Germany: Among the V-men

John Green writing in the British left daily Morning Star, looks 
at the collapse of the case to outlaw an extreme right-wing party in 
Germany.

Last month, a scandal erupted in Germany that has, surprisingly, had no 
resonance here [Britain].

After years of pressure from the left and a belated response to the rising 
tide of fascism in the country, the state prosecutor's office filed a case 
for the banning of the neo-nazi National Party of Germany (NPD) in January 
last year.

But, just over three weeks ago, the German Interior Minister Otto Schilly 
had to admit that the case would probably now have to be dropped because 
the main accused, a leading NPD member in North-Rhine Westphalia, was in 
fact an agent working for the constitutional police, the German equivalent 
of Britain's MI5.

The NPD was formed in Hanover in 1964 and was one of the leading neo-nazi 
organisations in the country and even won representation in a number of 
regional parliaments at the last elections.

According to the constitutional defence department, the party's policies 
included hatred of foreigners and anti-semitism.

It supported the moves to officially ban the party on the grounds that it 
was anti-democratic and worked closely with other neo-nazi groups who are 
prepared to use violence.

By the end of 2000, the NPD had around 6500 members, mainly recruited from 
the skinhead and neo-nazi milieu.

The left and many democratic organisations have long called for a ban on 
the party and, once the state prosecutor had filed a case for the official 
banning, many felt that it would send useful signals to all the right-wing 
extremists.

But that hope now lies in ruins.

The main body of evidence against the party was based on the writings and 
speeches by one of the leaders, Wolfgang Frenz, who is a member of the 
party's national executive and deputy leader of the party in North-Rhine 
Westphalia.

He is the editor of German Future, which is the mouthpiece of right-
wing extremists in the region, and author of a fundamentalist tract on the 
state of anti-semitism in Germany today.

Last week a bombshell was dropped when Interior Minister Schilly was 
obliged to admit at a press conference that Frenz was in fact a "V-man" and 
had been working for the constitutional police for several years.

It would appear also that much of the cash that he received for his work on 
behalf of the state also went into the coffers of the neo-nazi party.

The police and secret services in Germany obtain most of their information 
from so-called "V-people" — informants — who are known on the streets as 
spies and often belong to the criminal world.

For their information, they gain immunities from the law-enforcement 
agencies and are paid cash.

As soon as one of these "informants" commits an offence or becomes an 
active rabble-rouser, the connections with the police are supposed to be 
terminated.

The NPD clearly feels itself vindicated by the revelations and strengthened 
in its struggle to prevent the ban.

In North-Rhine Westphalia, the number of officially registered attacks on 
foreigners and right-wing extremist incidents rose from 946 in 1999 to 2223 
in 2000.

This amply demonstrates the rising tendency of neo-nazi activity.The 
region's Interior Ministry, however, maintains that it sees "no rising 
tendency".

The police seem unable to solve most of these cases and the perpetrators 
usually go unpunished.

On top of this, the forces of law and order invariably attempt to dismiss 
such incidents as non-ideological and having nothing to do with organised 
racism.

According to the authorities, the burning down of an immigrant hostel is, 
for instance, dismissed as a prank by silly youngsters, notorious and 
violent neo-nazis are ignored and a homeless foreigner's killing is the 
work of a "drunken individual".

In another notorious case of the burning down of a house occupied by 
immigrants in Solingen in 1993, the subsequent trial showed that the 
instigators had been working closely with a V-man. And this isn't 
exceptional.

In Mecklenburg, a V-man was outed as an arsonist who'd attacked hostels 
housing foreigners.

In Erfurt, one of the most notorious nazis in the region was revealed to be 
a V-man.

The latter, too, reported proudly how he'd used his agent's payments to 
build up right-wing structures in the town.

In Potsdam, a man who had served a sentence for attempted murder was 
recruited by the constitutional police as an agent.

Of course, the police don't just use agents to infiltrate right-wing 
organisations. Only recently in the party of Democratic Socialism's (PDS) 
headquarters in Berlin, a former GDR security officer had his cover blown 
as a V-man now working for the constitutional police.

Whether the security forces in Germany are simply incompetent or indeed 
riddled with racists and neo-nazis is a moot point.

Only a thorough investigation of their personnel, recruitment strategies 
and goals will reveal the truth.

This is what the PDS is now demanding. And the PDS, the Greens, the SPD and 
sections of the Christian Democrats are now demanding that the case for a 
ban on the NPD should go ahead.