75 years since its liberation, Dachau still casts a shadow

75 years ago - on April 29, 1945 - the US army liberated the Dachau concentration camp, outside the medieval town of Dachau, 16 km northwest of Munich. Dachau was the first such camp set up by the Nazis, and served as a prototype and a template for what followed - its layout and building plans used for building other camps. For this, and other, reasons, Dachau continues to cast a long shadow, touching countless lives and weaving its way back into contemporary politics in unexpected ways.

The camp was opened by the Nazis on March 21, 1933 to imprison political prisoners - communists, socialists, trade unionists, anarchists and other “trouble makers”. In addition to the better known - and much greater - figures of Jews and Roma murdered in Nazi camps, more than 3.5 million Germans were imprisoned in concentration camps or prison for political reasons between 1933 and 1945, while approximately 80,000 (out of some 800,000 arrested for resistance activities) were killed for resistance or subversion against the Nazis.

Located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory, the camp at Dachau consisted of a barbed wire fence around the factory with numerous wooden huts built to house more prisoners. Along with the prisoners’ camp - which itself took up only 5 acres - an adjoining area of 20 acres was occupied by a Schutzstaffel (SS) training school and barracks. Railway tracks ran up to the gates, which carried the infamous phrase "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work shall set you free") - later replicated at the other camps including Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.

While Heinrich Himmler’s official announcement spoke of containing “threats to state security”, the SS men who arrived in the camp on 11 May 1933 were under no illusions about what the camp was for, their welcoming speech telling them: “We have not come here for human encounters with those pigs in there. We do not consider them human beings, as we are, but as second-class people … Therefore we have no room for sentimentalism … The more of these pig dogs we strike down, the fewer we need to feed.”

In 1919 Dachau had been the site of one of the few victories the Bavarian “Red Army” - mostly members of the soldiers' and workers' councils - of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (“Räterepublik Baiern”) over the proto-facist Freikorps paramilitary militia, during the short-lived revolution. During the 1933 Reichstag election campaign, Hans Beimler - an prominent anti-Nazi activist, militant trade unionist, and leader of the German Communist Party (KPD) in Bavaria - made that historic victory central to his address to a KPD mass meeting in Munich, rallying his comrades against the Nazi threat with the words “we shall all meet again at Dachau!".

The words were darkly prophetic. While Beimler was re-elected to the Reichstag in March, in April both he and his wife were arrested by the Nazis. They never saw each other again. Along with other Communist Party members, Beimler was subjected to two weeks of police beatings in Munich before being sent to Dachau, where the SS guards - some of them former Freikorps members - threw his words back in his face.

Within four weeks, however, Beimler had escaped, strangling his guard, stealing his uniform and brazenly walking out the front door. He fled, via Czechoslovakia, to the Soviet Union, published an account of his experiences in the camp, and then became active in Rote Hilfe ("Red Aid") in France and Switzerland. In 1936, Beimler led the first brigade of German anti-fascist volunteers to Spain, and was appointed commissar of all International Brigades until he was killed in the Battle of Madrid that November. Over 2 million people came out to pay respect as his body was transported to the cemetery in Barcelona.

Another notable victim of Dachau was the lawyer Hans Litten. Born into a conservative, privileged family with a Jewish background, Litten’s idealism led him from the law to Berlin and left wing politics, where he became active in political trials and public speaking. In 1929, Litten sought an indictment of Berlin’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) police chief for incitement to shoot communist protesters at the infamous “Bloody May” May Day rally, where 33 people were killed and hundreds wounded, including Litten himself.

Litten also laid bare, in a penetrating cross-examination during the "Eden Dance Palace Trial", the violence at the heart of the Nazi movement. Litten used the prosecution of Sturmabteilung (SA) thug attacks on three workers to expose Nazi violence and puncture the veneer of legality Hitler had adopted. In a three hour cross-examination of the future dictator in May 1931, he humiliated Hitler - showing that SA violence was a central plank of the Nazi program - and forced him to commit perjury. It was an insult that Hitler would neither forget, nor forgive.

From then on, Litten was continually targeted by the Nazis, police and authorities, but when Hitler took power in 1933, Litten rejected advice from friends that he flee Germany. He refused to abandon his clients, arguing: "the millions of workers can't get out, so I must stay here as well". The night of the Reichstag fire, Litten was one of the first arrested when left wing lawyers and activists were rounded up and taken into "protective custody".

Litten spent the next five years in several concentration camps, enduring forced labour, beatings, torture, and endless interrogations. He twice attempted suicide to avoid revealing information under torture. Finally, in Dachau, unable to bear his physical and psychological scars any longer, Litten hanged himself in 1938. A communist anti-Nazi lawyer openly critical of Stalin - his legacy suited neither side of the Cold War, and he went all but forgotten during the following decades.

Over time, Dachau’s purpose expanded to include forced labor (both German and foreign) as well as Jews, criminals, “undesirables”, and foreign nationals from occupied countries - from Poland, France and the Balkans especially. In 1942, nearly 8,000 prisoners from Yugoslavia were sent to Dachau - including many who had worked with the partisans - and some 5,000 Soviet prisoners of war were interred there.

Over 200,000 prisoners, from more than 30 countries, passed through Dachau, one third of whom were Jews. After the Kristallnacht purges, almost 11,000 Jews were sent to Dachau before being expelled from the country. The camp also held Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Roma, the physically and mentally handicapped, several thousand Catholic priests, and anyone else unlucky enough to fall foul of the Nazis.
  


