German special forces "enemy inside"
China News Weekly reporter/Cao Ran
Published in the 957th issue of China News Weekly on July 7, 2020
Respect the Nazis, listen to Nazi music, claim to be Hitler's SS... This kind of parody of the "Third Reich" often carried out by right-wing radical groups on the fringes of German society, but appeared in Germany's most elite special forces ( KSK) internal activities.
A public investigation report released by the German Federal Military Intelligence Agency in early July showed that in the last five years, there has been a series of radicalism in the KSK with a total of more than 1,000 people. Officers and senior sergeants openly spread Nazi ideas without punishment, and even planned to issue the code name "X Japan’s military coup and compiled a list of assassinations: from former German President Gauck, to members of parliament, to journalists and minority leaders.
The German Ministry of Defense is currently investigating more than 600 of the 180,000 Wehrmacht officers and soldiers, 20 of whom belong to the KSK unit. The actual situation may be more serious. Only one radical network established by KSK right-wing soldiers announced by the "New York Times" included more than 60 officers and soldiers of the Ministry.
Some local German experts are not surprised by the "Nazi activities" in KSK. Through detailed survey data, Konrad Ziller, a political sociologist at the University of Cologne, once refuted misunderstandings about the German right, such as “the residents around the concentration camps are more anti-Semitic”. However, in the face of right-wing penetration and proliferation within the National Defense Forces, he told China News Weekly: "The issue of neo-Nazism within the National Defense Forces is not new." It is just that the government has been ignoring this fact.
The defenders of democracy are plotting against it
In the development process of KSK in the past ten years, three time points are often mentioned. The first is the reform of the military service system in Germany in 2011, from a compulsory military service system to a voluntary military service system. Since then, most of the German Wehrmacht soldiers come from the economically backward areas in the east.
The second is that in 2015 the Merkel government decided to accept refugees from the Middle East and North Africa on a large scale. Neo-Nazi and anti-immigration thoughts began to spread in the aforementioned areas. Undercurrents within the KSK were surging. At present, the only public right-wing group within the KSK. Hannibal" was established this year.
The last one is 2017. KSK and other departments of the National Defense Force, which have formed an internal right-wing group, have emerged as a group of "lone wolves" or organized armed insurgents. Until today, the entire force is out of control. In the words of Secretary of Defense Kramp-Karenbauer, KSK has “partially independent” from the command system of the three services and “forms a harmful leadership culture”.
"Some people might think that the army more or less represents the general (male) population, but this is obviously not the case, not even after the end of the compulsory military service." Ziller told China News Weekly that those with certain characteristics People are more likely to choose military service than others. This group “has the characteristics of advocating security, order, and responsibility, and therefore is more inclined to support elements of right-wing extremist beliefs such as nationalism, nativism, and authoritarianism”, and even “idealized” Certain aspects of the Third Reich" are not necessarily related to the economic class.
Unlike the liberal traditions of the United States, Britain and other countries, the old elitism in German society includes the pursuit of order, responsibility and social norms. In this regard, the well-known sociologist Dirk Baker once put forward the theory of "Hitler's swarm", and believed that the formation of Nazi swarms cannot be simply attributed to a phenomenon in which individuals in "swarm" have an identity part. The instinctive motivation of Nazi thought.
The problem in Germany today is that such people are concentrated in the military. "In a sense, trying to make the military the backbone of democratic thinking is contradictory to its necessary hierarchy." Baker said in an interview with China News Weekly. "Unfortunately, the more correct German society is The'Third Reich' is skeptical, the more professional soldiers tend to defend it and look at its symbols with pride."
As a special force, KSK's discipline requirements are extremely strict, and it happens to become a "hotbed" for nurturing a Nazi-style hierarchy. Frequent trips to Afghanistan and other places to participate in front-line warfare has made some right-wingers become heroes in the army. In addition, the special nature of KSK makes these activities extremely secretive, and the German Parliament has no right to review the details of the tasks.
"Der Spiegel" published a report letter written by KSK soldiers to the Minister of Defense in early July. It stated that in order to keep soldiers and unit commanders on the same front, officers often took punitive measures, "creating a kind of Strict physical obedience and a culture of accepting illegal behavior from superiors."
The overall changes in the German social structure have also made it easier for recruits to accept the indoctrination of neo-Nazism. In the 1930s, when the Nazis first emerged, the lowest-ranking low-income people supported communism. On the contrary, the property owners and the Wehrmacht, which were dominated by the nobility, accepted the Nazis, which eventually caused the entire country to turn right.
However, after the reunification of the two Germanys, left-wing socialist thoughts receded. "The situation in German society today is just the opposite: the poor are turning to the right, and the wealthy city dwellers are turning to liberalism and ecologicalism." Baker told China News Weekly. He also analyzed that without the left-wing balance of neo-Nazism, liberals who are far from the military and political circles "play less and less politically."
