REPCO

MARTINA NAPOLITANO: In 2022, your first fiction book came out, Wir waren wie Brüder (We Were Like Brothers). It is not yet available in English but was recently published and warmly received in Italian). It describes the childhood and adolescence of a group of boys born in the 1980s (or late 1970s) that experience the end of the "two Germanies" and the complex process of reunification, which you delineate mainly at a social (and also economic) level. These passages are described through details either relevant for the main characters or as simple elements in the background as the years pass by. It is interesting to note that you also insert real episodes, such as the xenophobic riots in Rostock, that concretely situate the narration in the year 1992. Yet, as the context changes, people change too. How do you explain the rapid spreading of extreme "fronts" within the German society of the 1990s, not only among adolescents, but among adults too, as some parents in the book are described as expressing rather intolerant ideas?

 

DANIEL SCHULZ: The socialist GDR society, from which the protagonist of the book comes, is a successor society to the National Socialist dictatorship, just like the West German society of the Federal Republic of Germany. And both societies failed in their own way in the confrontation with National Socialism. In the GDR, anti-fascism served primarily to legitimize the power of the ruling SED party. The constitution stated that fascism had been defeated, so there could be no right-wing extremism and no racism in the GDR, although of course it existed. The first pogrom-like hunt for foreigners after the end of the Second World War took place in the GDR, in Erfurt in 1975. At that time, several hundred Erfurt contract workers from Algeria were hunted down throughout the city for several days. The racist content of these attacks was not mentioned by the police and secret service; if you look at the files, there is something about "hooliganism". The GDR authorities depoliticized the violence of right-wing extremists and portrayed it as pure youth violence. And if they couldn't hide it, they claimed that Nazis had infiltrated from the west or something similar. What I mean by that is that the protagonist of the book sees the right-wing extremist acts of violence and racist attitudes as something new because he was just a child who knew nothing about the GDR. But in reality, he is experiencing continuity. This is made clear in the book in the racist language that existed even before the 1989 revolution. And on the sidelines, in the background, there are fathers who were already right-wing extremists during the GDR era.

 

Unemployment and social upheaval after the 1989 revolution certainly contributed to the escalation of right-wing extremist violence at that time. But this violence is not a new phenomenon in East Germany. Other factors that contributed to this include an amnesty for political prisoners in the GDR, including many right-wing extremists. The fight against independent anti-fascist groups in the GDR by the FDJ youth group, the secret service and the police was done because these groups represented competition for the SED and its monopoly on anti-fascism. There was also the rapid unification of right-wing extremist movements from East and West Germany, as well as the so-called “asylum compromise” of 1993, in which an alliance of the CDU, SPD and FDP tightened German asylum law following the serious riots in Hoyerswerda, Rostock-Lichtenhagen and elsewhere. In other words, they punished the victims of racist violence in those years and not the perpetrators. Non-white people had to leave East German cities, and the perpetrators were far too rarely prosecuted by the justice system. Ultimately, politics, the judiciary and the police rewarded and thereby encouraged violent right-wing extremist protests. We can still find this pattern of rewarding and encouraging right-wing extremist violence in East Germany today, including in the wave of violence against refugees from Syria after 2015, and in the protests against the COVID-19 measures that were largely dominated by right-wing extremists.

 

Your main character somehow manages to stay "sane" among this social "malady" rapidly spreading and tearing people apart. What is keeping him "safe", besides Mariam, the girl with Georgian origins that he’s in love with?

 

This is one of several questions I ask readers in the book by rarely revealing what the protagonist is thinking. The first-person perspective and the namelessness of the character are intended to help readers put themselves in the character's shoes and ask themselves: what would I have thought? And above all: what would I have done? Would I have done anything at all? You know, when I was writing the book, there were so many Western Europeans on social media who said that if they were faced with a fascist dictatorship, they would definitely do the right thing. Not keep their mouths shut like their grandparents. I wanted to challenge that and give readers the physical feeling that fascism is standing in front of them, in the form of small, nasty street fascism, and ask them: well, my friend, what are you going to do now? Because otherwise you can't really understand the power and violent seduction of fascism. Fascism is much more of a feeling than an argument.

 

There are a few clues in the book, though. The protagonist's family is not ideal, but it seems to function better than others. He grew up with stories of honourable communists who gave their lives in the fight against fascism. His father is an officer and the protagonist seems to be fascinated by this, perhaps he has retained something like a childlike understanding of "soldier's honour", that is, not attacking anyone weaker. Perhaps it is also because his mother is in the church and the protagonist has an interest in Jesus. Perhaps, and this is a real possibility, two other very authoritarian institutions, namely his very strict church and the National People's Army, interestingly protect him from the authoritarian, racist temptation that others succumb to. Or rather, what the protagonist draws from these institutions. But we don't know for sure.