As the number of prisoners grew, the greater Dachau system developed to eventually include over 100 sub-camps - mostly labour camps for producing munitions - dispersed throughout southern Germany and into Austria. Some of these sub-camps evolved into full-blown concentration camps themselves, such as the infamous Mauthausen camp in Austria. A weapons factory at Gendorf, near the Austrian border, where my Bavarian grandfather was forced into working in dangerous conditions, also used slave-labour from a Dachau sub-camp set up specifically for the purpose.

Although Dachau was not one of the six camps created specifically for industrialised mass murder, 32,000 deaths have been documented at the camp and its satellites, with an estimated further 10,000 undocumented. The Nazis also used prisoners in brutal medical experiments, including submerging them in tanks of ice water for hours at a time.

Liberation

The experience of the American soldiers in liberating Dachau and its sub-camps was harrowing. When the American army arrived, approximately 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick, and some 7,000 had been driven on a last-minute “death march”, first south, and then eastwards towards the Austrian border, 1,000 of them perishing en route.

One account of the liberation of Kaufering IV slave-labor sub-camp - near the town of Landsberg - describes “the camp afire and a stack of some four hundred bodies burning”. American soldiers went into Landsberg, rounding up all the male civilians they could find and marching them back out to the camp. The former camp commandant was forced to lie amidst a pile of corpses, while the male population walked by under orders to spit on him as they passed.

As they reached the main camp in Dachau, soldiers found thirty-nine railway boxcars containing 2,000 skeletal corpses parked immediately outside, and the air was heavy with the stench of decaying bodies and excrement. Inside the complex, they found more bodies - lying where they had fallen days earlier. There were rooms full of hundreds of near-naked dead bodies piled high, a crematorium, a gas chamber - supposedly “unused”.

Despite an official surrender, many guards resisted the liberating forces, some of them fiercely. Outraged at what they had seen in Dachau and elsewhere, American troops shot some 30 or 50 of the camp guards after they had surrendered, while a similar number of guards are believed to have been killed by the recently freed prisoners themselves.

After liberation, Dachau became a prison facility for SS soldiers awaiting trial - the jailer made the jailed - and the site of the “Dachau Trials” of German war criminals. By January 1946, some 18,000 SS members were being held there, along with 12,000 others, including Soviet deserters. After 1948, it became a resettlement camp for 2,000 ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia.

The Americans converted the buildings used by the SS and camp guards into the “Eastman Barracks”, which served as an American military post for many years. When the Americans closed their barracks, the Bavarian Bereitschaftspolizei - the police rapid-response units and riot police - moved in.

Germany’s ongoing struggle with timing and taste took a new turn on January 27, 2015 - the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camp Auschwitz. The nearby city of Augsburg decided to convert a former sub-branch of Dachau into a centre to accommodate the growing influx of refugees. The asylum seekers would have lived in a building where thousands of people suffered and died under the Nazis, carrying out forced labour for the aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt.

Facing public outcry, Augsburg backed down, but the town of Dachau itself did not, housing about 50 of its most vulnerable inhabitants – including homeless people and refugees – in buildings in the former slave-labour “herb garden” complex, just across the road from where the main camp still stands, and within sight of the towers and barbed wire fences.



A Red Thread in the Gloom

This harrowing history has made Dachau an indelible symbol for what took place when the Nazis took over, but it also deserves to be better remembered for what happened when they fell as well. In the brief interregnum after the Nazis were defeated, a strange three-way power struggle emerged in Dachau, that is emblematic of the direction German democracy took after the war.

In 1935, a local Social Democrat, Georg Scherer, was arrested for his stubborn dedication to working class sporting activities, and spent 6 years in the camp, where he was appointed “Lagerältester - responsible for all prisoners - until his release. On April 28, 1945, fearing the SS would escalate their atrocities before the Americans arrived, he led a short-lived - and violently repressed - armed insurrection in the town of Dachau, coordinated with other resistance action in Munich.

When the Americans did arrive, they made him deputy mayor. The tasks he faced were enormous - over 6,000 dead bodies in the camp, 30,000 survivors to be fed, a typhoid outbreak. Labour and transport, food, fuel, clothing and accommodation had to be organised. Within the camp, the Communists in particular had been able to establish their own organisational structures, and after liberation this experience became vital. With supply chains broken, the economy collapsed, and government all but dissolved, Scherer and his fellow communist and social democratic ex-prisoners divided the town into 17 districts, organising the 22,000 inhabitants into committees of 7, and set to work.

A central coordination committee of 8 was set up, with the broadest possible base. It contained 2 Communists, 2 Social Democrats, 2 from the conservative former Bavarian Peoples’ Party, and 2 with no affiliation. Named the “Anti-Fascist Action" committee (AFA), it set about coordinating the post-Nazi reconstruction work. Similar united front “antifa” organisations sprung up across Germany as the Third Reich collapsed, populated largely by members of the working class, but generally mistrusted by middle-class Germans. While the AFA could claim to be representative, however, it was unelected and had no claim to authority, and it carried out its work under cautious US military supervision.

While the AFA initially supported US “denazification” measures, tensions increased as it became clear that efforts were focusing on “little Nazis” - many of whom had joined Nazi organisations out of necessity or convenience - while more powerful individuals with better connections - and dirtier pasts - managed to evade punishment. The Americans also began to recruit new civil servants to run the administration, while the AFA continued its work more and more independently, resulting in the development of elements of “dual power” that had echoes of the situation in 1918-19.

