews, New York 2003.
[15] See: Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory. The Nazi Past in the two Germanys, Cambridge 1997. See also: Katrin Hartewig, Zurückgekehrt. Die Geschichte der jüdischen Kommunisten in der DDR, Köln 2000.
[16] See: Harald Welzer, Karoline Tschuggnall, Sabine Moller, Opa war kein Nazi. Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedächtnis, Frankfurt 2002.
[17] See: Friedrich Pollock, Gruppenexperiment. Ein Studienbericht. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie, Bd. 2), Frankfurt am Main 1955.
[18] See: Matthias Künzel, Israels Schuld? Warum über die NS-Anteile am Nahostkonflikt nicht gesprochen wird, in: Fatma Keser, David Schmidt, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Gesichter des politischen Islam. Berlin 2023, pp. 436 – 457. Siehe auch: Martin Kloke, Israel und die deutsche Linke. Zur Geschichte eines schwierigen Verhältnisses, Frankfurt 1990.
[19] See: Lesley Klaff, Holocaust inversion and contemporary antisemitism, in: Fathom 5, 2014 (https://fathomjournal.org/holocaust-inversion-and-contemporary-antisemitism ).
[20] Quoted from: Seth J. Franzman, Jovan Culibrk, Strange Bedfellows: The Bosnians and Yugoslav Volnteers in the 1948 War in Israel/Palestine, in: Istorija, 20, No. 1, p. 196. Found in: Matthias Küntzel, Israels Schuld? Warum über die NS-Anteile am Nahostkonflikt nicht gesprochen wird, in: Fatma Keser, David Schmidt, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Gesichter des politischen Islam, Berlin 2023, p. 452.
[21] See: Darius Muschiol, Einzeltäter? Rechtsterroristische Akteure in der alten Bundesrepublik, Göttingen 2024.
[22] See: Henning Hansen: Die Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP). In: Kommission für Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien (Hg.): Beiträge zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien, Düsseldorf 2007.
[23] See: Fabian Virchow, Christian Dornbusch (Hg.): 88 Fragen und Antworten zur NPD, Schwalbach/Taunus 2008.
[24] See: Barbara Manthe, Rechtsterroristische Gewalt in den 1970er Jahren, Die Kühnen-Schulte-Wegener-Gruppe und der Bückeburger Prozess 1979, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, N. 68 (2020), pp. 63 – 93.
[25] See: Andreas Speit, Reichsbürger – eine facettenreiche, gefährliche Bewegung, in: Andreas Speit (Hg.), Reichsbürger. Die unterschätzte Gefahr, Berlin 2017, pp. 7–21.
[26] See: Amadeu Antonio Stiftung (Hg.), Das hats bei uns nicht gegeben, Berlin 2010.
[27] See: Rainer Erices, Hetzjagd im August 1975 in Erfurt. Wie Ausländerfeindlichkeit in der DDR verharmlost und verleugnet wurde. In: Gerbergasse 18. Thüringer Vierteljahreszeitschrift für Zeitgeschichte und Politik. 4/2018, Heft 89, pp. 22–25.
[28] See: Harry Waibel, Der gescheiterte Anti-Faschismus der SED. Rassismus in der DDR, Frankfurt 2014.
[29] See for this: Inge Deutschkron, Israel und die Deutschen, Köln 1983, p. 266ff.
[30] See: Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, New York 2001.
[31] See: Wolfgang Kraushaar (Hg.), Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus, 2 Bände, Hamburg 2006.
[32] See: Jeffrey Herf, Undeclared Wars with Israel, Cambridge 2016.
[33] See: Katrina Lehto-Bleckert: Ulrike Meinhof 1934–1976. Ihr Weg zur Terroristin. Marburg 2010.
[34] See: Jeffrey Herf, Undeclared Wars with Israel, Cambridge 2016.
[35] See: Till Kössler: Abschied von der Revolution, Düsseldorf 2005.
[36] See: Gerhard Hirscher, Armin Pfahl-Traughber (Hg.): Was wurde aus der DKP?, Brühl 2008.
[37] Quoted From: Stellugnahme des Ministerpräsidenten Israels Jitzchak Shamir, October 3rd, 1990, in: Andreas Wirsching u. a. (Hg.), Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1990, Oldenbourg 1990, p. 1386.
[38] See: Todesopfer rechter Gewalt seit 1990, Chronik der Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, fortlaufend (https://www.amadeu-antonio-stiftung.de/todesopfer-rechter-gewalt/(accessed March 21st, 2025)).
[39] See: Chronik antisemitischer Vorfälle seit 2002, Chronik der Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, fortlaufend (https://www.amadeu-antonio-stiftung.de/chronik/ (accessed March 21st, 2025)). See: Chronik flüchtlingsfeindlicher Vorfälle seit 2001, Chronik von Pro Asyl und der Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, fortlaufend (https://www.mut-gegen-rechte-gewalt.de/service/chronik-vorfaelle (accessed March 21st, 2025)).
[40] See: Patrick Gensing: Terror von rechts. Die Nazi-Morde und das Versagen der Politik. Rotbuch, Berlin 2012.
[41] NSU-Watch: Aufklären und Einmischen. Der NSU-Komplex und der Münchener Prozess. Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin 2023.
[42] See: Fabian Virchow, ‘PEGIDA: Understanding the Emergence and Essence of Nativist Protest in Dresden’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37 (6) 2016, pp.541–555.