In any case, it is not Marxist theories that save the protagonist, nor a left-wing Antifa group. I didn't want to make it that easy for the protagonist, or for those who read the book. I am a leftist, but I do not write propaganda.

Today, the news regarding German society and politics are always stressing the relevant role of far-right ideas and intolerance within society (embodied by the AfD, but not only). However, in the book you deftly illustrate that this is not something that originated in these late years. In the 1990s – you seem to say – there were all these signals indicating that this was coming. Do you think that people simply decided to turn a blind eye back then, thinking it was just a short-term consequence of the reunification process? And how significant was Merkel's long (and rather stable) governing period for the strengthening of the belief that German society had found a solution to these internal debates – debates that simply rose up again after Merkel?

In Germany, many people who are black, disabled, poor or homeless are now asking whether the so-called “baseball bat” years of the 1990s were ever over. They say it is more the perception of white and privileged people that this violence has taken a break. I would still say that there were quieter phases with less obvious violence. But these ended with the right-wing extremist mobilization against accommodation for Syrian refugees from 2015 onwards, during the Merkel era. As I have already tried to show, the reasons lie structurally in both German societies and their inadequate confrontation with the Nazi era, with racism. And yes, in times of crisis like in the 1990s, there are always more important things to do than dealing with fascism.

However, we are also noticing today that dealing with racism and right-wing extremism is always difficult for many, perhaps most people – no matter what time. Because you always have to question what advantages you yourself derive from a racist society. Because you have to ask yourself to what extent you expect to gain an advantage when fascist politics are implemented. Look at the election campaigns that were conducted in Germany before the three state elections in September. Leading politicians from left-wing parties such as the SPD and the Greens ran racist election campaigns on the backs of refugees and migrants in order to save themselves in parliament. The conservatives, i.e. the CDU and the CSU, did so as well. These democratic parties decided to make refugees and migrants the main problem in our society and hoped to generate votes by doing so. But when you point this out to these politicians, they react with insults. If our politicians don't see that they benefit from racism, why should others?

Often you don't have to offer people much to get them to join in some kind of fascism. Often it's enough to promise them that they are part of the majority, that they won't be bothered. This deal is enough for the protagonist in the book. And most people hate being confronted with the fact that they are so easy to buy.

Often we hear that the Ossis [people from East Germany – editor’s note] are to blame for all the intolerance and far-right ideologies. How do you answer these voices?

This is a popular game in Germany. People in the west say that all that is needed is to rebuild the wall around East Germany and the Nazi problem will be solved. People in the east say that right-wing extremism is only so great because of the right-wing extremist parties that come from the west. People do not like to be confronted with the Nazi within and around them. That is why they push them as far away as possible. In Germany from west to east and back again. This game even happens when right-wing extremists seriously injure or even kill someone. The focus is often not on mourning the dead, but on defence. Who is to blame? Where did the neo-Nazis kill more people, in East or West Germany? But guilt is an uninteresting and unproductive feeling in this context. Responsibility should be the order of the day. An attempt to confront things, to reflect, to do better. And that would have to happen in the east and the west.

If not politicians, then why have German intellectuals and cultural actors been silent in front of the gradual spreading of extreme ideologies within society? Maybe, they did not want to be silent, but there was nobody to hear them?

There are enough scientists, writers and journalists who say this. And some of the loudest of them are East Germans. Because we know the racist and authoritarian nature of the GDR and the society that followed it. These are well-known intellectuals such as Anne Rabe, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, Wolgang Biermann, Manja Präkels, Patrice Poutrus, Katharina Warda and yes, me too. But we are warning everyone that right-wing extremism and racism are not only so strong because of the neo-Nazis. But because democrats and "normal people" react so weakly to it, allow themselves to be seduced, downplay the danger and partly adopt the demands of the fascists. Most people don't like to hear that. Is it different in Italy? It would be nice if it was. In any case, the major television programmes in Germany mostly feature intellectuals who do not see racism in German society as a major and structural problem. They are the ones who blame economic developments alone for Nazi attitudes. They say something along the lines of: if a German is doing badly, if he doesn't have enough money, then he has to become a Nazi so that politicians will listen to him. As if it were genetic and not a decision. There is a space between stimulus and reaction, as Viktur Fraenkel said. There is a space between understandable anger at society, at politics, and an electoral decision. And in this space you make a decision. But many people want to ignore this truth. These purely economic explanations, which often come from leftists, distract from the personal responsibility of those who choose fascist politics. They deny that most AfD voters are not poor. They deny that there were and are right-wing extremists in governments in relatively rich Scandinavian countries too. Anything to avoid talking about what fascism has to do with you. That's why I wrote a book about opportunism. Opportunists are the largest group in any fascist system. Without them, it doesn't work.