A report by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed another connection between neo-Nazism and the Nazi era: residents of states whose support for the Nazi party in the 1928 election was higher than average, today’s anti-Semitic ratio Also higher. The study also pointed out that this has nothing to do with whether the local economy is developed or not, and it is not entirely due to concerns that immigrants will take away jobs. There is a special cultural soil behind it.
Ironically, to a certain extent, the German government needs such people to form special forces. KSK was born in 1996, initially because Germany did not have special forces capable of adapting to African guerrilla warfare to evacuate overseas Chinese during the Rwanda massacre. Since then, KSK has carried out counter-terrorism missions around the world and participated in operations led by the US military. The "unseen" content of this is something that most German citizens who oppose Nazis and uphold liberalism cannot execute.
In addition to interrogation skills, each member of KSK has undergone special training to be familiar with airborne, amphibious operations and missions under special geographic or meteorological conditions. Some officers and soldiers can speak multiple languages and have undergone intelligence/counter intelligence, sniper/counter-sniper training. . The initiator of "Hannibal" once served the German intelligence agency. In 2017, a KSK soldier was arrested, and the German government discovered that he had been disguised as a Syrian refugee and was preparing to carry out an attack that he hoped would be considered Islamic terrorism by investigators.
No real investigation
"The core principles of German soldiers have failed." Facing the KSK investigation report, the German Broadcasting Corporation commented. In view of the terrible history of the "Third Reich", today's German armed forces are called "citizens in uniform". A basic principle of the army is "personal loyalty to the Constitution", which means "anyone who observes negative events." All must tell the facts.”
Someone really stood up, and the German Ministry of Defense received a letter from KSK soldiers reporting the rise of internal neo-Nazism. However, all these reports did not work. Those superiors who were exposed as extremists received institutional protection and did not conduct a real investigation. At the same time, guns and ammunition disappeared from military stockpiles until the situation reached where it is today.
A KSK officer once filed a formal complaint after receiving a threatening letter from a lower-level right-wing activist, but the result was only to mark the matter in the right wing's file. For the next 12 years, this person continued to be promoted in the special forces to become a mid-level commander until he was fired in 2019 for publicly declaring that "it is time for the army to take over this country."
Part of the reason for this is the rigorous and cumbersome disciplinary system. According to the newly revised "Federal Military Law", professional soldiers who have served in the German Wehrmacht for more than 8 years can only be expelled through protracted disciplinary hearings, and the result of such hearings is usually "those people still wearing military uniforms."
Before the "Military Law" was revised, the length of service for soldiers who needed a disciplinary hearing to be expelled was 4 years. From 2018 to 2019, more than 700 soldiers were expelled after serving less than 4 years, but only 11 soldiers were expelled through hearings after serving 4 years. KSK is the most senior soldier, the code-named "Little Sheep" has the highest rank of sergeant and has served for decades.
Baker pointed out that the deeper problem is the evasion of neo-Nazism by the German government and society. For many years, German politicians and heads of security services have refused to accept the argument of far-right elements infiltrating the security services and only talked about "individual circumstances." In Ziller's view, the Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer is a typical example.
"He thinks that since the law prohibits racial profiling, it is meaningless for the police to conduct relevant investigations." Ziller told China News Weekly. "This argument is obviously wrong. Even if something is prohibited by law, it is It still exists in practice, and it’s useful to know its spread."
Ziller pointed out to China News Weekly that the current priority of the German government is to face the problem directly, conduct investigations, and clarify the severity of the erosion of the military and police system by right-wing ideas. Another feasible measure is to change the composition of the army. "If the military becomes more diverse, the ideas of specific groups are unlikely to be fully implemented. In addition, contact with people from different backgrounds will also make people more tolerant and less racist."
A military survey showed that if soldiers are randomly assigned to different barracks and live with soldiers of different backgrounds or races, their prejudice will decrease. The German Ministry of Defense stated that it is already considering psychological tests for KSK recruits, supplemented by special training, to prevent them from accepting extremist ideas.
Two months before KSK’s right-wing extremists threaten to take action in September, there are still many difficulties the German government has to face. The right-wing infiltration of the military and police systems may be beyond imagination. Even the military intelligence agencies responsible for monitoring extremism within the armed forces have been infiltrated. Brendan Tarrant, who caused 101 casualties in a mosque terrorist attack in New Zealand last year, declared before his death that it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers belonging to nationalist groups in the European armed forces.
In June of this year, a senior investigator of the German counterintelligence agency was suspended. According to reports, he revealed to a KSK member the details of the German government’s investigation of right-wing elements in May. The member then passed the relevant materials to at least eight KSK officers and soldiers, and told them that the government “may turn its attention to the next step. they".
Knotts, deputy chairman of the German Parliament’s Intelligence Monitoring Committee, emphasized that the German government’s investigation should take seriously what the Tarrants have said.
China News Weekly, Issue 27, 2020
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