The AFA and the new civil authorities soon ended up in competition for US support. Even before Germany’s capitulation in May, the Americans had decided to restore the pre-Nazi administrative system, and in Dachau they appointed Heinrich Kneuer to run the district. A conservative, mid-level bureaucrat, with a dubious history during the 1930s, Kneuer immediately set about trying to dissolve the AFA, which he considered to be a communist threat to the social order. His exchanges with the American commandant show he was - at the very least - a technocrat who considered democracy a threat, the people stupid, and advocated a government of “clever men”.

To Kneuer’s dismay, then, the Americans created a new town council on July 21, exactly half of whom were on the left - 5 Social Democrats and 3 Communists, with elections to follow. A return to democracy would be a mixed blessing for the Communists, however, and they knew it. From August 1945, the Americans had identified the AFA as “something of a problem”, not so much because of the ongoing inconveniences it caused Kneuer, but because of its dominant leftwing politics.

Local elections were scheduled for January 1946, deliberating forcing the Communists and Social Democrats into competition before they had settled on a common programme. The Communist Party ran the Social Democrat Scherer as their lead candidate, but his former SPD comrades ran against him, ensuring the left vote was splintered, and the KPD result was worse than before the war.

From a right-wing and anti-Communist perspective, the strategy was a success. The conservative silent majority - having sat in uncomfortable quietude as the crimes of Nazism were uncovered and investigated - was given an opportunity to reassert itself. The Bavarian Volksbund (later to become the Christian Social Union - CSU) won 59 percent of the vote in Dachau on a platform of conservative anti-Nazism, combined with opposition to the “Socialist-Communist common action programme”. The anti-Communist sentiment that had led many middle-class voters to support the Nazis had found a new, more “respectable”, outlet.

Meanwhile, disunity in left wing politics had been ensured. In the Soviet zone, the KPD and SPD had been merged, but similar attempts in the West failed. Applications from the KPD to register as either the "Socialist Unity Party" (SED) or the "German Socialist Peoples’ Party" were rejected, and they were forced to run as Communists. The AFA - even with its significant middle-class involvement - and the hopes of antifascist unity, were in tatters. The hard work of the AFA, its idealism, energy, even-handedness and dedication, had succeeded in reconstructing a world that rejected its values, and bourgeois normality - now shed of the memory of its disquieting accommodation with Nazism - had been restored.

Even 75 years on, the sheer magnitude of the horrors of Dachau and the other Nazi camps ought to serve as a stern correction for humanity’s moral compass for generations to come. Unfortunately, the span of history that has passed since they were closed has not served that memory any justice. The bloody violence and oppression we have seen since the Second World War may not have been carried out with the same calculating intensity, but it has been horrific nonetheless, and even now we run the risk of repeating some of the worst mistakes of humanity’s brief existence.

In the words of Milan Kundera, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”. To truly succeed in this, however, we must preserve not only the memory of suffering and despair, but the memory of hope. For this reason, then, when I hear the word “Dachau”, the echoing screams of all those who perished in the nightmare machine are joined by the quiet, firm voices of those who said “Never Again”, who persevered in their struggle against fascism in all weather, and who sought against all odds to build a better world in the ashes of the old.

Coronabonds or bust? - Gridlock over EU response poses an existential threat

The European Union’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a dangerous lack of solidarity between member states, as longstanding divisions over the future of European integration frustrate the fight against the coronavirus and the downturn it has caused – the worst since the Great Depression. After weeks of bungled responses, old fault lines between “north” and “south” have re-emerged, a marathon Eurogroup meeting on April 7 failing once again reach agreement. The European Union (EU) sits perched uncomfortably on an economic and political precipice, and the consequences could be massive.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a human catastrophe and economic crisis worldwide, with panicked lockdowns grinding economic gears to a near-halt. The global economy – already heading into a downturn when the coronavirus struck – is now experiencing a crisis that reaches deep into the productive sector of the economy, but the EU response has been patchwork and incoherent, a series of reactive and inadequate measures not equal to the scale of the problem.

The initial response came from national governments, most of whom instinctively closed their borders, locking down society and – eventually – industry. As the walls went up, desperate appeals from Italy for assistance fell on deaf ears, unheeded by all but China and Cuba, and Italy’s ambassador to the EU, warned that Europe’s leaders risk “going down in history like the leaders in 1914 who sleepwalked into World War I”. It was beginning to look like “European solidarity” was an idea for fairer weather.

The EU’s response

The European institutions shifted clumsily into catch-up mode, the European Central Bank (ECB) proposing a package of 120 billion euro to ensure liquidity in the financial and banking sector the same day that its President Christine Lagarde declared the central bank was “not here to close spreads” in sovereign debt markets. This brought a furious response from Italy, casting doubt on whether the ECB would provide member states the necessary support.

The ECB then announced its “bazooka” response – a €750 billion package of Quantitative Easing (QE) named the “Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme” (PEPP). To allow the rapid expansion of public debt and facilitate heavy government spending, the ECB can buy large amounts of government and corporate debt until the end of the year, with significantly more flexible rules than previously. It suspends the 33% purchasing limit on national bonds, includes Greek sovereign debt and the ECB will target short-term debt maturing in as little as 70 days. State aid rules have also been loosened.

Crucially, the “general escape clause” of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) was activated – pausing a mechanism responsible for imposing austerity on member states through inflexible deficit and debt limits and structural reforms. Unprecedented stuff – but still not enough, and concerns remain about what the short duration of the PEPP will mean for EU member states’ capacity to service the resulting debt during a recession.

The burgeoning crisis quickly spilled over into a high-stakes political showdown across the EU. When the Eurogroup – the eurozone’s finance ministers – met on March 24 to draft a longer term “pandemic crisis support” tool. The main proposal was fresh loans under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the EU’s 410 billion euro bailout fund that allows eurozone members to draw a credit line worth 2 percent of their economic output – with conditions. This option is strongly supported by fiscally more conservative countries, like Germany and the Netherlands.

