The system of oppression that is taking root in Germany is only slightly reminiscent of Nazi fascism. But it pursues the same goal, only with different means. Only if you recognize these means do you have a chance of resisting.
By Dagmar Henn
It's a moment that comes up often when you talk to people in or from your home country. It's not all that bad, they say, and everyone knows individual examples of people who are still traveling back and forth between Russia and Germany, or who have not yet been prosecuted in any way.
And then there is the other side -
dozens of completely exaggerated criminal proceedings, propaganda of a force that makes Goebbels' efforts seem like minor etudes, and a complete loss of any kind of legal certainty. It is like looking at a spinning coin and trying to determine which of the two visible sides is the “true” one.
For almost three years now, we have been able to watch Interior Minister Faeser eradicate the last remnants of the rule of law and democratic rights with ever new attempts; without shying away from recourse to historically unambiguous models, as shown by the amendment to civil service law, which borrowed more than just a little from the infamous “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” from 1933. In fact, we must warn everyone to read the entirety of Faeser's elaborations spread over several days if possible; all at once is extremely detrimental to one's well-being.
And yet “It's not so bad after all” is a frequent reply. Yes, even from those who know the story better. Because there are no hordes marching through the streets with flags, because there are no hundreds of arrests, because the current ideology is based on many things, but not on the nation. And it is still possible to convince people that the right-wing threat is the AfD.
But what if, after almost a hundred years, the repetition follows a different model? If the goal is no longer (or not primarily) physical subjugation and destruction, but psychological? In other words, a kind of “informal fascism” that achieves the same depth of oppression but uses completely different measures? Which essentially serves the same interests, but has drawn lessons from earlier models at many points?
The striking thing is - and anyone can check this for themselves - that the conversational behavior of most people now corresponds to the historical model. People think about who they can talk to about what, even among friends and family. Which of course makes any form of contact with like-minded people more difficult because it's hard to find them. Incidentally, this is a situation that started with coronavirus and hasn't disappeared since; and without overcrowded prisons, simply because the pressure on personal relationships, but also on employment relationships, for example, is great enough that most people don't want to take any unnecessary risks.
Which brings us to the first point that explains the discrepancy described above between the direct experience of the masses and the individual, extremely excessive procedures. If you want to intimidate through physical violence, you need a broad distribution, you need an omnipresence of violence. When it comes to psychological violence, this would be counterproductive, because one of the strongest forms of psychological violence is the creation of insecurity.
The mere fact of not having been affected by any measures does not provide a basis for feeling safe if there is no way of understanding the rules on the basis of which these measures are taken. Of course, this does not apply indefinitely and only works as long as the density is not too high, but it is currently working extremely well. You only have to look at who is willingly repeating the formula of the “unprovoked Russian war of aggression”.
However, in addition to this persecution, which is on record and devoid of any logic, there is another level that is constantly being added to.
Let us recall Nancy Faeser's presentation of a “package of measures against the right” in February. She said at the time:
“Those who mock the state must be dealt with by a strong state. That means consistently punishing every violation of the law. This can be done not only by the police, but also by regulatory authorities such as the catering or trade inspectorate.”
This fits in perfectly with the extended rights of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, especially in the category “We call everyone”.
Translated into real life, this means that in addition to the excessive criminal proceedings mentioned above, which are just the icing on the cake, so to speak, basically everything can be instrumentalized, from health insurance to tax audits to account freezes. And at least the latter is happening more and more frequently.
The problem is that anyone who falls victim to this type of measure usually finds it difficult to perceive it as political repression. And it is even more difficult to communicate this to others. If you are on trial for a slogan at a demonstration and are charged with incitement of the people because you shouted “From the River to the Sea”, this is a recognizably political act and an equally political reaction.
But if, for example, a tax audit comes to your company because of the same slogan, your job is taken away, your health insurance is seized or loans are canceled, many people think at first: “There will be something to it.”
Instead of being able to get the political support they need, they remain alone with their problems, no matter how far-reaching these problems are. And they can go very far if, for example, the youth welfare office gets involved.
This approach is not entirely new either, just think of the Gustl Mollath case, who had to spend years in a psychiatric ward because he had offended a bank. The innovation is that in the past, if it could be proven, it was illegal; but Faeser's changes to the law have ensured that it no longer is. And Madame Faeser is proud of it. But few people have the stamina of Gustl Mollath, who spent eight years innocently in a psychiatric ward and didn't break.
What triggered Mollath's problems at the time were criminal charges he had filed against Hypo-Vereinsbank for money laundering and tax evasion. In the proceedings against him, the judge in charge refused to deal with this issue at all; the psychiatric experts treated it as paranoia. However, as later research revealed, these crimes had actually taken place.
