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German far-right leads mayoral race near former Nazi camp

Joerg Prophet flashed a brilliant white grin as he greeted voters at his campaign stand in Nordhausen, a small but prosperous city in the former East German state of Thuringia.

German far-right leads mayoral race near former Nazi camp
An election poster of Far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate Joerg Prophet. Photo: Ronny Hartmann/AFP.

The mayoral candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has plenty to smile about. He is the clear favourite to win Sunday’s run-off vote to lead the city of 40,000 people.

A win for the 61-year-old former entrepreneur would be a “catastrophe”, said the keepers of a nearby concentration camp memorial.

Around 60,000 prisoners were held in the Mittelbau-Dora slave labour camp — a subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald — only six kilometres (3.7 miles) from central Nordhausen.

They were forced to make V-2 rockets in brutal underground conditions, with around one in three worked to death.

An AfD mayor would not be welcome at commemorative events at the site’s memorial, Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, told AFP.

‘Nazi ideology’

“The AfD is an extreme right-wing party whose ideology is congruent or at least very similar in many areas to the ideology of the National Socialists,” he said.

Prophet won 42.1 percent of the vote in the first round of the mayoral election earlier this month, with his rival, incumbent Kai Buchmann, picking up just 23.7 percent.

Independent candidate Buchmann, in office for the last six years, has fallen out of favour with many residents after repeatedly clashing with the city council.

The controversy has led to calls for a fresh start, with Prophet gladly stepping into the frame. Like many members of the far-right party, Prophet has been accused of extremism and historical revisionism.

In a blog post in 2020, he claimed the Allied forces that liberated the Mittelbau-Dora camp were only interested in snooping on the site’s rocket and missile technology.

He also called for an end to Germany’s Schuldkult, or “guilt cult”, a reference to the country’s efforts to remember and learn from the Holocaust.

But such controversy appears to have done nothing to deter voters. “Everything I hear from Nordhausen… suggests that Prophet will be elected not despite such historical revisionist positions, but precisely because of such positions,” Wagner said.

Right-wing extremist attitudes are becoming increasingly widespread in Germany, according to a survey published this week by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Eight percent of Germans can now be classified as having clear right-wing extremist views, compared with two to three percent in previous years, the foundation said.

A win for Prophet would be the latest in a string of successes for the AfD, created in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit before seizing on anger over mass migration to Germany.

The party secured its first district administrator position in June, also in Thuringia, and its first town mayor in July in neighbouring Saxony-Anhalt.

‘Fresh wind’

At the national level, recent opinion polls have put the party on 22 percent, above Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left SPD and only a few points behind the main opposition conservative party.

The AfD’s support is especially strong in Thuringia, where it is polling on around 34 percent according to a recent survey by regional broadcaster MDR.

Thuringia will hold a vote for its regional parliament in September 2024, along with two other former East German states, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Wagner believes there is a real possibility the party could win at least one of these votes.

“I believed that the Germans had learned from their past. But at the moment I am very worried that… such an ideology will again become so widespread in Germany that they will gain majorities,” he said.

At the town hall in Nordhausen, where some voters were already casting postal ballots in person, retired planning technologist Juergen Jungershausen, 75, shared Wagner’s concern.

A far-right mayor “is not a good choice” for Nordhausen, “especially in view of our history”, he said.

But back at the AfD campaign stand, retired car mechanic Gerd Wille, 62, thought a win for Prophet “would be good for Nordhausen”.

“The man is an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs approach things with a certain purpose,” he told AFP.

An AfD mayor would mean “fresh wind — and not just fresh wind, but good wind”, he said.

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GERMAN CITIZENSHIP

German conservatives vow to overturn dual citizenship if re-elected

Foreigners in Germany are waiting on tenterhooks for the introduction of the new dual nationality law on Thursday - but the centre-right CDU and CSU say they would overturn the reform if re-elected next year.

German conservatives vow to overturn dual citizenship if re-elected

“The CDU and CSU will reverse this unsuccessful reform,” Alexander Throm (CDU), spokesperson on domestic policy for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told DPA on Tuesday.

“Dual citizenship must remain the exception and be limited to countries that share our values.”

Throm also criticised the new citizenship law for reducing the amount of time foreigners need to live in the country before naturalising as Germans, describing the new residence requirements as “far too short”.

“After five or even three years, it is not yet possible to determine with certainty whether integration has been successful in the long term,” he stated.

“The recent caliphate demonstrations and the rampant Islamist extremism, often by people with German passports, must be a wake-up call for us all.”

READ ALSO: Which foreign residents are likely to become German after citizenship law change?

Despite vociferous opposition, the alliance between the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party (CSU) was powerless to stop the traffic-light coalition’s citizenship reform passing in both the Bundestag and Bundesrat earlier this year. 

The reform, which permits the holding of multiple passports, lowers residence requirements and removes language hurdles for certain groups, is set to come into force on June 27th. 

But with the CDU and CSU emerging as clear winners in the recent EU parliamentary elections and regularly landing on 30 percent or above in the polls, it’s possible that the party could be on course to re-enter government next year. 

In this situation, the centre-right parties have pledged to try and undo what senior CDU politicians have described as a “dangerous” reform.

“It is not unusual for successive governments to reverse decisions made by the previous government,” Andrea Lindholz, the head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group said in a recent response to a question

“We will maintain our position on this and will continue to strive for a corresponding change.”

READ ALSO: What are citizenship offices around Germany doing to prepare for the new law?

Whether the CDU and CSU can secure enough votes at both state and federal elections to change the law in the future remains to be seen.

The parties may also have to compromise on their plans with any future coalition partner, such as the Greens, Social Democrats (SPD) or Free Democrats (FDP), all of whom support liberal immigration laws and the holding of multiple nationalities. 

‘Citizenship devaluation law’

The CDU and CSU parties, which form a centre-right alliance nicknamed the Union, have long been opposed to dual nationality in Germany.

During their years of governing in a so-called grand coalition with the centre-right Social Democrats (SPD), the parties had regularly made reforms of citizenship one of their red lines, citing the danger of hostile nations influencing Germany from within. 

In a recent parliamentary speech back in January, Throm had slammed the bill as a “citizenship devaluation law” and accused the government of trying to generate a new electorate to win votes.

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder

In comments aimed primarily at Germany’s large Turkish diaspora, the CDU politician claimed that people who had lived in Germany for decades but not taken German citizenship had already chosen their old country over Germany.

The majority of Turks in Germany are also supporters of the authoritarian president Recep Erdogan, he argued.

Responding to the claims, FDP migration expert Ann-Veruschka Jurisch said the opposition was fuelling resentments against migrants by claiming the government was “squandering German citizenship”.

In fact, she argued, the reform has tightened up requirements by ensuring that people who claim benefits and cannot support themselves are unable to become German citizens.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Germany’s citizenship law reform

In addition, the B1 language requirements have only been softened in a few exceptional cases, for example to honour the lifetime achievements of the guest worker generation who had few opportunities when they arrived, Jurisch said. 

If foreigners have committed crimes, the authorities will be able to investigate whether these involved racist or anti-Semitic motives before citizenship is granted, she added. 

With reporting by DPA

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