German Racism: An Old or New Disease

Since the unification of the two Germanies, the new entity which has emerged, or been revived, has been riven by racial intolerance and violence. Various explanations have been offered for this phenomenon: Germany’s racist past, the current economic crisis, the peculiar conditions of East Germany. There has also been an attempt to dismiss the racists as small and unimportant group of trouble makers. The present outburst of racism and neo-Nazism is a complex phenomenon and should be attributed to a multiplicity of factors. The first part of this paper examines the roots of German racism, from the colonial era to the present time. The attitude of the working classes and leftist parties towards the colonial and racist question receives special attention. The second part analyzes latest racism in the former German Democratic Republic, the possible reasons for its existence and the factors that have brought it to the surface. The third part examines the racist outbreak in Germany not as an isolated phenomenon but as part and parcel of a general wave of racism and neo Fascism that is sweeping over Europe, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet block.