Manufactured Hate & Fear of Environmental Greens Goes Back to Unification
To the lingering Cold/War policy of German conservatives
BERLIN (15 March, 2024) — Getting organizational boosts from social media, intolerant right-wing extremists have become more open — and more violent — in their attacks against the Green Party and its governing “Red-Green” coalition partners on the left. Current headlines give a startling sense of the current problem for Berlin:
- Aggressive mood against the Greens
- Greens in Bamberg forced to cancel event
- Greens cancel appearances due to protests; police officers injured
-Attack on Green candidate: Police assume political motive in violent attack
- Death threats and insults: New wave of hate against Greens in Vogtland
- Robert Habeck cancellation makes ‘Q’ believers rejoice
- New Year's reception of the Greens disrupted
- ‘Bullet in the head': Green politician threatened; police seize weapon during search
German authorities have begun to link US-based media — notably disinformation spread on Facebook and Google — to the rise of irrational politicized violence by small groups and individuals. To Germans, the reactionary anti-Green, anti-left and anti-progressive rhetoric is startlingly similar to that of nationalists declaring civil war against leftists there between 1919 and 1933. (One also sees comparisons to the nationalist Americans of the fear-mongering “McCarthy Time”.)
Unfortunately, German Angst over the democratically elected Red-Green Alliance goes back to 1990, when it moved conservative Chancellor Helmut Kohl (of the Christian Democratic Union or CDU) to undermine the work of reformers in East Berlin, the sudden coalition of three peace/progressive groups — Alliance 90 (Bündnis 90).
Kohl watched the excitement surrounding this young ‘New Agey’ crowd — including its thrill over the East’s opening of the Berlin Wall — and perceived it as a threat to the party he’d led since the time of Richard Nixon.
Years later, Germans ended Kohl’s 16-year command of government by electing his “antagonists,” the coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Alliance '90/The Greens, whose policies continued to enrage Kohl into his retirement. The German red-green coalition ruled the federal government from 1998 until 2005, when German voters elected the fragile CDU-SPD coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Over time, red-green alliances also have been elected in France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.)
In 1990-91, the red-green Alliance ’90 was riding high on the hope of democracy in the deteriorating Soviet Union — hope that had been stirred since the 1985 rise to power of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Germany’s Chancellor Kohl watched the excitement of this new, younger and ‘New Agey’ political crowd — including the thrill of East Germans’ rather-baffled opening of the Berlin Wall — and perceived it as a threat to his own machine; a clear danger to the CDU, the political party he’d led since the time of Richard Nixon.
The East’s unexpected opening of the Wall changed the tenor of politics across the globe. From Ireland to South Africa, the political chess-game seemed fated to veer away from old Cold War nationalism toward stronger international social-democratic cooperation and a new, emerging Left. In Germany, the leader who most strongly supported Russia’s reformist government — including Gorbachev’s bold proposals for nuclear disarmament — was Kohl’s longtime coalition partner, federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP). Together Kohl and Genscher governed Germany for a decade, appearing to be professional politicians engaged in a “gentlemanly friendship.” (Männerfreundschaft)
While Kohl famously responded to Gorbachev by comparing him to Hitler’s propaganda chief, Josef Goebbels, Genscher argued at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the West should take the initiative, and no longer wait for Gorbachev “with folded arms.” While publicly praising Gorbachev, Kohl was not shy about sharing his less-than-complimentary views of the Russian leader with his counterparts in the United States — subsequently helping to shape American foreign policy.
In Russia, the already-weak economy was failing. As the country’s foreign debt mounted, Gorbachev appealed to the US administration of President H.W. Bush for aid. Taking the lead on this question was US Secretary of State James Baker who, together with Bush, rebuffed the Russian requests. It was argued, for example, that the USSR was economically weak and not working fast enough to privatize its state economic system.
“All of us recognize that you cannot build a market economy by throwing money at a disintegrating command economy,” said the conservative Baker.
It was also said that USSR did not meet the “necessary criteria” of membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), thus undeserving of the IMF’s vital and global loan program. While US$300 million was found to support Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia between 1989 and 1991, nothing was given to Russia. The IMF finally granted the Russians a very limited ‘associate membership’ in October 1991. By this time, however, Mikhail Gorbachev had lost control of the country to his less-than-democratic rival Boris Yeltsin and, subsequently, to his successor Vladamir Putin.
Sources:
https://www.republik.ch/2024/03/14/feindbild-gruene
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red–green_alliance
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/max-fisher/the-chaos-machine/9780316703314/
https://www.history.com/news/gorbachev-reagan-cold-war
Klaus Wiegrefe. “Mythos Männerfreundschaft Was Geheimakten über das wahre Verhältnis von Kohl zu Gorbatschow verraten.” (“The Myth of Male Friendship…”) 28.3.2018 Spiegel Online magazine.
https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/helmut-kohl-gegen-michail-gorbatschow-der-kampf-der-rivalen-a-1199861.html (downloaded in March 2024).
https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/5049213.pdf
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/eiskalter-mann-a-f2d8d7a8-0002-0001-0000-000142514189