From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Germany: A citizen of the Fourth Reich
Date: 20 Dec 92 03:35:19 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: PACH
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu

/** media.issues: 228.0 **/
** Topic: GERMANY: A citizen of the Fourth Re **
** Written  5:47 am  Dec  7, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:media.issues **
From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: GERMANY: A citizen of the Fourth Re

/* Written 12:04 am  Dec  6, 1992 by newsdesk@igc.apc.org in igc:ips.englibrary */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: GERMANY: A citizen of the Fourth Reich /RELATE/

an inter press service feature

by carlos bendana

bonn, dec 3 (ips) -- i have interviewed many victims of the racist
violence in germany -- never considering that i too might some day
become a victim of this self same aggression.

yet on saturday it happened. the civil servant living
downstairs -- a hefty 48 year old -- was waiting on the landing
with his insults -- ''auslander raus!' (foreigners out) and
''schwein!'' (pig) -- the common cries of the neo-nazi.

the advice from lawyers is, if confronted with this situation, do
not retaliate -- people with 'foreigner' status in germany can
find their reaction in these cases used against them in a court of
law. so i kept walking.

the neighbour threw himself at me, grabbing me by the throat
and bashed me against the wall repeatedly. he then pushed me
toward the stair banister, forcefully shoving my head between the
bars, and then flung me down the stairs.

another neighbour -- another german -- from the floor above
heard the noise and shouts, came to out to investigate, and
thereby brought the attack to an end.

beyond the physical pain, i felt profoundly humiliated.

i am a journalist of nicaraguan origin, and have lived in germany
for five years. i am married to a colombian and we have two
daughters aged 11 and 12. they have been in a state of permanent
stress for many months, the direct result of the climate of racial
hatred that surrounds them daily.

the police received me with studied sympathy, and sent the
matter on to a department in charge of investigating racial
attacks. armed, thankfully, with the supporting testimony of
kinder german neighbours, and after a medical examination, a
formal complaint was filed.

my assailant will be summoned within a week and criminal
investigation made by the police. ramesh jaura, director of ips
germany, has made a report to the president of the association of
foreign press, the austrian correspondent edwald koenig. the
association is now deciding what steps to take. (more/ips)

germany: a citizen of the fourth reich /relate/(2)

germany: a citizen (2)

other foreign journalists like gaetano stellaci, of the italian
news agency ansa, and various german journalists have expressed
both interest and support.

yet the experience has brought home the sense of humiliation felt
daily by most of the six million foreigners living in germany who
endure this kind of unjustified aggression.

there is not a single foreigner interviewed by this journalist,
who could not recount a similar experience, either first hand, or
of an attack on a friend. these are not spectacular experiences
like the headline creating arson attacks perpetrated by the
organised extreme right recently.

instead there is a daily climate of aggression permeating the
country, one that is breeding violence and hate.

''various 'skinheads' attacked us in the marzahn (eastern
berlin) subway station, and killed two of my friends,'' says murat
atmaca, a turkish mechanic. ''the police, instead of pursuing the
killers, dealt me a blow that put me in hospital for two months.''

or listen to the testimony of newman rosil, a sri lankan
student in berlin: ''a year ago, in the metro, i was beaten by
three skinheads. it is important to note that the people riding in
that wagon, merely looked on with indifference.''

rup sakar, an indian worker for a german travel agency in
berlin has lived in germany for 30 years. ''i have never felt as
bad as i do now -- even though only ten percent of the germans are
extremists and the rest oppose.''

mehmet ylmas, a turk, spoke to me at an anti-racist demonstration
in bonn. ''even on the way to this demonstration, a woman in the
tram hissed ''scheisse helmut schmidt' (shit helmut schmidt),
because the turks came to germany when he was chancellor (1974-
1982).''

a student at the goethe institute in bonn, billy namuhhoranye,
from ruanda said: ''people have shouted 'nigger go back to your
country' in the subway, and some of my friends have been attacked
by skinheads on their way out of a disco.''

is there a parallel to be drawn here between the violent chaos
of the pre-war weimar republic and the rise of adolf hitler and
the nazi third reich?

although there is a similar lack of confidence in conventional
political figures then as now, and the unemployment prospects are
little better -- 3.2 million jobless are expected in 1993 -- i do
not think things are at that stage. (more/ips)

germany: a citizen of the fourth reich /relate/(3-e)

germany: a citizen (3)

however the ongoing discussion on limiting the constitutional
right to asylum, as voiced by chancellor helmut kohl's government,
only feeds the propaganda of the right. foreigners, not racism are
to blame, they say. foreigners are becoming scapegoats for a
nation's ills.

much less is heard about the contribution of germany's
'foreign' population to the country's wealth and that businesses
created by foreigners also create more jobs than the foreigners
themselves occupy.

and thus, if you add this to the gentle measures so far taken
to tackle the neo-nazis this month, the collective result is an
atmosphere of hate, nationalism and racist aggression on an
intensity unseen since the era of the third reich, an era that
ended with world war two and the genocides of the concentration
camps.

then perhaps you can imagine the return of the weimar era and
believe that beneath the skin of a ordinary federal german, lurks
a citizen of the fourth reich. (end/ips/trd/hr/cb/ego/hr/mv/rj/92)

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