by
Peter Schwarz
On
August 17, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) published a statement
protesting against it being placed under surveillance by the German
secret service (the Federal Office for the Protection of the
Constitution, or BfV).
The
“Constitutional Protection Report 2017” published at the end of
July, classifies any socialist critique of capitalism and its social
consequences as “left-wing extremist” and “anti-constitutional.”
The SGP is listed as a “left-wing extremist party,” subject to
state monitoring, despite the fact that the BfV makes no accusation
that the SGP violates the law or is engaged in violent activity. In
fact, the report explicitly confirms that the SGP pursues its goals
by legal means—via “participation in elections” and “lectures.”
At the
same time, the secret service report says nothing about the far-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) and its fascist connections. The
Nazi-apologist Björn Höcke, the new-right ideologue Götz
Kubitschek, the racist Pegida movement and the far-right publications
Junge Freiheit and Compact do not feature in the report, which only
refers to the AfD as the victim of alleged “left-wing extremists.”
Meanwhile,
many new details have emerged confirming that the BfV and its
president, Hans-Georg Maaßen, collaborate closely with the AfD.
According to the German Interior Ministry, Maaßen has held around
200 discussions with politicians from all of the parties represented
in the German parliament, including the AfD, since he took office six
years ago. Almost all of the talks were confidential and took place
on Maaßen’s initiative.
In July,
Franziska Schreiber, a former member of the AfD, reported in her book
Inside AfD that Maaßen had held discussions with Frauke Petry, when
she was the leader of the AfD. Maaßen met Petry twice in 2015,
before the AfD had entered the Bundestag. According to Schreiber,
Maaßen gave her advice on how to prevent the AfD from being
monitored by the BfV—a claim which Maaßen denies.
Schreiber
has since confirmed under oath that Petry had repeatedly told her
“that the AfD is lucky to have someone like Hans-Georg Maaßen
as head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,
someone who is favourably inclined towards the party and consequently
does not wish it to be monitored.”
Petry's
successor as leader of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, has also confirmed
that he met with Maaßen. Allegedly the meeting was to address a
“suspicion” that there was a “Russian agent” in the AfD
parliamentary group. Gauland later reported that Maaßen had assured
him, “there's nothing to it.”
Even the
Süddeutsche Zeitung now admits that there are “suspicions that
Maaßen might be close to the far-right AfD.” In the spring of
2018, it was “revealed that several state offices for
constitutional protection wanted to observe the AfD because of its
contacts with openly anti-constitutional elements.” But, as he
had done previously, Maaßen spoke out against surveillance of the
AfD.
The
current head of the AfD, Gauland, is full of praise for Maaßen. The
Süddeutsche Zeitung quotes Gauland saying: “I look upon Mr.
Maaßen as an objective top state official.”
Last
week, the taz newspaper reported on another meeting with a leading
AfD official. Maaßen visited the AfD deputy Stephan Brandner in June
of this year for a one-hour conversation in the latter’s
parliamentary office. Brandner is chairman of the Legal Affairs
Committee of the Bundestag. He owes his post to Bundestag
vice-president Thomas Oppermann (SPD), who had proposed him for the
position in a secret election.
Brandner
told the taz that he spoke with Maaßen about the work of the Legal
Affairs Committee and the current BfV report. He would not give
details of the meeting because both men had agreed on
confidentiality. The BfV also refrained from any comment on the
meeting. “The BfV never comments on confidential discussions in
the sphere of parliament,” said a spokeswoman.
The
meetings between Maaßen and senior AfD members make clear that the
decision to target the SGP is part of a conspiracy in the state
apparatus based directly on extreme right-wing forces. The BfV is
under the remit of interior minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), who also
wrote the foreword to its 2017 report.
In his
foreword, Seehofer argues for the construction of a police and
intelligence state, which delegates “effective powers to the
national and regional constitutional protection authorities.”
Germany could “not allow different spheres of security [to
create] blind spots.”
Germany’s
ruling grand coalition (Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social
Union, and Social Democratic Party) has adopted in full the politics
of the AfD, especially in regard to refugees. The AfD gained just
12.6 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary election and is
despised by broad layers of the population. Nevertheless, it largely
dominates German political life, which has increasingly assumed the
character of a conspiracy by all the Bundestag parties.
Maaßen
not only held confidential talks with the AfD, he also confers with
all the so-called opposition parties. As reported in the latest issue
of Die Zeit, Maaßen “meets regularly with leading members of
the Left Party and Greens such as Gregor Gysi, Sahra Wagenknecht and
Katrin Göring-Eckardt. Sometimes these conversations take place
privately in restaurants, often paid for by the BfV, or on occasion,
Maaßen invites parliamentarians to his headquarters in Cologne.”
As an
institution, the BfV stands for the far-right continuity of the
German elites. At the time of its founding in the 1950s, the agency
employed many former Gestapo members. In recent years, its roots in
the tradition of National Socialism have emerged ever more openly.
Maaßen
took over the leadership of the BfV in the summer of 2012 when the
agency was in deep crisis. Three-quarters of a year earlier, the
neo-fascist terrorist cell National Socialist Underground had been
exposed, and it emerged that the BfV had many undercover operatives
active around the group. The BfV then proceeded to shred files en
mass, and Maaßen’s predecessor, Heinz Fromm, had to resign.
Now
Maaßen has turned the BfV into a political tool that lines up
closely with the far-right AfD, while spying on the SGP.
The
consequences are known. Die Zeit writes: “the decision to
conduct the surveillance of a party” is “of necessity a
political decision—with political consequences.” It
continues: “Not just because the BfV then may monitor members,
its elected officials and state associations, listening to telephone
conversations in special cases, recording chats and observing
suspects. But above all because the observation stigmatises a party.”
In its
statement, the SGP warned that the action of the BfV is directed
against “anyone who is fighting against social inequality,
militarism and oppression and who advocates a socialist perspective.”
The ruling class is responding to the increasing radicalization of
the working class and youth “by returning to the authoritarian
policies of the 1930s, cracking down on socialists and adopting the
policies of the far right. This crisis is stripping off the
‘democratic’ facade of German capitalism to reveal the original
brown paint.”
It is
high time to confront this far-right conspiracy in the state
apparatus and defeat the offensive of the BfV and the grand
coalition. The SGP appeals to all those seeking to oppose militarism
and war, social inequality and the moves towards a police state.
Distribute our statement against the BfV, contact us and actively
join the fight for a socialist alternative.
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