One chapter of Thomas Mann’s novel Magic Mountain is titled The Great Stupor. He refers to the years before the onset of the great war, perceived by his protagonist to be “life without time, without care or hope, life as a stagnating hustle-bustle of depravity, dead life…. There is an atmosphere of uncanniness, maliciousness and aggression. A love of quarrels. Acute petulance. Nameless impatience. A universal penchant for nasty verbal exchanges and outbursts of rage, even melees.” Some of the conflicts eventually end in death (altho in the absence of automatic weapons not in those of hundreds of random victims…)

What so perfectly described that epoch is equally applicable for our times as well, I believe. That sense of “dead life” is likely experienced both by a large part of the Germans who voted for the populist AfD, whether as a protest vote or in desperate search for new meaning, as well as by the masses which support an American populist agenda. They see their old identities  threatened by globalization, cultural changes, the influx of immigrants, and their old standing within a hierarchy of power undermined by those who attempt to achieve more equality for the races and genders. It is not so much an economical issue – data in both countries confirm that those who tend toward a new extremism are not the poor – but an issue of feeling left behind and/or no longer valued and fallen down a few rungs on the pecking order ladder.

There is a longing for a structure that promises continuity, a structure that has disappeared with the opening of family, neighborhood, work place or politics to the unfamiliar. There is a longing to belong to a place that is known and which conveyed advantages to white males: AfD honcho Gauland put it precisely: the AfD voter wants his/her country back. The way to appeal to these voters is by appealing to emotions, stoking the fires of discontent and rage, as the historical example of the rise of the Nazis taught us all too well. And the best way to construct an emotional bond is by creating a common enemy: the Jews in the 1930a, Muslims or other immigrants in our time.

The new synagogue

Not all people who voted early  for the NSDAP were racists or antisemites. It was more of a collective protest vote against the status quo in the beginning. Not all AfD voters should be seen this way either. People in East Germany have still not fully processed the changes that came with reunification, changes that were not all for the good and certainly destructive to the familiar structures that ensured a certain safety net and standing. However, the AfD has components that make it a direct heir to the fascist ideology. One should be worried that its election success is not simply a German version of the increasingly prevalent populist movements across Europe. We have to be alert to the possibility that there is an unchecked, deeper

continuity to German history in its worst form.

It did not take 5 minutes for the Central Committee for the German Jews to comment on the election results about their deep fears of the implications of the vote. The head of the concentration camp memorials pleads not to have an AfD representative to chair a culture committee in parliament because holocaust denial has been publicly uttered by some, and a fight over the memory culture shared by many (not unlike what we here see in the confederate flag debate.) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-afd-bjoern-hoecke-berlin-holocaust-memorial-shame-history-positive-nazi-180-turnaround-a7535306.html

The hard work that has to be done, then, is to find a way to offer alternative identities, a sense of belonging, to those Germans who have given in to populism’s lure. It won’t help to announce that change is the way of the future, so just buckle up. It won’t do to just praise a vague promise of European citizenship without the specifics of how one can be anchored. I certainly don’t know how to do this – and I honestly believe almost all of us are clueless, otherwise it would have been done. If we want equality and integration, openness and justice, then those who benefitted fron inequality and racism are guaranteed to loose.

And here in the US?  Let me just point out that our racism, as instantiated by law and regulations, served as a template for the Nazis, eagerly studied and emulated at the time. The link below spells it out, brilliantly.  How distant are we from that, can you tell me?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/

Photographs are of Dresden, hotbed of neo-nazi activities, stronghold of the AfD and its precursor, PEGIDA. I have reported on the beauty of Dresden before, the art that you breathe in with every step, the left-0ver scars from the tragedies of the allied fire-bombings, the resilience of the people and their reconstruction efforts. It is hard to believe that it has been the breeding ground fore the brown menace.

And here are some ads from the AfD:

New Germans? We make them ourselves. – Burka? I prefer Burgunder (red wine). – Islam: doesn’t go well with our cuisine.

Have the guts, Germany!