You are a journalist, and this is your first fictional book. Did you turn to fiction because you perceived it as a useful tool to reflect upon topics you have extensively covered in news and investigations, such as far-right ideologies? How much of this book is fiction and how much is fact?

I wrote the novel because literature is a house with more rooms than journalistic texts. There is also room for ambivalence, for unreliable narration, for rumours, for the tenderness of people who you as a leftist should and perhaps should despise. You cannot understand fascism, especially the filthy and dirty kinds from the street, if you only understand fascism as something evil, made by evil people. Fascism is an offer, a promise of profit: come to us, we offer you tenderness, brotherhood, belonging. And this offer can come from very friendly people. The question is: when are they no longer friendly? When you talk back too much. To whom are they almost never friendly? To queer people, to black people, to disabled people.

The book has autobiographical elements, but it is not an autobiography. You know, in the book you notice how little people talk. Between the adults and the children, but also between the children themselves. But these are still lexicons full of more words than were actually spoken back then. If it were an autobiography, many pages would have to be blank and then they would just say "Hmm" or the sound of a man grunting or nothing at all. Back then, what happened was rarely discussed, except by drunken, unemployed men who met in their garages to drink more. I verbalized what was unspoken, translated it into action, sometimes even in my thoughts. The way I tell it is true, but it didn't happen like that.

There are environments, strata, classes in which, in my opinion, less is said and more is done. An ideology of action, but it is not an ideology. It is the way in which things are done. Talking is considered effeminate. Snobbish. Anyone who uses too many words is from the city, went to high school, is someone who is aloof. That may make it more difficult for such material to become literature, but you certainly know that better than I do. In any case, I have tried to make literature out of such a world, to universalize it, so that it can resonate in other places like Italy. That is a betrayal of this silent world focused on action. This is not an autobiography.

As a journalist, you are also covering news from Ukraine at the moment. How is Ukraine's invasion impacting German society and politics? How are far-right "fronts" reacting to it?

Yes, I was just in Ukraine, including a town 15 kilometres from the front in Donbas. When I was there, Russian artillery shells always hit about five to ten kilometres away from us. It was like living on an island, the forest was burning all around us.

In Germany, the question of how we should deal with this war is one of the most polarizing issues in politics. Germany's strongest parties, the SPD and the Union, have long been on friendly terms with Russia. They did not want to take Russia's threats of violence seriously. They did not want to block their own economy's opportunities in Russia, they wanted cheap gas and oil from Russia. This was always more important to German politicians than the self-determination of the people in Ukraine or other former Soviet states. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, this changed very slowly, but if the SPD wanted to, it could have reversed this course sooner rather than later. Germany has allowed itself to be bought by Russia and would like Moscow to do so again.

Most right-wing extremist parties are on Russia's side, and the AfD certainly is. For right-wing extremists, Russia is the projection of an ideal state: a strong man who regulates everything and who does not have to worry about the objections of minorities or the rights of women. Gay, lesbian and trans life is effectively banned, and conflicts are resolved with the military if necessary. This is the wet dream of many German right-wing extremists. They know nothing about Russia itself and its internal contradictions; as I said, it is a projection. Incidentally, this also applies to East Germany, even if something different is always claimed. During the GDR era, most people had an ambivalent relationship with the Soviet Union. Even many people in the SED recognized the Soviet Union and its people as political winners, but despised them culturally. If no one was listening, you could hear a lot of racist things in the GDR about the occupying soldiers from the Soviet Union, how less blonde they were and how much darker their skin colour was, and more. They were described as little more than animals, not even people living in filth. The living conditions of the Soviet soldiers in the GDR were also hard and dirty. People knew that. But many people constructed racist prejudices from it. To turn this into an alleged love of East Germans for Russia that has grown over decades, as the AfD is spreading, is simply ridiculous. No, Russia is simply a construction that suits right-wing and some left-wing authoritarian populists well.

 

This interview was originally published in Italian on the Meridiano 13 website and social media channels.

Daniel Schulz is a German journalist and author based in Berlin.

Martina Napolitano holds a PhD in Slavic Studies and is lecturer for Russian language and translation at the University of Trieste. In her research and writing she particularly focuses on late Soviet and contemporary Russian-language culture. She is a translator, series editor at the Bottega Errante publishing house, and president of Meridiano 13.