Meinung
Informal fascism
The system of oppression that is taking root in Germany is hardly reminiscent of Nazi fascism. But it pursues the same goal, only by different means. Only when you recognize these means do you have a chance to resist.
By Dagmar Henn
This is a moment that comes up more often when talking to people in or from home. It's not all that bad, they say, and everyone knows individual examples of people who still travel back and forth between Russia and Germany, or who have not been prosecuted in any way so far.
And then there is the other side – dozens of completely exaggerated criminal proceedings, propaganda of a force that makes Goebbels' efforts seem like small etudes, and a complete loss of any kind of legal certainty. It is like looking at a spinning coin and trying to determine which of the two visible sides is the "true" one.
For almost three years now, it has been possible to watch as Interior Minister Faeser extinguishes the last remnants of the rule of law and democratic rights with ever new attempts; without shying away from recourse to historically unambiguous models, as the amendment to the civil service law showed, which borrowed more than just small from the notorious "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of 1933. One must actually warn everyone to take on the entirety of Faeser's Elaborate, if possible spread over several days; at once is extremely harmful to well-being.
And yet a "It's not so bad" is a common response. Yes, even by those who know the story better. Because there are no hordes of flags marching through the streets, because hundreds of arrests are not taking place, because the current ideology relies on many things, but not on the nation. And it is still possible to persuade that the right-wing danger is the AfD.
But what if, after almost a hundred years, the repetition follows a different model? When the goal is no longer (or not primarily) physical subjugation and destruction, but psychological subjugation? In other words, a kind of "informal fascism" that reaches the same depth of oppression but relies on completely different measures? Which essentially serves the same interests, but has drawn the lessons from earlier models at many points?
The striking thing is – and everyone can check this for themselves – that the conversational behaviour of most people now corresponds to the historical model. You think about who you can talk to about what, even among friends and family. Which, of course, makes any form of contact with like-minded people more difficult, because it is difficult to find them. A condition, by the way, that moved in with Corona and has not disappeared since; and all this without overcrowded prisons, simply because the pressure on personal relationships, but also on employment relationships, for example, is great enough that most people do not want to take unnecessary risks.
Which would have brought us to the first point which explains the disparity described above between the direct experience of the broad masses and the individual, extremely exaggerated procedures. Anyone who wants to intimidate through physical violence needs a broad spread, he needs an omnipresence of violence. When it comes to psychological violence, this would be counterproductive, because one of the strongest forms of psychological violence is the creation of insecurity.
The mere fact of not having been taken by any measures so far does not provide a basis for feeling safe in the absence of any possibility of developing the rules on the basis of which these measures are taken. Of course, this does not apply indefinitely and only works as long as the density is not too high, but at the moment it works excellently. One only has to look at who is willing to reproduce the formula of the "unprovoked Russian war of aggression".
But to this persecution on record, devoid of any logic, there is another level that is continuously being expanded. Let us remember Nancy Faeser's presentation of a "package of measures against the right" in February. At the time, she said:
"Those who mock the state must have to deal with a strong state. This means consistently punishing every violation of the law. This can be done not only by the police, but also by regulatory authorities such as the restaurant or trade inspectorate."
This fits perfectly with the extended rights of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, especially in the category "We call everyone". Translated into real life, this means that in addition to the above-mentioned exaggerated criminal proceedings, which are to a certain extent only the icing on the cake, basically everything can be instrumentalized, from health insurance to tax audits to account freezes. And at least the latter is happening more and more often.
The problem: Anyone who becomes a victim of this kind of measure usually finds it difficult to perceive it as political repression. And it is even more difficult to convey this to others as such. If you are on trial for a slogan at a demonstration and are charged with incitement to hatred because you shouted "From the River to the Sea", this is recognizable to everyone as a political act and an equally political reaction.
But if, for example, a tax audit comes to the company because of the same slogan, the job is gone, the health insurance company is seized or loans are terminated, many people initially think: "There must be something to it." Instead of being able to get the necessary political support, you are left alone with your problems, no matter how far these problems go. And they can go very far if, for example, the youth welfare office is involved.
This procedure is not absolutely new either, just think of the case of Gustl Mollath, who had to spend years in a psychiatric ward because he had stepped too close to a bank. The innovation is that in the past, if it could be proven, such things were illegal; but Faeser's legislative changes have ensured that it is no longer so. And Madame Faeser is proud of it, too. But only a few have the stamina of Gustl Mollath, who was innocent in a psychiatric ward for eight years and did not break down because of it.
What triggered Mollath's problems at the time were criminal charges that he had filed against the Hypo-Vereinsbank for money laundering and tax evasion. In the proceedings against him, the judge in charge refused to deal with this issue at all; the psychiatric experts treated this as paranoia. However, as later research revealed, these crimes had actually taken place.
The trick of portraying a completely rational position that the government is uncomfortable with as a mental disorder was used on an almost epic scale during the Corona measures and has never really been deactivated since. Basically, one of the mysteries of these years remained why the opponents of the measures were so brutally declared "tinfoil hats" and "corona deniers", why they went so far as to invent the "pandemic of the unvaccinated".
