Germany is a world champion at confronting its own history. Through memorial after memorial, the country has attempted to atone for its atrocities during the Holocaust and World War II. “Never again” has become a nationwide slogan.
In this Opinion Video, the satirist Jan Böhmermann — think Germany’s John Oliver — argues that Germany’s repeated and increasingly hollow attempts to “remember away” its Nazi past have actually contributed to the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany Party.
Germany is holding federal elections this month and the threat of a fascist resurgence is knocking on the nation’s door. The AfD is projected to become the second-largest party in the German parliament.
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Whether it's reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, New York Times video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. It's all the news that's fit to watch.
In this Opinion Video, the satirist Jan Böhmermann — think Germany’s John Oliver — argues that Germany’s repeated and increasingly hollow attempts to “remember away” its Nazi past have actually contributed to the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany Party.
Germany is holding federal elections this month and the threat of a fascist resurgence is knocking on the nation’s door. The AfD is projected to become the second-largest party in the German parliament.
----------
Whether it's reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, New York Times video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. It's all the news that's fit to watch.
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00:00Guten Tag from Germany, the country that needs saving, according to Elon Musk.
00:05But don't worry, we know what we are doing. And we know who we are. We are Germans.
00:12We are good at inventing long, complicated words and we are really cool and relaxed.
00:18But of course, there's something else we Germans were really good at. Inventing Nazis.
00:24Germany may have lost one or two world wars, but we successfully turned it into a win.
00:31And we became Vergangenheitsbewältigungsweltmeister.
00:36We are world champions at confronting our history. A title we've held for 80 years in a row.
00:43We won this title by virtue signaling, but with a German twist.
00:48We are not just signaling virtue to others, but also to our own guilty conscience.
00:54Living in Germany means being constantly reminded of our past.
00:59Every day, 24-7, for now 80 years, we've been telling ourselves, never again.
01:06Remembrance of the Holocaust is everywhere in Germany.
01:09A country stacked with memorials. Memorials, memorials, memorials. Just in case we forget to never forget.
01:18Unfortunately, never again didn't come with a manual on how to never again.
01:24Our German extreme right party, the AfD, is projected to win almost every fifth vote in our national election this February.
01:33The party is called the Alternative für Deutschland, which literally means alternative for Germany.
01:41And they will probably become the second largest party in German parliament, out of around half a dozen.
01:47Here is what one of the AfD's leading figures thinks of German never again.
01:52Wir brauchen nichts anderes als eine erinnerungspolitische Wende um 180 Grad.
02:02I know it's subtle, but AfD's Björn Höcke might sound a bit Hitler-esque, which is French for slightly concerning.
02:11Höcke recently won a state election in Eastern Germany, securing the first far-right win in a state election since World War II.
02:18He, by the way, can legally be called a fascist, as the German court has ruled in one case.
02:23So, should the rest of the world be worried about a big German fascist comeback?
02:29Jawohl, aber hallo und zwar so richtig. Yes, you should be worried. Let me explain why.
02:38And since I'm German, my explanation, of course, will be pointlessly complicated and inspiringly brutal, like our traditional German bedtime stories.
02:47For instance, the one about a boy named Konrad, who wouldn't stop sucking his thumbs until they were cut right off.
02:54Just for educational purposes, of course.
02:57So, the AfD was founded in 2013 and it primarily opposed EU policies.
03:04Then it quickly radicalized anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, anti-migrant, anti-establishment, anti-mainstream media.
03:14The AfD worked and works the authoritarian playbook.
03:18And now they are twisting the truth by hijacking our world-renowned beautiful German language.
03:25Vogelschiss in der Geschichte.
03:29A speck of bird shit in German history.
03:32That's what one of the AfD's founders called Germany's Nazi past.
03:37Meaning the Holocaust was just a speck of bird shit in our overall successful history.
03:44Success, of course, meaning constantly losing world wars.
03:49So far.
