The Brown Menace

A new threat... and an old one, too.

Late last year, Germany had to face an uncomfortable reality: Over the course of a decade, a neo-Nazi terrorist cell was alleged to have crisscrossed the country perpetrating bomb attacks, murders and bank robberies. Nine apparent immigrants (eight Turkish, one Greek) and a police officer were shot dead while up to 14 bank robberies are said to have funded the cell. Though the police quickly connected the murder of the immigrants – the same gun was used in each – the public suggestion was that the victims were themselves somehow involved in criminality. The penny finally dropped in November after two members of the cell, fearing capture after their final bank raid, killed themselves and a third blew up their shared flat. There, the police discovered the gun.

Cries rung out throughout German media and politics – how could this have happened? Criticism soon focused on those responsible for Germany’s ‘constitutional protection’. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution administers special, but separate, branches of law enforcement tasked with combating threats from far right, far left, Islamist and other groups* considered a threat to the constitution – politically as well as violently. Their role is to ‘protect democracy’ through a combination of undercover agents, bugging and – allegedly – computer hacking. Despite having a wealth of information on the far right at their disposal, nobody joined the dots until it was far too late.

The German government approved the first step to stop this happening again last week: a centralised neo-Nazi database to be shared among law enforcement. A full federal and state enquiry will follow.

While I shouldn’t need to point out that far-right extremism isn’t new to Germany and Europe, its recent evolution into violent terror has caught governments off guard. The government response – targeted surveillance, subterfuge and record keeping of people selected on the basis of their politics** – is a potential threat to fundamental freedom much older than this latest brand of violent racism. As this new database is only the first step in a potential reform of the security services – care should be taken when choosing the next.

Not that the British Government is any better. They don’t even announce which groups they’re tracking...

*Also includes Scientology because they ‘reject democracy’.  The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has put its 2010 Annual Report up in English; it’s an interesting read.

**To their credit, there is a further limit in scope. The FDP pushed to ensure only those on the far right who are violent agitators (or have links to them) will be placed in the database. It will, however, only record those associated with far right violence – an odd condition.