German extremists channel Nazi policies

BERLIN: Activists from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party discussed imprisoning Jews and immigrants in ghettos and shooting women and children who refused to comply, an investigation by a leading television channel has alleged.

The party’s youth wing, the Young Alternative (JA), is under surveillance by the German security services and its official designation as a rightwing extremist organisation was confirmed by a court ruling this week.

For some years the group has drawn attention with a brand of ethnonationalist rhetoric that is frequently more hardline than the language used by AfD’s national figureheads. And an account of a JA event in Saxony seems to confirm this, with activists alleged to have endorsed policies echoing the Third Reich.

Undercover reporters from RTL, a private television network, took part in a JA and AfD “hike for heroes” event in the east German town of Bautzen, where activists are alleged to have made the comments.

“Have you ever asked yourself why the Jews have been hated by all the nations who had anything to do with them for the past 4000 years?” one was reported to have said. “The solution with the Jews would be to allot them an area where they will all go.”

Another attendee reportedly suggested that all people in Germany with a migrant background should be put in a ghetto and fed barely sufficient rations until they voluntarily decided to “go back”.

Asked about resistance, the activist allegedly replied: “There should be a certain readiness to commit violence.”