The Nazis Change Their Uniforms
Different Logo, Same Old Game Plan
September 9, 2015 - Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS was one of the greatest games ever played—the Boston Red Sox evened up the series against their rival, the New York Yankees, and got one step closer to becoming the first team to ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. What made this game so special was that for 7 innings, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling was struggling to throw with a torn tendon in his right ankle. Last minute medical efforts sutured the injury in several places, and as the game went on, blood started to leach through his sock. The infamous “bloody sock game” was a one-of-a-kind moment in baseball history. Many future pitching performances would be compared to it, but there was only one real mccoy.
Our story last week covered the scandal that erupted over Schilling’s ill-conceived tweet that compared Islam, terrorism, and WWII-era Nazis. This week, we looked around the world for actual neo-Nazi groups to compare to Adolf Hitler’s party.
There are a number of political parties in Europe that have been linked to Neo-Nazi groups. However, they don’t wave swastikas or call themselves Nazis, in many cases because many European countries have banned those practices. In fact, many of these parties will deny any involvement with hate groups and often label their opponents Nazis. This is why Nazi comparisons are so problematic—if both sides of the argument call each other fascists, the truth becomes a lot more difficult to decipher.
Our story last week covered the scandal that erupted over Schilling’s ill-conceived tweet that compared Islam, terrorism, and WWII-era Nazis. This week, we looked around the world for actual neo-Nazi groups to compare to Adolf Hitler’s party.
There are a number of political parties in Europe that have been linked to Neo-Nazi groups. However, they don’t wave swastikas or call themselves Nazis, in many cases because many European countries have banned those practices. In fact, many of these parties will deny any involvement with hate groups and often label their opponents Nazis. This is why Nazi comparisons are so problematic—if both sides of the argument call each other fascists, the truth becomes a lot more difficult to decipher.
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Current NPD Member of EU Parliament Udo Voigt
Let’s start our search in Germany itself. The NPD, a neo-Nazi party, received over 9% of the vote in 2004. This proved to be a short-lived moment of popularity, though, as the NPD is not currently represented in the German Bundestag. However, former NPD leader, Udo Voigt, was elected as a German representative to the European Parliament in Brussels (where he currently sits).
Heading north, to Scandinavia, you won’t find any Nazi insignia at a rally of the Sweden Democrats because they expressly forbid their members from wearing swastikas at party meetings in 1996. Of course, not everyone got the memo—just 2 years ago, one of their elected members was photographed wearing a swastika arm band and was forced to resign. Currently, the party controls about 25% of Sweden’s government. They refute allegations of Nazism, and say that their recent electoral success comes mainly from their fierce opposition to immigration (particularly from Muslim countries).
Anti-immigration is, in fact, the rallying cry for many of Europe’s most extreme political parties. Austria’s Freedom Party (the FPO) has regularly garnered between 21-27% support in the polls, and has elected 4 members of the European Parliament. It regularly bemoans European immigration policies as too lax—one party leader says that letting Muslim and African immigrants into the continent would make the EU a “conglomerate of negroes.”
In the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom (the PVV) is led by a man named Geert Wilders. He was quoted as saying “I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam.” In 2011, he asked voters “Do you want more or less Moroccans in this city and this country?” The crowd chanted less, and he announced that that’s why he should be elected. The PVV has 3 members in the European Parliament.
Lest you think Islamaphobia and anti-immigration are the only issues concerning these parties, anti-Semitism is not far behind. The Hungarian Jobbik party has elected 3 members to the European Parliament and the party’s deputy leader has suggested that the country “tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian Parliament and the Hungarian government, who, indeed, pose a national security risk to Hungary.”
Determining how many EU Parliament members these parties have elected may be the best way to figure out how extreme these parties actually are. The EU Parliament is a 751-member body that is composed of 9 voting blocks. Each block is like an international political party, where members of multiple nations vote as one on issues ranging from immigration policies to financial matters.
Visual Representation of current EU Parliament. Black dots on right indicate Marine Le Pen's Europe of Nations and Freedom Group. Gray dots on far right indicate independent members that are considered too extreme and have not been able to join a group.
The newest block was started by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right French party, the Front National. Le Pen is riding a groundswell of anti-immigrant popularity and has started the Europe of Nations and Freedom block in the EU Parliament. Le Pen invited 38 members to join the group, including members from the Austrian FPO, the Dutch PVV, and the Italian Lega Nord (the Lega Nord is often accused of racism—recently, a deputy minister said that the first black Italian member of the Italian Parliament has “the features of an orangutan.”) Le Pen, however, did not allow the Jobbik party or the neo-Nazi NPD party to join. No other group in the EU Parliament would touch these parties—until Le Pen arrived, they were cast aside as powerless independents.
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Syrian children celebrating their escape from ISIS after making it to Europe.
Le Pen herself was denied entry from the Parliament’s previously most virulent anti-immigrant group, the EFDD (Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy). The formation of the Europe of Nations of Freedom block signals a new phase of Euroscepticism, and it is sure to grow in power with the crisis in Syria depositing millions of refugees on Europe’s doorstep.
There will never be another game like Curt Schilling’s epic game 6 performance, and there will never be another Nazi party like the one that ravaged Europe in the 1940s. Direct comparisons between historical events are difficult, and comparisons to the Nazis almost always do more harm than good. However, the darker side of these political parties cannot be ignored. Anti-immigration sentiments have led to a public outcry against the millions of Syrian refugees fleeing from ISIS and that country’s anarchy. The Syrian crisis is so bad that the last time the world saw such a flood of refugees, was, you guessed it. Europe in the 1940s. If we’re looking for a historical lesson here, it’s that we have to care for the people that are fleeing bad governments, and fear the reactionary xenophobes who get themselves elected.
There will never be another game like Curt Schilling’s epic game 6 performance, and there will never be another Nazi party like the one that ravaged Europe in the 1940s. Direct comparisons between historical events are difficult, and comparisons to the Nazis almost always do more harm than good. However, the darker side of these political parties cannot be ignored. Anti-immigration sentiments have led to a public outcry against the millions of Syrian refugees fleeing from ISIS and that country’s anarchy. The Syrian crisis is so bad that the last time the world saw such a flood of refugees, was, you guessed it. Europe in the 1940s. If we’re looking for a historical lesson here, it’s that we have to care for the people that are fleeing bad governments, and fear the reactionary xenophobes who get themselves elected.