While white nationalism erupts in the US, Germans protest racism and hatred

Germans aren't staying silent in the face of right wing violence in the US. “Trump is the enemy, smash white supremacy,” chanted protesters gathered Wednesday in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, to show solidarity with those who stood up to racism and fascism in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Demonstrators, many of them American expats, also collected donations for victims of the violence.

“If we don't come together, it gives the right license to continue doing what they do,” explained Edna, one of the organizers. “We cannot give them legitimacy. We have to show that this is not okay and that they have to go back to the margins from which they came.”

Among the protesters stood members of the American-Israeli Dekel-Weinman family, who recently returned to Berlin after a year in Charlottesville, Virginia. They came to show support for their children’s' former teacher, Deandre Harris, who was beaten by white nationalists.

“Mr. Dre I love you! I hope you are okay,” read the sign held by 6-year-old Rona, sitting on her father's shoulders. “Charlottesville was a great city before Donald Trump moved into the White House, when Barack Obama was president,” added 9-year-old Ido. “Donald Trump made things worse, but I hope it's going to be better.”

German media and politicians turn on Trump

“As activists in Berlin, Germany, we are reminded daily of the murderous consequences of fascism,” wrote the organizers in a statement ahead of the rally, calling for fascists to “be countered and confronted, not ignored.”

“It is the result of a sympathetic American president who encourages racist scapegoating and feelings of white victimhood,” they added, pointing the finger towards Donald Trump.

German media did the same. Analysts from left-wing publications like Neues Deutschland to mainstream news outlets like Der Spiegel deemed Trump complicit in the rise of the American far-right.

Trump is simply not agitated by racism, suggested one journalist. He will be outraged by “unfair” Chinese trading practices and so-called “fake news,” but not by the sight of men with torches calling for the supremacy of the white race. In Germany, this would not fly.

Trump's feeble critique of the right-wing violence stood in stark contrast to Chancellor Angela Merkel's reaction. Describing the violence in Charlottesville as “racist,” “horrifying” and “evil,” she stressed in an interview this week that a “clear, forceful action must be taken against it, regardless of where in the world it happens.”

“The scenes at the right-wing extremist march were absolutely repulsive - naked racism, anti-Semitism and hate in their most evil form were on display,” Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday. “Such images and chants are disgusting wherever they may be and they are diametrically opposed to the political goals of the chancellor and the entire German government.”

Harsher criticism was heard from Merkel's election rivals of the Social Democrats, party leader Martin Schulz and Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who slammed Trump over his “trivialization” of Nazi violence and racism. “We should not tolerate the monstrosities coming out of the president's mouth,” urged Schulz.

Zero tolerance for Nazi symbols

The sight of men in uniform, some masked, proudly waving swastika flags is almost unbearable for Germans, noted several journalists in their reporting of the events. Displaying such symbols is strictly forbidden in Germany and even the most extremist groups refrain from such public spectacles.

The fact that in the US, freedom of speech trumps the message of hate reflected by these symbols, is seen as astonishing and even irritating in Germany.

“Taking something so symbolic from the darkest parts of Germany's history and to forbid it, has been very helpful in making this red line,” one demonstrator, Zuher Jazmati, recommended. “Freedom of speech is important but so is protecting people.”

Stefanie, a former New Yorker who attended the rally, ruled it out. “It's unfortunately not possible. There is something about having to walk by bombed churches here, or walking over the Stolpersteine that commemorate people who have been deported and killed, that keeps a consciousness in people's minds about what happened. This does not exist in the United States.”

Most recently, Germany's attitude towards Nazi symbols got two Chinese tourists in Berlin arrested and earned an American in Dresden a beating from an angry local. Has Germany's zero tolerance policy gone too far? Definitely not, a commentator for the newspaper Die Welt argued this week, pointing towards events in Charlottesville as proof.

“Germans can be proud of this painfully acquired sensitivity, and if necessary, they teach it also to visitors […] In Charlottesville, the most evil neo-Nazi sedition was heard and seen, and it was legal,” wrote the commentator Uwe Schmitt, stressing that only when uninhibited speech results in violent acts, do laws against it take effect.

Danger of invigorating the German far-right?

Experts differ on the degree of cooperation that exists currently between the American and the German neo-Nazi movements, beyond adoring the same iconography.

Some argue that the differences between the two prevent any effective exchange: The Americans are more prone to crime and violence while the Germans are more policy-orientated, expert Thomas Greven of Berlin's Free University told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Others attribute more significance to the commercial aspect – the flow of extremist music, for example, which is produced in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, shipped through Germany to the States, and there it is uploaded onto American servers – so Germans can access it as well, circumventing their country's legal restrictions.

“There are also links between the Alt-right movement and the ultra-right Identitarian movement,” political scientist Thomas Grumke told the broadcaster. “The Identitarians say they are not Nazis, but they are concerned primarily with maintaining a white European identity.”

But both experts agree that a display, like the one in Charlottesville, can empower far-right groups across Europe and especially in Germany, where it may serve as a trigger for those who have already taken up arms.

“We'll have to see if they feel emboldened by what they see happening in the US,” added Michael Weinman, Rona and Ido's father. “But until now, there's no question – ironic as it is, historically – that, as a member of a religious minority, I feel more comfortable here in Germany than I often do in the US.”