Germany After Magdeburg: The AfD‘s Call for Massive Street Protests

A reflection on maximizing tension and street violence against the backdrop of modern European history: Is the far-right’s strategy working?

The knee-jerk reaction of Germany’s far-right, in many ways proto-fascist AfD party co-leader Tino Chrupalla to call for mass protests in Magdeburg after the Christmas market attacks was predictable enough.

After all, it is right in line with the strategy of maximizing tensions that extreme political groups of both the right and the left use as a tactic of choice.

Chrupalla’s ominous 1930s precedent

German Nazis in the 1930s proclaimed “First conquer the streets, then the state.” It worked for Hitler. And for Stalin — from far-away Moscow, he ordered German Communists to attack the Nazis with equal violence.

Under that pincer movement of street violence, the efforts of Germany’s police chiefs, at the time still often appointed by Social Democrats, to maintain order collapsed. Hitler took over as German business leaders saw him as the only man to restore order.

France’s “la rue” – always a concern

In France, the Elysée Palace always keeps a nervous eye on ‘La Rue” – the street. From the French Revolution onward all the way to the May 1968 upheavals, the French state tottered when Paris lost control of the street.

Always keen on triggering upheaval, the far-left French demagogue Jean-Luc Mélenchon has recently been trying to destabilize the French state by holding demonstrations calling for President Macron to stand down.

Never mind that each successive demonstration has mobilized fewer and fewer participants since mid-Summer. Instead, it was a classic parliamentary maneuver of a vote of no confidence in Macron’s hapless Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, that finally saw Macron humiliated — not a street demo.

Paradoxically, in an ominous replay of the 1930’s of the Hitler-Stalin pincer movement in Germany, it was ultimately the far-right Marine Le Pen who decided to ally with the far-left anti-Jewish Mélenchon. She created a Black-Red alliance in the National Assembly that forced Macron to fire Barnier and name a new Prime Minister, the eternal centrist François Bayrou.

Invented in 1970s Italy

The strategy of maximizing tension was articulated by Italian political scientists during Italy’s so-called “Anni di piombo” (= the years of lead).

That period spanned the period between 1968 and 1980, when the Red Brigades on the far-left and different neo-fascist armed revolutionary groups committed terrorist atrocities in their attempt to try and wake up an anti-state fervor in Italy’s post-war population.

Chrupalla sees his Magdeburg moment

Now Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of the AfD far-right German Party that has just been endorsed by Elon Musk, has promised to turn Magdeburg into a European center of extremist political mobilization.

He may have to modify his demand as new facts emerge on the man who drove his car into a Christmas market crowd, killing five and injuring more than a hundred. He is a Saudi immigrant psychiatrist who has lived in Germany for 20 years.

He has posted endless attacks on Islamists on social media, endorsed the AfD and made the same accusations as Chrupalla about the laxity of the German authorities’ handling of immigration after Angela Merkel’s disastrous decision to allow more than a million Syrians to enter Germany in 2015.

However, he was not part of that refugee wave. Indeed, it may soon turn out that the real culprit is the laxity of German authorities, as well as the hospital he worked at, to pick up on any evident warning signals.

An impossible temptation to resist

The temptation to use murderous attacks linked to an immigrant is evidently impossible to resist for today’s European far-right.

In England in September, it was Nigel Farage and the far-right who did exactly what Chrupalla plans for Magdeburg now.

The UK’s recent wave of fury

The trigger in the UK this fall was a young man, born to Rwandan asylum seekers in England, who killed two girls in Southport in north England and stabbed others.

Farage has been widely condemned as he alleged the police were hiding information about the killings. His brand of conspiracy populism whipped up protests.

It soon led to far-right inflamed thugs trying to burn down a hostel with asylum seekers cowering in fear inside — as well as damaging mosques and attacking the police violently.

Local people came together

It did not work as the UK’s hard-right imagined it would. Local people came out to clean up the streets and repair the mosques.

There was no sympathy in England for violent attacks leading to unarmed police being hospitalized. Big counter-demonstrations were held, organized by churches and local labor unions.

The UK’s message for Germany: Swift retribution

To deal with the challenge to civilized rule, UK authorities also showed a degree of resolve that should provide a template for Germany. Special courts were set up and judges provided swift rulings.

They sent riot organizers — including football-type hooligans — to prison for up to ten years. Shorter sentences were imposed for using Twitter/X and Telegram to announce locations for far-right assemblies.

Right-wing commentators in the UK have tried to turn these sad morons into martyrs — but it is not working.

And that Elon Musk tweeted that England was descending into “civil war” — just as he is now endorsing the AfD — shows that he has no respect for the rule of law.

Farage tamed temporarily thanks to parliamentary accountability

At least Nigel Farage got the message from the real street quickly — he shut up and kept his head down.

It also matters that he is now an MP, so can he attacked in the Commons for whipping up race-hate by articulate MPs which he has never faced before in TV or radio interviews with fawning BBC interviewers.

Gerontocrat pseudo-revolutionaries

Judges moved swiftly to imprison or fine more than 100 far-right thugs in the month after the racist anti-immigrant riots.

As to the fervent revolutionary characters of the individuals involved, note this: Many were older men up to the age of 70 — the same folks who were the backbone of the Brexit plebiscite vote in 2016.

Those who had tweeted out addresses of hostels where asylum seekers were staying were also imprisoned or fined. Right-wing influencers tried but failed to win sympathy for those sanctioned by the state. Farage and other xenophobic political leaders did not take the bait and just kept quiet.

Conclusion

The issue of immigration, Islam and xenophobia is the same all over Europe — and has provided political oxygen to the leaders of 21st century far-right parties.

But compared to the 1930s or even 1980s, modern Europeans know that turning streets and town squares into centers of violent action against the police who defend local communities creates a political environment in which everyone is a loser.

Tino Chrupalla may be about to learn that lesson.

By Denis MacShane