[Read the full article in TrademarkBelfast and Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung - Brussels' Post Brexit Europe here].

Europe’s Coronavirus Battle

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed longstanding divisions in the European Union, with the issue of eurobonds dividing the north and south – and solidarity in short supply.

An extended March 26 meeting of the European Council failed to reach agreement on which economic tool the European Union (EU) should deploy to combat what is predicted to be a severe recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic, instead kicking the can down the road for a further two weeks.

With the coronavirus pandemic triggering a human and economic crisis worldwide, and panicked lockdowns in member states grinding economic gears to a halt, the European economy sits on the verge of a depression and total shutdown. National governments across the EU took the lead in combating the virus, closing borders and businesses, and in some cases with significant spending programmes to protect workers, jobs and businesses from the resulting downturn. As appeals by Italy for urgent assistance went unheeded by all but China and Cuba, and it was beginning to look like “European solidarity” was an idea for fairer weather.

Playing catch-up, the European Commission muscled-in on border closures, while on March 12 the European Central Bank (ECB) announced an initial €120 billion package aimed at ongoing liquidity in the financial and banking sector. A further 37 billion was mobilised from existing EU funds, but it was soon obvious that the disaster posed a threat of several magnitudes greater than anticipated.

[Read the full article in Tribune Magazine here].

Ireland: Political earthquake as Sinn Féin wins Irish election

Sinn Féin President Mary Lou MacDonald/ An Phoblacht

General elections on February 8 saw Sinn Féin become the most popular political party in the 26 county Irish Republic for the first time - a seismic result has shaken the Irish political system to its core and sent shockwaves across Europe.

The left-wing republican party received 24.5 per cent of first preference votes cast - up 10.7 percent on 2016 - and topped the poll in over 20 constituencies.

Many candidates were elected on the first count, often in areas that had never returned a Sinn Féin TD (member of the Irish parliament, the Dáil) before, and seventeen of the top 20 high-polling candidates came from Sinn Féin.

With counting now complete, Sinn Féin has won 37 seats in the 160-seat Dáil, an increase of fifteen. For the first time ever, each of Ireland’s 32 counties is now represented by a Sinn Féin TD or MP.

The last time Sinn Féin topped the polls nationally was at all-Ireland elections held in 1918, in a result that paved the way for the first Dáil and the War of Independence against Britain.

Outgoing government party Fine Gael took 35 seats (down 12), while Fianna Fáil received 38 (down 7) - although one seat was due to the automatic reappointment of the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Dáil).

Having received setbacks in last year’s local and European elections, Sinn Féin ran only 42 candidates. As a result of the late surge in support, in several constituencies where they ran only one candidate Sinn Féin received close to - or even in excess of - the mandate for a second seat.

A successful strategy of “vote left, transfer left”, however, meant that large numbers of Sinn Féin preference votes helped elect other left wing and progressive candidates.

The socialist Solidarity-People Before Profit alliance secured five seats, with returning TD Richard Boyd Barrett topping the poll in Dún Laoghaire.

Labour and the Social Democrats took six seats each, while the Greens won twelve mandates - reaching double figures for the first time.

Ireland also bucked the trend prevailing in Europe of right-wing nationalist parties taking advantage of public discontent. The slew of far-right, anti-immigration candidates on offer received negligible results, failing to even regain their deposits.

The election result comes as a blow to both Ireland’s major right-wing parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who between them have dominated politics in the Irish state for a century.

It is the first time in the history of the Republic that neither party has won the popular vote, and their combined vote share has been reduced to a mere 43 percent. Both parties lost vote share and seats, and some constituencies failed to elect a TD from either party for the first time ever.

During the election, the outgoing conservative Fine Gael government had hoped to capitalise on strong economic figures, recent referenda legalising abortion and equal marriage rights, and the high profile role Ireland played in Europe during the Brexit negotiations.

Fianna Fáil, their support having recovered since the economic collapse after 2008, sought to take advantage of voter frustration with the Fine Gael government. At the same time, they hoped that voters would forget that they had kept that same government in power via a “confidence-and-supply” arrangement throughout its term.

Both parties also united to make harsh attacks on Sinn Féin, ruling out working with the left-wing party after the elections. They joined the mainstream media chorus that Sinn Féin was not a “normal party”, scaremongering about “shadowy figures” controlling it from behind the scenes and about Sinn Féin’s historical links to the long-ended armed struggle in the six counties still under British occupation.

Voters, however, were less interested in scare-tactics and macroeconomic figures than in hospital waiting lists, soaring rents, the homelessness crisis, insurance costs, and increases to the pension age.

The 2008 economic collapse, bank bail-outs and vicious austerity measures left deep wounds in Irish society, and while the economy has officially recovered, the vast majority of ordinary people have not seen the benefits.

The Republic of Ireland, with barely 5 million people, has over 10,000 homeless each week, and more than a third of those in emergency accommodation are children.

In 2018, 50% of the adults aged under 30 were living at home with their parents, due to skyrocketing rents, and there are over 200,000 children living in poverty.

After a decade of austerity, it is little surprise that resentment continued to grow against the two pro-business parties, who have run the state between them since independence.

Sinn Féin, on the other hand, campaigned on the theme “time for change”, and a robust left-wing manifesto titled “Giving workers and families a break”.

Their platform included a rent freeze, a refundable tax credit to reduce rents by up to €1,500, building 100,000 new affordable and social houses over five years, tax cuts on the first €30,000 to help low income earners, restoring the pension age to 65, hiring thousands of nurses, and investing in hospital beds and free GP care.