But if you think about how a fascism that relies on psychological rather than physical annihilation could function, you can find some differences in the "technical" prerequisites. In order to implement the kind of repressive measures that took place between 1933 and 1945, it was enough to actively involve a comparatively small part of the population. This changed somewhat with the war in the East, when at least the police were fully involved in the crimes, but the fact is that there were comparatively many niches in which active participation was not required. Basically, the police and the judiciary are enough.
But this system has risks, as the Reichstag fire trial proved, for example. Procedures such as those proposed by Faeser existed primarily in the area of the Nuremberg Race Laws, and there were still laws that could be read, no matter how much they perverted the law.
What is currently being built up in Germany and has long been applied is completely outside the law. It is repeatedly emphasized, not only by Faeser, that it is a matter of intervention "below the threshold of criminal liability", i.e. action against completely legal acts that are actually protected as the exercise of a fundamental right – no, much more frequent statements, because it no longer comes to the level of the act. The instrumentalization of everything as a means of persecution leaves neither the possibility of legal resistance, since no visible, documented state action takes place, nor the possibility of naming it for what it is, namely political persecution.
But in order to be able to build up such a system, it is not enough to have security organs and the judiciary under control. Far more willing contributors are needed, in the tax offices, the health insurance companies, the youth welfare offices, in all authorities and institutions you can imagine. This requires a completely different density of propaganda. The opportunity to simply look the other way when what you have to think is served must be taken.
The advantage is, of course, that you save the costs for prisons and worse including guards and you prevent any solidarity even between the victims, which at the same time significantly increases the effectiveness. A quote from Brecht comes to mind:
"There are many ways to kill. You can stick a knife in your stomach, deprive you of bread, not cure you of an illness, put you in a bad apartment, torture you to death through work, drive you to suicide, lead you to war, etc. Only a few of them are prohibited in our state."
And now one more point: a state that would seek to oppress its citizens with such a covert, irregular system would need very specific information – it would have to be able to distinguish those who stubbornly insist on their positions from those who give in to comparatively weak pressure. This information is already available. In the form of vaccination data. Even if this data was not collected for this specific purpose, because all you had to do was pump a few billions into the financial system, since then this idea has certainly already appeared in someone in the enormous apparatus of the German services.
It does not necessarily have to be the case that the Corona number was a planned run-up that was intended to create the basis for being able to resort to completely different measures afterwards. But many of the "side effects" of this phase would prove useful for the installation of such informal fascism. The institutions, from the judiciary to medicine, are already disciplined and can now be used for more or less anything with the appropriate stimuli.
The part of the population that was intimidated (or even enthusiastically involved) is, as has already been clearly seen, predominantly willing to cooperate with regard to "right-wing" or "anti-Semitism". However, because Corona conveyed the idea that "the others" were a source of existential danger, even if all those affected by these new forms of persecution personally took the step of not perceiving this as some form of personal fate or personal failure, any support would remain limited to the circle of the "resistant".
But in order to actually withstand these forms of all-encompassing attacks, support networks are needed that do not break down under the slightest pressure. The construct of "contact debt", which has been so popular in recent years, unfolds its main effect here; its message is not that in fact a person X who has been seen with a person Y must therefore think the same thing; his message is that anyone seen with a "suspicious" person is in the crosshairs themselves.
It is conceivable that this informal fascism is only in its start-up phase. But it is also conceivable that far more is already happening than is even publicly perceptible. Not only because the "official" media do not report on it, but also because there is still a lack of knowledge to perceive surprising hostility on the part of various institutions as political action (not to mention that the subsidiary intelligence services such as Correctiv are still involved). However, the statements made not only by Faeser after the state elections in the east give rise to fears that this apparatus, if it has not yet been fully activated, will soon be activated.
And this should not be taken lightly. To destroy a person existentially, it does not take much more than an account blocking, a termination of an apartment and a credit bureau entry. Without the use of weapons or barbed wire-fenced barracks, but no less hostile and no less threatening.
More on the subject - Faeser's Reichstag fire: The step into all-round persecution
RT DE strives for a broad spectrum of opinions. Guest articles and opinion articles do not have to reflect the point of view of the editorial team.
By blocking RT, the EU aims to silence a critical, non-pro-Western source of information. And not only with regard to the Ukraine war. Access to our website has been made more difficult, several social media have blocked our accounts. It is now up to all of us whether journalism can continue to be conducted in Germany and the EU beyond mainstream narratives. If you like our articles, feel free to share them wherever you are active. This is possible because the EU has not banned our work or the reading and sharing of our articles. Note: However, with the amendment to the "Audiovisual Media Services Act" on 13 April, Austria has introduced a change in this regard, which may also affect private individuals. Therefore, we ask you not to share our posts on social media in Austria for the time being until the facts have been clarified.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Fast and reliable to the news from RT DE:
