Germany’s military faces internal threat
A bizarre case involving a German officer and a planned terror attack has drawn attention to an alarming problem — right-wing extremism within the German military.
A German lieutenant posed as a Syrian refugee under an alias, applying for asylum in early 2016. He was arrested last week and charged with planning an act of violence; police found explosives in the home of a suspected accomplice. Police say he was motivated by xenophobia, and that the planned attack was possibly intended to frame the Syrian immigrant community.
An April 29 investigation by Der Spiegel revealed that the soldier had expressed far-right views in 2014, and the military knew of it — but had looked the other way. German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen called it a failure of leadership in the Bundeswehr, or German armed forces.
The case coincides with a report, released in early April by the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), that it is investigating 275 cases of mostly right-wing extremism among service members.
Right-wing extremism has traditionally had a presence within the armed forces, making it a “major concern,” said Christian Moelling at the German Council on Foreign Relations in an email.
Far right-wing thought has long persisted in shadowy pockets of the Bundeswehr, fruit of a continued obsession with the Nazi-era Wehrmacht, sparking national controversy when it surfaces. In 1995, a military school invited a notorious neo-Nazi, who had spent years in prison for his role in a bombing, to give a talk. In 1997, video footage emerged of soldiers making anti-Semitic comments and imitating the Nazi salute. In 2003, a former general of the German special forces, Reinhard Guentzel, congratulated a conservative member of parliament on statements comparing Jews to Nazis. Guentzel was fired; in 2006 he published a book, Secret Warriors, lionizing the Nazi-era roots of German special forces.
In part, that is a reflection of the reverence with which some members of the military continue to view the Wehrmacht, said Philipp Liesenhoff, a researcher in the German Marshall Fund’s Europe program. Liesenhoff served as a member of a German special forces unit from 2006 to 2007.
“There’s this ideal of the German Wehrmacht — they’re seen as these tough, experienced fighters,” Liesenhoff told FP. “When I was there, there were repeated references to the toughness of the Wehrmacht soldiers. The people who trained us in basic training always made references to that time.”
Liesenhoff saw soldiers listening to neo-Nazi bands. “In the cantina, you could buy sweaters and keychains with letters in the fractured font of the Nazi era,” said Liesenhoff, with motivational slogans such as “Don’t complain, fight.” To blow off steam, he said, sometimes one person would yell “sieg” and another person would yell “heil,” a chant used at Nazi-era political rallies. Authorities tended to ignore it.
An attempted act of rightwing violence by a member of the forces is especially alarming because extremist violence has skyrocketed across Germany in recent years. From 2014 to 2015, the most recent data available, violent crimes, including threats, arson, and attempted homicides, committed by rightwing extremists rose by 42 per cent, according to a 2015 report by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
The number of these crimes that targeted foreigners reached a historic record, outpacing any previous year since the annual report was launched in 2001. The report attributed the spread of rightwing radicalization to a backlash against Islamist terrorism and rising xenophobia.
Right-extreme extremism has often targeted immigrants, as with the so-called kebab murders in which a neo-Nazi group allegedly killed more than a half-dozen immigrant vendors, mostly Turkish, over several years in the 2000s in different cities. Anti-immigrant sentiment has since surged amid the migrant crisis.
Neo-Nazi ideas have a particular foothold in the former East Germany. The city of Rostock was home to 1992 anti-immigrant riots, and right-wing extremism continues to have a wider following in the region than elsewhere. That affects the Bundeswehr: East Germany makes up one-fifth of the country’s population, but accounts for one-third of military recruits.
“East Germans are disproportionately represented within the Bundeswehr,” said Hans Kundnani at the German Marshall Fund. “The reason that’s significant is that obviously, within the former German Democratic Republic, neo-Nazism is more of a problem than in the west.”
But while guidelines exist to fight extremist propaganda within the military, policy changes may have served to make the problem worse. In 2011, Germany’s decades-long policy of mandatory military service was suspended. Conscription, which drew recruits from all strata of society, had long been viewed as an important check on extremist thought within the military. Now, though, the all-volunteer force seems to be drawing from a more narrow pool.
“I think the fraction of people with worrisome motives (joining the military) has gotten larger since mandatory service has been disbanded,” said Liesenhoff.
RECENT POLICY CHANGES MAY ONLY HAVE SERVED TO MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE. IN 2011, GERMANY’S DECADES-LONG POLICY OF MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE WAS SUSPENDED. THE ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE SEEMS TO BE DRAWING FROM A MORE NARROW POOL.