This message cut through a hostile media and resonated with an electorate desperate for change. On election day, exit polls showed Sinn Féin with the highest support of any party for the entire working age population, in all age groups from 18-65 years. Only in the over-65s did that support drop.

Speaking in Dublin after the vote, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald described the result as a "revolution in the ballot box”. 

“The two party system in this State is now broken, it has been dispatched into the history books,” she said.

“The election is about a real appetite for political change, and that means a change in government.”

“This vote for Sinn Féin is for Sinn Féin to be in government, for Sinn Féin to deliver.”

“My first port of call is the other parties to see whether or not can we actually have a new government, a government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.”

The day after the final results were announced, Sinn Féin declared that it would look immediately to form a “government of change” that “delivers on the big issues of housing, of health and climate change, on the right to a pension at 65, and that gives workers a break”.

Despite winning the popular vote, however, Sinn Féin will struggle to form what would be the first left-wing government in the history of the state.

With only 37 seats, even with the support of progressive parties and independents it would fall well short of the 80 seats needed to form government.

If Sinn Féin cannot form its preferred left-wing coalition, excluding the two major parties, it may be forced to consider working with Fianna Fáil and one or more of the other small parties.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had both previously ruled out working with Sinn Féin, and Fine Gael has maintained its hard line after the vote, ruling out any coalition.

On the other hand, Ireland’s traditional “party of government”, Fianna Fáil, is desperate for a return to power and party leader Micheál Martin appeared to soften in tone towards Sinn Féin after results were released.

The party remains split, however, between those stung by the voter backlash over their confidence-and-supply deal with Fine Gael, and those whose hatred of Sinn Féin outweighs their political opportunism.

Even if a deal can be struck, any decision about entering government would need first to be agreed on by Sinn Féin’s membership in a special Ard Fheis (national conference). There is no guarantee it would win support.

Contained in the price for any coalition with Sinn Féin would also be securing a referendum on Irish unity - an issue that has been pushed to the fore by Brexit.

Even though Sinn Féin didn’t campaign heavily on its signature issue in this election, exit polls showed 57% of voters support holding a referendum on Irish unity within the next five years.

Another option for government would be for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - and a smaller party such as the Greens - to enter into a “grand coalition”. Given the history of the two major parties, and their rivalry since the Irish Civil War, this would seem very unlikely.

It would also grant Sinn Féin undisputed status as the official opposition, to expose and pick apart the right wing policies that such a government would inevitably impose.

If no deal is struck in coming weeks, a new election would have to be called. If Sinn Féin’s level of support holds, they could expect to gain several more seats, and the balance of power could change clearly in their favour - another issue clouding the minds of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

For the time being, however, Sinn Féin is keen to find a way into government in order to get to work fixing the social problems created by decades of right-wing rule.

As Mary Lou McDonald told reporters in Dublin, “we are not doing another five years of housing crisis, that is not on the agenda”.

“We want families and workers to have breathing space, I mean financial, economic security and breathing space,” she said.

Whatever happens next, one thing is clear. This is a watershed moment for Sinn Féin and Irish politics. All is changed, changed utterly.

Germany: Liberals and conservatives join with fascists to oust the left from state government

(Elke Wetzig/ Creative Commons)

On February 5, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) joined forces with the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany - AfD) to remove a left wing government from power.

This major political upset is the first time since World War Two that a German government has assumed power with the help of a far-right party. It represents a first - but probably not last - breach of the “cordon sanitaire” that mainstream parties had placed around the AfD, rejecting all collaboration with a party that is being increasingly seen as a fascist threat.

For the past five years, the small former East German state of Thuringia has been governed by a rare “Red-Red-Green” coalition of the socialist Die Linke (“The Left”), the Social Democrats (SPD), and the Greens. Even more unusually, the largest party in this formation was Die Linke, and their leader Bodo Ramelow took on the role of state Premier.

In last year’s state election, while Die Linke’s vote increased a further three points to 31 percent - and 29 seats - their allies slumped. The SPD fell to 8 percent and lost a third of its seats, while the Greens also went backwards, only narrowly crossing the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament. As a result, the three-party left-coalition government lost its majority.

On the other hand, the AfD surged to 23.4 percent, doubling their seats to 22, while the CDU, whose election campaign was centred on one removing the socialist Ramelow and his left coalition from power, fell 12 percent to an historic low, and lost 13 seats. The FDP, who had spent the previous five years in the political wilderness, scraped over the 5 percent threshold by only 73 votes.

With the far-right on the ascendant, there was some pressure on both the CDU and FDP to provide external support to allow the governing left coalition to return to work. Both parties refused.

The vote on February 5 was therefore a key test for finding a formula for government. The first two rounds proved inconclusive, with Ramelow winning first 43, then 44 votes - more than the Red-Red-Green coalition but still short of the 46 seat majority in the 90 seat parliament.

His rival, the AfD candidate Christoph Kindervater, scored 25 and then 22 votes. While the AfD holds only 22 seats it seemed that three members of the CDU had voted for the fascists’ candidate in the first round, while the rest of their party abstained.

A strong taboo is attached to the AfD, whose leader in Thuringia - Björn Höcke - is particularly notorious. In a 2014 email to colleagues, Höcke advocated abolition Section 130 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalises "incitement of hatred towards other groups of the population”, a  move that would have legalised Holocaust denial.

