From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: NEWS:600,000 Germans March Against Nazis/ww
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Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 00:30:06 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

               600,000 GERMANS MARCH AGAINST NAZIS

                        By Walter Jansen
                         Cologne, Germany

On Nov. 7 and 8, more than half a million people throughout
Germany demonstrated against neo-Nazi violence and brutality
directed against foreigners. All political parties except the
rightist Christian Socialist Union of Bavaria called for the
actions. Unions, churches, anti-fascists and the peace movement
joined in.

Fearing for their international reputation, even the
organizations of big business and the employers backed the
actions.

Another 100,000 people demonstrated Nov. 9, the 54th anniversary
of the 1938 Nazi pogrom against Germany's Jews, known as
"Reichskristallnacht." These actions also targeted anti-Semitism.
Here in Cologne 50,000 people took part.

The biggest demonstration of the weekend was by 350,000 people in
Berlin on Nov. 8. Another 150,000 people demonstrated in Cologne,
Stuttgart, Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main.

These demonstrations were controversial in the progressive
movement here because the main slogans were limited to attacking
"violence and brutality." Many people wanted to add slogans
against anti-Semitism and xenophobia (fear and hatred of
foreigners). That would make it clear that German people refuse
to blame foreigners for the deteriorating economic and social
conditions.

CAPITALIST PARTIES SCAPEGOAT FOREIGNERS

The leading role of the ruling Christian Democratic Union and the
Social Democrats in the actions also aroused controversy. The CDU
has used the excuse of the neo-Nazi upsurge to wage a campaign
against that section of the Federal Republic of Germany's
constitution that guarantees rights to those seeking asylum.

The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, had been less
openly anti-foreigner. Nevertheless, this party has also taken a
position for changing the constitution to diminish the right of
asylum.

Anarchists threw tomatoes, eggs and rocks at speakers at the
Berlin demonstration who represented the government. Most people
in the demonstrations would agree that Chancellor Helmut Kohl and
President Richard von Weizsaecker are hypocrites about defending
foreigners from violence.

The CDU government recently signed an agreement with Romania
expediting the return of Romanian citizens to their homeland.
These are mostly Roma people, called "gypsies." During World War
II the Nazi government exterminated 2 million Roma and Cinti
people.

Besides being hypocrites about caring for foreigners, these
politicians waited almost a full three months before condemning
neo-Nazi violence. This amounted to leaving the door open to the
fascists.

The fascists have stormed through that open door. The most
publicized neo-Nazi attack was on the foreign shelter in Rostock,
which the fascists burned down. But since then there have been
daily neo-Nazi attacks. These include attacks on foreigners--11
of whom have been beaten to death this year--desecration of
memorials erected to the Jews murdered by the Nazis and even the
graveyards at the former concentration camps.

In many areas of Germany, such as the Cologne region, progressive
people have banded together to form defense groups for the
shelters housing asylum-seekers. When one hears that a shelter is
under fascist attack, that person informs the others through a
telephone chain. Then the members quickly take their place in the
defense unit.

SOCIAL BASIS FOR INSTABILITY IN GERMANY

Growing inequality in western Germany and the attempt to quickly
privatize the former German Democratic Republic have deeply hurt
the working class here. A look at some economic figures outlines
this story.

Taxes on employers are again being reduced even though they have
$400 billion in the banks. Workers' income taxes are 32.5 percent;
corporate taxes on profits are only 21.2 percent. Bosses' profits
grew 8 percent in 1991; wages grew about 3 percent and inflation 4
percent.

During the last 10 years bosses' profits grew 43 percent while
workers' wages grew only 6 percent. Both figures include
inflation.

For the first time in decades there are thousands of homeless
people in Cologne. They sleep on benches, under the Rhine bridges
and even in graveyards. It's beginning to look here the way it
does in New York.

In eastern Germany real unemployment is now near 50 percent.
Conditions have deteriorated for women and especially single
mothers, who had rights to child care, housing and jobs in the
socialist GDR. One figure indicates how this has changed women's
attitudes: the number of women in the east getting sterilizations
has increased 15-fold since capitalist West Germany annexed the
GDR.

While this growing economic instability in no way excuses
anti-foreign sentiment, it provides a basis for distrust of the
centrist capitalist parties that have governed Germany. The
fascists are trying to exploit the instability by attacking
foreigners and Jewish monuments. The Christian Democrats and even
the Social Democrats have joined in promoting anti-foreign
sentiment.

This must be stopped. That 600,000 people have demonstrated
against neo-Nazism shows that it can be stopped.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)




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