03:51When Elon Musk, the man who would never salute Nazis, recently interviewed AfD's chairwoman Alice Weidel on X,
03:59she gave another vibrant example on how AfD mastered blatant truth-twisting.
04:05The biggest success after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right and conservative.
04:17He was exactly the opposite.
04:20He wasn't a conservative.
04:22He wasn't a libertarian.
04:24He was a communist socialist guy.
04:28Why not try a 180 degree turnaround from the truth?
04:33Let's try!
04:34But these obvious little rhetorical tricks are actually effective.
04:39Thanks to one special German way to cope with our past.
04:43Geschichtsvergessenheit.
04:45Geschichtsvergessenheit means actively forgetting our, let me put it this way, ambiguous past.
04:52Despite the endless memorials.
04:55Because, honestly, having to confront your own history can be really, really exhausting for us Germans.
05:01But Geschichtsvergessenheit is not a concept the AfD just recently invented.
05:06In 1952, for instance, Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of our modern democratic Germany, signed a Wiedergutmachungsabkommen.
05:16A reparations agreement.
05:18Yet another beautiful, accessible German word.
05:21And did you know, also a pretty common girl's name in Bavaria.
05:24Ah, there's little Wiedergutmachungsabkommen.
05:28Look at her cute blonde pigtails!
05:31Come over!
05:32Wiedergutmachungsabkommen!
05:34The Schweinebraten is ready in the oven!
05:37The Wiedergutmachungsabkommen was our post-war reparations agreement with Israel.
05:42But most modern democratic Germans have conveniently forgotten Adenauer's real motives.
05:48Die Macht der Juden, auch heute noch, insbesondere in Amerika, soll man nicht unterschätzen.
05:56Und daher habe ich sehr überlegt und sehr bewusst, und das war von jeher meiner Meinung, meine ganze Kraft daran gesetzt,
06:07so gut es ging, eine Versöhnung herbeizuführen zwischen dem jüdischen Volk und dem deutschen Volk.
06:13In other words, beware!
06:16The Jews are still powerful, even though we tried to kill them all.
06:20So from now on, we better be nice to them.
06:23And then all is Wiedergut again.
06:26Thank you, Konrad Adenauer.
06:29But Nazis never really went away in both Germanies.
06:33In the 2000s, a neo-Nazi terrorist group murdered at least 10 people.
06:38Their racist crimes continued for years, because the German public and police could not even fathom that neo-Nazis could be responsible.
06:48Instead, they just publicly blamed immigrants for supposedly killing each other.
06:52Why are we Germans so blatantly dismissive towards the collective affection for the far right?
06:58Partly because in Germany there's a discrepancy between collective memory and individual guilt.
07:04We acknowledge our grim past, never again, yada yada yada, but our ancestors.
07:10Like, personally, our families, ourselves, we had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
07:17Yes, my great-grandfather was in the Waffen-SS, but he was a cook.
07:23And the lasagne he made in Stalingrad tasted like Schuhsohlenauflauf.
07:28So basically, he tried to destroy the Waffen-SS from within. Where's his memorial?
07:33By virtue signaling to our own guilty conscience, we got rid of our Nazi past.
07:39Germans have sworn to never again so many times that it became an empty phrase.
07:44And when a new right-wing leader calls for a 180-degree turnaround on never again,
07:51we also don't take it seriously because it somehow feels empty as well.
07:57Because no matter what we do, Germans can't be Nazis again.
08:02That's the space in which the AfD operates.
08:05They can say and do Nazi things as long as they aggressively deny that anyone was ever a Nazi.
08:12It's like giving the Hitler salute in front of a large crowd of right-wing extremists while denying being a Nazi.
08:22It's a narrative that seems to be successful all over the world.
08:26We aren't Nazis, we just don't fully support liberty, equality and the rule of law.
08:31We aren't Nazis, we just want white supremacy.
08:34The AfD is not the new Nazi party, they just want Germany to be great again.
08:40And that's why now in Germany, the Kacke is am Dampfen.