The AfD’s obsession with the Third Reich is driving a realignment of Europe’s far right | Mariam Lau

Massive change is afoot within Europe’s far right. Just as voters across 27 countries prepare to go to the polls in EU elections, a split over the German far right’s allegiance to the Third Reich is driving a realignment.

The far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European parliament last week expelled the entire Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction from its ranks after a furore involving the leading AfD candidate Maximiian Krah.

The unprecedented move, initiated by Marine Le Pen, was officially a reaction to remarks Krah made in an interview with an Italian newspaper. Asked if his demand that all Germans take pride in their forbears would include those who were in the SS, the Nazi’s main paramilitary force, Krah said that “not all SS were criminals”.

hydroptic, (edited )

This is all just optics, or “tactical” as the article terms it. There is no real difference in policy or opinion between the “new” right and the “old” right, they want the same things, but the “new” right are the ones who are somewhat smarter about eg. voicing support for fascists out loud too much – which will certainly change once they have enough power. And this is not to say that they don’t support fascists even openly, just that they do it so that it doesn’t generally end up in headlines.

Moderate conservatives are mythological creatures, much like unicorns or ethical billionaires.

olafurp,

Yeah, they weren’t all criminals because genocide was legal in the third reich.

CitizenKong,

The same Krah received quite a lot of Russian money visiting the US and was questioned by the FBI about it.

andrewta,

“Not all ss were criminals”

How quickly we forget our history.

I mean yes some were technically unaware of what was truly happening. But do we really want to go down the path of being on the side of, or defending the ss?

CanadaPlus,

I don’t think any were unaware of the general picture. There’s debate about how much Axis civilians knew about things like the Holocaust, but the SS were a select, elite group. They knew enough.

grue,

Nah, even what you wrote is overly-charitable.

The SS knew exactly what they were doing. Krah knows the SS knew exactly what they were doing. Krah is simply blatantly lying.

AFC1886VCC,

Agreed. You could make that argument perhaps for German civilians. And maybe even some of the Wehrmacht at a stretch. But the SS answered directly to the Nazi party and not the Army. They were the enforcers of Nazi ideology across Europe, and most were committed to Nazism. They knew what they were doing and carried out war crimes with enthusiasm.

Anyone who defends the SS in any shape or form is a very bad person.

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