The trick of presenting a completely rational position that is unpleasant for the government as a mental disorder was used to epic effect during the coronavirus measures and has never really been deactivated since. Basically, one of the mysteries of those years was why opponents of the measures were so brutally declared to be “aluminum hats” and “corona deniers”, why people went so far as to invent the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
{Annotation: One needs to take into account here the still ongoing charges and lawsuits against people who had taken a strong oppositional stance during Covid and in the immediate aftermath, like presenting counter-information (like Reiner Fuellmich), going to prison for issueing allegedly false mask exemption certificates as a doctor (like Dr. Bianca Witzschel), opposing to take the jab as a member of the German army (like Jan Reiner, and now Alexander Bittner who reportedly went on a hunger strike in protest of his imprisonment) where it had been mandatory, and more. And the persecutions continue although any mandatory measures have long been lifted, and turned out to not only have been unnecessary, but even harmful. It is like as if elites and authorities are taking revenge of having opposed them.}
But if you think about how a fascism that relies on psychological rather than physical annihilation might work, you can find some differences in the “technical” requirements. To implement the kind of repressive measures that took place between 1933 and 1945, it was sufficient to actively involve a comparatively small part of the population. This changed somewhat with the war in the East, when at least the police were fully involved in the crimes, but the fact is that there were comparatively many niches in which active participation was not required. Basically, the police and judiciary were enough.
But this system had its risks, as the Reichstag fire trial showed. Procedures such as those proposed by Faeser existed primarily in the area of the Nuremberg Race Laws, and there were still laws that could be read, however much they perverted the law.
What is currently being set up in Germany and has long been applied is completely outside the law. It is repeatedly emphasized, not only by Faeser, that it is a matter of intervening “below the threshold of criminal liability”, i.e. of taking action against completely legal acts that are actually protected as the exercise of a fundamental right - no, much more frequent statements, because it does not even get to the level of the act.
The instrumentalization of everything as a means of persecution leaves neither the possibility of legal resistance, as there is no visible, documented state action, nor the possibility of naming it for what it is, namely political persecution.
However, in order to build such a system, it is not enough to have the security agencies and the judiciary under control. It needs far more willing participants, in the tax offices, the health insurance companies, the youth welfare offices, in all the authorities and institutions you can imagine. This requires a completely different density of propaganda. The opportunity to simply look in the other direction when served what you have to think must be taken.
The advantage, of course, is that you save the costs of prisons and worse, including security personnel, and you prevent any solidarity even between the victims, which at the same time significantly increases the effectiveness. A quote from Brecht comes to mind:
“There are many ways to kill. You can stick a knife in someone's stomach, take away their bread, not cure them of an illness, put them in a bad apartment, beat them to death with work, drive them to suicide, take them to war, etc. Only a few of these things can be done in our state. Only a few of these things are forbidden in our state.”
And now one more point:
a state intent on oppressing its citizens with such a covert, irregular system would have to rely on very specific information - it would have to be able to distinguish those who stubbornly insist on their positions from those who give in to comparatively weak pressure. This information is already available. In the form of vaccination data. Even if this data was not collected for this specific purpose because it was simply necessary to pump a few billion into the financial system, this idea has certainly already occurred to someone in the enormous apparatus of the German services.
It does not necessarily have to be the case that the corona number was a planned run-up that was intended to create the basis for being able to resort to completely different measures afterwards.
But many of the “side effects” of this phase would prove useful for the installation of such informal fascism. The institutions, from the judiciary to medicine, are already disciplined and can now be used for more or less anything with the appropriate stimuli.
That part of the population that was intimidated (or even still enthusiastic about it) is, as has already been clearly seen, predominantly willing to cooperate, even with regard to “right-wing” or “anti-Semitism”.
However, because Corona has conveyed the idea that “the others” are a source of existential danger, even if all those affected by these new forms of persecution personally managed to avoid perceiving this as some form of personal fate or personal failure, any support would remain limited to the circle of the “resistant”.
However, in order to actually withstand these forms of all-encompassing attacks, support networks are needed that do not break under the slightest pressure. The construct of “contact guilt”, which has been so popular in recent years, unfolds its main effect here; its message is not that a person X who has been seen with a person Y must therefore think the same; its message is that anyone who is seen with a “suspicious” person is themselves in the crosshairs.
It is conceivable that this informal fascism is only in the start-up phase.
However, it is also conceivable that far more is already happening than is even publicly perceptible. Not only because the “official” media are not reporting on it, but also because there is a lack of knowledge to perceive surprising hostility on the part of various institutions as political action (not to mention the fact that secondary secret services such as Correctiv are also still involved). However, the statements made not only by Faeser after the state elections in the east give rise to fears that this apparatus, if it has not yet been fully activated, will be activated soon.
And this should not be taken lightly. It doesn't take much more than a blocked bank account, a notice to quit and an entry in the credit register to destroy a person's existence. Without the use of weapons or barbed wire fenced barracks, but no less hostile and no less threatening.
Translated with DeepL
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