DECRYPTION
In Germany, the trial of a neo-Nazi, Stephan Ernst, has been held for a week. He is accused of having killed in cold blood a year ago the prefect of the Kassel region, Walter Lübcke, targeted for his policy of tolerance towards the refugees. An assassination that sounds like an electric shock for the country which seems to have underestimated the threat of the far right. For Hélène Miard-Delacroix, professor at the Sorbonne and specialist in contemporary Germany, this trial "confirms things that we already know, that we know too much and that many people in Germany do not want to know."
A reality difficult to admit
"The trial sends to the television screens the face of a blond, German criminal, who is in an extremely large network, who has a neo-Nazi past. And who damages the positive image that the German far-right is trying to give for years ", continues the professor at the microphone of Europe 1." Many people in Germany could not admit this reality because the fight against the far right is part of the DNA of democratized Germany West Germany has built its identity on: "We are no longer like the Nazis and therefore it is not possible that we have within our children children who are capable of becoming neo-Nazis".
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According to the specialist, opinion has more closely scrutinized the violence coming from far-left groups such as the Baader Band, or the RAF (Red Army Fraction), an urban guerrilla organization operating in the 1970s and 1990s. "We could not accept that within German democracy there could be people who really want it, not only from foreigners, but who also want it from democratic institutions and the political class as a whole."
Influential yet neglected networks
In addition to this trial, German society has realized the extent of certain far-right networks. A neo-Nazi terrorist cell, which planned to attack mosques, was recently dismantled. As for military intelligence, it reports a worrying radicalization of many soldiers. According to "Successive governments have downplayed the reach of these networks. We have always considered, especially since the reunification where we saw the emergence of far-right groups in East Germany, that it was a few agitated as it there are in all countries, "says Hélène Miard-Delacroix. "It is difficult now to surround these groups because obviously they have penetrated different sections of society well. A certain number of current problems, which are very worrying for the middle class in particular multiculturalism bring water to their mill because they have the impression of being supported by people who call themselves "worried citizens" in Germany. "
"This trial is important because it shows German citizens how far these networks and connections can go, in particular with the far-right party Afd, which is trying to present itself as a so-called 'bourgeois' party as we said in Germany, that is to say normal, while a good part of this party has very close links with neo-Nazi circles ", concludes Hélène Miard-Delacroix.