[43] See: Andreas Önnerfors: Der Grosse Austausch. Conspiratorial frames of terrorist violence in Germany. In: Andreas Önnerfors, André Krouwel (Hg.): Europe: Continent of Conspiracies: Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe. Routledge, London 2021, pp. 62–70. See too: Eiríkur Bergmann Einarsson: Conspiracy & populism: the politics of misinformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2018.
[44] See: Danijel Majic, Reichsbürger-Prozess gegen Gruppe Reuß: Der lange Weg zur Wahrheit, in: hessenschau, 22. November 2024 (https://www.hessenschau.de/panorama/reichsbuerger-prozess-gegen-gruppe-reuss-der-lange-weg-zur-wahrheit–v1,reichsbuerger-prozess-116.html (accessed March 21st, 2025)).
[45] See for example: Felix Huesmann, Terrorgefahr in der AfD, in: Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, November 5th, 2024 (https://www.rnd.de/politik/afd-mitglieder-bei-saechsischen-separatisten-die-terrorgefahr-ist-real-YEFILVRYTJBGJA7ZGW2CLO2G7A.html (accessed March 21st, 2025)).
[46] See: English version of the speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 18th 2008 (https://m.knesset.gov.il/EN/activity/Documents/SpeechPdf/merkel.pdf – (accessed April 29th, 2025)
[47] See: Aaron J. Klein: Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response. Random House, New York 2007.
[48] See: Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, New York 1999.
[49] See: Sam Izzo, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann’s Secret History Links Neo-Nazis With Palestinian Terror, in: Tablet Magazine June 18th, 2019 (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/karl-heinz-hoffmann-far-right – (accessed May 1st, 2025).
[50] See: Markus Mohr (Hg.), Legenden um Entebbe, Münster 2016.
[51] See: Heiko Heinisch, Der politische Islam in Europa, in: Fatma Keser, David Schmidt, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Gesichter des politischen Islam, Berlin 2023, p. 247.
[52] See: Martin Jander, Djihadismus, Antisemitismus und Demokratie, in: Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane (Hg.), Gesichter der Antimoderne, Baden-Baden 2020, pp. 319 – 342.
[53] See: Fatma Keser, David Schmidt, Andreas Stahl (Hg.), Gesichter des politischen Islam, Berlin 2023.
[54] Nina Werkhäuser, Lisa Hänel, Pro-Palästina-Aktivisten droht Ausweisung aus Deutschland, in: Deutsche Welle vom 6. April 2025 (https://www.dw.com/de/pro-pal%C3%A4stina-aktivisten-droht-ausweisung-aus-deutschland/a-72126615 – (accessed May 1st, 2025).
[55] See: Fabian Virchow, Nicht nur der NSU. Eine kleine Geschichte des Rechtsterrorismus in Deutschland. Erfurt 2020, pp. 11-25.
[56] See: Patrice Poutrus, Patrice, Umkämpftes Asyl. Berlin 2020, pp. 161-178.
[57] See: Aust, Stefan/Laabs, Dirk (2014). Heimatschutz. Der Staat und die Mordserie des NSU. München, Pantheon Verlag.
[58] See: Wolfgang Seibel, Warum schlug die Fahndung nach den NSU-Mördern fehl: struktureller Rassismus oder normales Organisationsversagen?, in: Excellenzcluster Kulturelle Grundlagen von Integration Universität Konstanz, ohne Datum (https://www.exc16.uni-konstanz.de/seibel-nsu-rasssismus-behoerden.html – (accessed May 1st, 2025).
[59] See: Correctiv (Hg.) (2021a). Menschen im Fadenkreuz des rechten Terrors. Essen, Eigenverlag; Correctiv (Hg.) (2021b). Online: https://correctiv.org/menschen-im-fadenkreuz/ (accessed 01.11.2022).
[60] See: Martin Jander, Antisemitic Terror in the Federal Republic of Germany: Verbal Threats and Physical Terror against the Founder of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Anetta Kahane, in: Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, Vol. 5.2, Fall 2022, pp. 84 – 95.
[61] Quoted from: Wüllenweber, Walter (2020). 30 Jahre – 208 Opfer. In: Der Stern vom 27. Februar 2020. Online verfügbar unter: https://www.stern.de/gesellschaft/30-jahre—208-opfer–so-viele-menschen-starben-mindestens-seit-der-einheit-durch-rechte-gewalt-9158748.html (accessed 20.05.2021).
[62] See: David Speier, Allein gelassen, in: die tageszeitung May 18th, 2021. Online: https://taz.de/Liberale-Juedische-Gemeinde-in-Hannover/!5767617/ (accessed March 21st, 2025).
[63] See: Hans Georg Maaßen, Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maaßen (accessed March 21st, 2025).
[64] See: Abraham Cooper und Yitzchok Adlerstein, Wie kann ein Anschlag auf eine Synagoge nicht judenfeindlich sein? In: Der Tagesspiegel from March 27th, 2017. Online: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/antisemitismus-in-deutschland-wie-kann-ein-anschlag-auf-eine-synagoge-nicht-judenfeindlich-sein/19572812.html (accessed May 2nd, 2022).
[65] See: Anetta Kahane, Von der ideologischen Schuldabwehr zur völkischen Propaganda, in: Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, Patrice Poutrus (Hg.), Nach Auschwitz: Schwieriges Erbe DDR, Schwalbach 2018, p. 264 – 275.
[66] See: Ofer Aderet, Austria’s Far-right Vice-chancellor Resigns Over Video Scandal. In: Haaretz. 18. Mai 2019.
[67] See: Florian Flade, Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg verboten, in: tagesschau from July 24th, 2024 (https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/verbot-islamischeszentrum-hamburg-100.html (accessed March 21st, 2025).