Höcke - who leads an extreme-right wing within his party - has marched along side open Neo-Nazis and repeatedly criticised Germany for its “moronic” commemoration of the Holocaust, advocating a "remembrance policy change by 180 degrees”. In September 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled that it was not only legal - but also “based on a verifiable factual basis” - to describe Höcke as a “fascist”.

Despite this, there is an ongoing debate in the CDU - both in Thuringia and across Germany - about how to deal with the rise of the AfD. One wing of the party supports the “cordon sanitaire” and refusing any form of collaboration with an increasingly openly fascistic AfD.

Others in the party, however, are concerned that after nearly a decade of a federal “Grand Coalition” with the centre-left SPD, the CDU is losing its right-wing supporters to the insurgent AfD. They therefore advocate working with the AfD to “bring them inside the tent”, and thereby - they hope - moderate them.

With no candidate winning in the first two rounds, the vote went to a third round, in which a simple majority of votes in favour would be enough to win. With Ramelow 20 votes ahead of the AfD candidate, and with the CDU abstaining, it looked likely that his Red-Red-Green alliance would be returned, albeit as a minority government.

Then, out of the blue, the FDP put forward their candidate, 54 year old Thomas Kemmerich, for the position. While Ramelow again won 44 votes, the AfD unexpectedly abandoned their candidate, throwing their full support - and votes - behind Kemmerich.

The CDU, too, abandoned their previous position of abstention to vote for the FDP candidate, who was narrowly victorious with 45 votes. It is difficult to consider these moves as coincidence, even if no formal coalition negotiations between FDP and CDU were conducted.

So, despite the party winning barely 5 percent of the vote, the Free Democratic Party’s candidate was elected Premier, thanks to an unholy alliance with the CDU and the fascists, effectively tearing down the 75-year post-war cordon sanitaire against the fascists.

Reaction

The negative reaction was immediate, and visceral. Emergency demonstrations were called outside the FDP's national offices in Berlin and in other cities around the country.

Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, Die Linke’s Chair in Thuringia, dumped the congratulatory bouquet unceremoniously at Kemmerich’s feet and turned on her heel. She later described the vote as a “clear pact with fascism”.

Die Linke co-chair Bernd Riexinger said the decision was “a bitter day for democracy” and "a taboo-breaker that will have far-reaching consequences",  while Bundestag group leader Dietmar Bartsch called on Kemmerich to resign and for fresh state elections to take place.

The Greens also called for Kemmerich’s resignation, while SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil described the election as "the historic low point in German post-war history”. Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas, also from the SPD, described the election as "completely irresponsible".

The reaction from the centre-right, however, was much more mixed.

Federal lawmakers from Kemmerich’s own party criticised the result, calling on him not to accept his election because of the AfD support.

Markus Söder, chair of the CDU’s Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), condemned the CDU’s actions in Thuringia as "unacceptable”, while CDU national leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also criticised the Thuringia chapter of her own party, also calling for Kemmerich to resign and for new elections.

But Federal Government Commissioner for the East, Christian Hirte (who is also Vice-President of the CDU in Thuringia), congratulated Kemmerich for ousting the Red-Red-Green alliance.

CDU member, and former head of the Germany’s domestic spy agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, celebrated the result as a “huge success”, saying “the main thing is that the socialists are gone”. He saved his criticism for his own party instead, accusing the CDU of abandoning its own members, and advocated an immediate political shift to the right.

A controversial figure, Maaßen was placed on “early retirement” from his role as spy chief in 2018 after he openly criticised the government and was accused of passing sensitive information to the AfD. In fact, the AfD even considered nominating Maaßen for the head of government in Thuringia, but he declined.

Thuringia's CDU state leader Mike Mohring responded to criticism of the vote by saying: "We are not responsible for the voting behaviour of other parties”, and the CDU in Thuringia has rejected calls for fresh elections, which would require a two-thirds majority to call.

It would also be conceivable that Kemmerich himself calls for a vote of confidence that he would hope to lose. To survive, he would need an absolute majority - 46 votes. If he lost, the parliament could vote for a new Premier. Neither of these options seem certain, and the AfD has indicated it would be happy to lend its ongoing support to a CDU-FDP minority government.

Although both the CDU and the FDP immediately ruled out a coalition with the AfD, the vote was a dangerous step towards the normalisation of a fascist force in Germany, with consequences that go far beyond one state.

The vote in Thuringia has an even more worrying precedent. Exactly ninety years ago, Thuringia was the first German government to incorporate the nascent Nazi Party into its ministry. Then - as today - the conservatives wanted to “tame” the Nazis by involving them in government. The rest is history.

As right-wing extremism expert Matthias Quent told newspaper Vorwärts immediately after the vote, unless the major parties and civil society react firmly and decisively, “a stream of [fascist] brown will pour out of little Thuringia into the rest of the Republic”.

Capitalism is not green: you can't solve the climate crisis without changing the system

This is the text of a speech given on behalf of Sinn Féin at the conference "O Capitalismo não é verde. Uma visão alternativa sobre as alterações climáticas" ("Capitalism is not green - an alternative view on climate change"), held on 13 September 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. It was organised by the Portuguese Communist Party and the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament.

The challenge of climate change is unprecedented, transcending national borders. I won’t tell you what you already know, but the earth is - literally - on fire. Massive fires are engulfing the world, the ice is melting and biodiversity loss is hitting record levels. Microplastics are now throughout our food chain, they are in the water we drink - even in the rain itself. The ecology of our entire planet is threatened with irretrievable mutilation.

We need urgent, radical actions - the rapid, far-reaching reorganisation of industry, energy, transport, and mass consumption patterns, and the massive transfer of clean technology to developing countries. There is just one problem: these actions are impossible under Capitalism.

Attempts to make climate a global political priority have been repeatedly led astray by corporate interests. The global climate agreements, from Kyoto to Paris, have woefully inadequate targets, and promote corporate-friendly, market-based mechanisms that simply do not work. Carbon markets don’t cut emissions, but they do create tradable “rights” to pollute, protecting the perverse incentive to profit off pollution.

When we aren’t being sold dodgy emissions markets and carbon offset “indulgences” for our climate sins, we are offered “green consumption” - electric cars, reusable plastic coffee cups, long-life light bulbs. This is also the underlying approach of most mainstream environmental groups and the major Greens parties. Worse, this consensus has been accepted by most environmental activists.

But leaving things to the market is a recipe for disaster. The internal logic of Capitalism is to constantly seek out new opportunities for profit - whatever the social or environmental cost. For capitalists, the climate crisis is less a threat than it is an opportunity for new markets and new profits. And even if the climate threat were solved, the massive over-exploitation of the planet would continue, and the threats to the global ecosystem would deepen.

So, no, Capitalism cannot be green. It is like the proverbial scorpion, that, after stinging the frog that was carrying him across the river on its back, condemning them both to death, could only offer in its defence: “I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Despite becoming only the second country in the world to declare a climate emergency earlier this year, the Irish Government remains the third worst climate performer in the EU. While 25 percent of its electricity comes from wind, Ireland continues to support the fossil fuel industry, and imposes a regressive carbon tax that shifts the costs of corporate pollution onto ordinary working people.

The Irish government has urged people to “lead by example” by buying electric cars, but for the vast majority of working people, this is a fantasy. Meanwhile, public transport in Ireland - which barely exists outside of Dublin - is facing one cut after another. And now, with the EU’s Railway Package, we are facing further privatisation, removing a vital sector from public hands.

It’s not all negative, of course. In May a delegation of Irish civil servants visited Copenhagen to research cycleways. Dublin has four new - albeit separate and disconnected - Climate Action Plans, each run by a different council, and some of the initiatives in these Plans are good. The most innovative is to build Ireland’s largest district heating system by piping excess industrial heat from Poolbeg peninsular to warm homes. There are also plans to install solar panels on all new public housing, adaptation plans, and awareness raising, but this is all just a drop in the ocean.

Another idea now gaining support in Ireland and elsewhere is to plant trees to draw down carbon. But Ireland already has forest plantations. The countryside is covered in countless hectares of fast-growing Sitka spruce - an invasive, non-native species. These plantations are dead zones - eerily quiet, without bird or animal life. They are green deserts, which exist solely as a cash crop. Many farmers want to invest in mixed plantations of native, broad-leaf species, but the supports available to Sitka plantations are not yet available for more sustainable options.

Onshore fracking was banned in most of Ireland two years ago, but in the six counties still under British rule there are plans to start operations, right next to the border, a move that would effectively render any ban null and void.

Earlier this year, Sinn Féin helped push a Climate Emergency Bill through the Dáil, the national parliament. It would have made Ireland the fifth country in the world to ban oil and gas exploration by halting the issuing of new licences.

But because the Bill may have required the use of public money, the government used a procedural technicality to effectively freeze the legislation. Around the same time, it was revealed that a key advisor to the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) had held secret meetings with a lobbyist for the oil sector.

Unfortunately, while they are formally better on fossil fuels, the Irish Greens also still accept the logic of the market. But because they are called “Green”, people still look to them for the answers. The challenge now is to change that conversation.

A further weakness of the Western ecological movement is its failure to put, not just Capitalism, but the issue of Imperialism, at the centre of its analysis. Capitalism has always been a global system, transferring wealth from developing countries to the nations at the centre of world capitalism, whether by direct force or commerce. The arms industry, and wars for oil and other resources, are everyday reminders of this.

So too are the vast palm oil plantations in developing countries, and the recent EU-Mercosur trade deal. The Mercosur deal encouraged the apocalyptic fires in the Amazon by providing an incentive to clear more land for cheap beef and soy for the EU. But it is also about expanding the market for German cars - securing short-term profits for a dirty manufacturing sector already entering recession.

Mercosur has an Irish angle too. Cheap beef from Brazil flooding into the EU market will undercut more sustainably produced Irish beef. It will drive Irish beef farmers out of business, destroying rural society in Brazil and Ireland, and damaging the environment as well as the development of sustainable agriculture globally.

Why? Because the scorpion only cares about profits.

The largest power station in Ireland runs almost entirely on coal from Colombia. Most of this coal is from the Cerrejon mine, where trade union leaders and environmental and indigenous activists are regularly murdered. The Irish nationally-owned energy corporation, the Electricity Supply Board, also has massive investments in coal mines in the Philippines, where local activists are also being murdered.

The ruling classes in the Global North - including the EU - have an historic debt for the exploitation and destruction of the developing world, a debt which is growing every day. Any climate action and transition to “green jobs” must therefore have climate justice, repaying this global debt, at its heart, or it will be nothing but a new “Green Imperialism”.

In the EU, we are caught in a capitalist web, with a failed Emissions Trading Scheme, a stifling Energy Treaty, and state aid and competition rules that restrict urgent direct action by national governments. We are now hearing more and more talk of a “green deal” and “green growth”. At best, this is a half-hearted attempt at green washing; at worst, it is cover for business as usual.

Brexit will make things worse too - a new tax on heavy polluters, to replace the already ineffective EU ETS in Britain after Brexit, will see a reduction to nearly half the EU carbon market price.

The situation seems so daunting, many are beginning to question if we can succeed. A recent article in the New Yorker put it plainly, arguing “The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.” There you have it! Behind all the greenwashing, all the electric cars, lightbulbs, reusable coffee cups and other junk, this is what the “green capitalists” and “progressive liberals” have to offer.

They can imagine the end of the species, but they can’t imagine the end of Capitalism.

Those of us who can imagine it must do more than just imagine. It is inspiring today to see and hear about local initiatives showing that there are alternatives ways of doing things. We must connect our ambitions to stop climate change to the reality on the ground - to show people that genuine change is possible, and how it will impact, and can improve, their daily life. This isn’t enough, of course, but it shows there is a way, that the technology and know-how exists - if there is the political will.

But we must do still more.

I’m not going to rattle off numbers about greenhouse gases, and targets and so on, but I do want to give you one number. 14 months. In November 2020, the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC - or “COP26” - is scheduled to take place in Glasgow. If the EU, US, and other Western countries are to act meaningfully on climate, and begin the necessary policy processes, the political point of no return will effectively be at COP26.

Acting in a decade will be too late. For this reason, we should also work to build the largest possible popular mobilisation around COP26 next year. Here in Europe, in the historical cradle of Capitalism and Imperialism, we have an opportunity - and a duty - to make this fight winnable. 

The new climate movement is already having its internal debates about whether you can solve the climate crisis without changing the system, or if a greener Capitalism is enough. The left needs to join in and help strengthen this movement, as well as the anti-Capitalist position in that movement.

We can’t replace Capitalism tomorrow, but we can build real alternatives in our communities that bring people together, giving them a glimpse of what a sustainable, socialist, society could look like. At the same time, we can help bring the largest number of people onto the streets, forcing governments to act, even against their will. And with these people we can build a larger political movement for change.

And remember, we are facing a battle - not just for human civilisation (such as it is) - but for billions of other species on this small blue, fragile, planet as well. We have no option other than to win.

Left parties must stand with the people

Neo-fascist and far right movements are growing in Europe, and internationally. Large, often violent, neo-fascist demonstrations are commonplace in some countries. In Europe, parties of the far right are part of government in Italy, Poland, Hungary and Austria, and are waiting in the wings elsewhere.

In 2017, more than 16 million people voted for far-right parties in Germany and France. The National Front’s Marine Le Pen won over 10 million votes in the 2017 presidential election. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far right party to enter the German parliament since World War II. Austria’s Freedom Party - founded by former Nazis - is in coalition government, and Poland’s Law and Justice government has subverted the courts, while encouraging white supremacists onto the streets. 

In Italy, deputy Prime Minister Mateo Salvini’s extremist Lega party (formerly Legal Nord), overshadows its larger coalition partners, while Hungary’s Fidesz government vilifies its critics as agents of the (Jewish) billionaire George Soros and treats refugees as “a Muslim invasion force”.

 

Read the full article at An Phoblacht.

New Spanish government brings little joy for Catalans and Basques

Spain’s new minority Socialist Workers Party government has taken steps to defuse tensions in Catalonia and the Basque Country, but remains firmly opposed to allowing any form of national self-determination.

Coming to power on June 1, new Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for “rebuilding trust” in Catalonia. Spanish direct rule in Catalonia under the contentious Article 155 – imposed by Madrid to prevent the October 1 independence referendum last year – was lifted.

Sánchez’s cabinet also contains surprises, including new Defence Minister Margarita Robles. As Minister of the Interior and Justice in the 1990s, Robles pursued the GAL paramilitary death squads operated by the Spanish government in the Basque Country during the 1980s, killing dozens.

The Spanish government announced it would move Catalan political prisoners to jails in Catalonia, as well as a case-by-case transfer of Basque political prisoners to prisons closer to home, reversing the longstanding ‘dispersal’ policy of several hundred Basque prisoners in jails spread across the Spanish state.

Sánchez justified the latter move with reference to the declaration by Basque pro-independence armed organisation ETA that it was ending its 59-year existence, but in both cases Spain was merely finally complying with recognised legal standards – including its own. The French government began carrying out similar moves with Basque prisoners last year. 

A closer look at Sánchez’s cabinet is more revealing. His Foreign Minister is Josep Borrell, a Catalan-born former President of the European Parliament. Speaking at a rally of the right-wing unionist ‘Catalan Civil Society’ organisation last December, the fiercely anti-independence Borrell called for Catalonia to be “disinfected” of pro-independence sentiment. Borrell’s immediate task will be to recover the political ground lost by Spain across Europe due to its terrible mishandling of the Catalan referendum.

Read the full article at An Phoblacht.

Fatah Congress in Palestine addressed by Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson

THE 7th National Congress of Fatah, held in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah, heard solidarity greetings from Sinn Féin delivered by Martina Anderson MEP.

The five-day congress – the first to be held by the party since 2009 – was held on November 28/29 and attended by over 1,300 Fatah delegates. There were also 60 international guests from 28 different countries, including China, India, Sudan, Chile and Germany.

President Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected unanimously as Chair of Fatah and the congress elected Fatah’s 23-member Central Committee and its 132-member Revolutionary Council.

Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi was elected to the Central Committee with the highest vote of any candidate.

Addressing the conference on the ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People’, Martina Anderson conveyed the solidarity of Sinn Féin and the Irish people to the people of Palestine. She highlighted the shared struggle for freedom and nationhood.

Martina, who is Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine, also stressed the importance of Palestinian unity.

“In any national liberation struggle, division and disunity slices and dices the struggle, damages and weakens it and the people suffer the most,” the Irish MEP told the congress.

“When Palestinians speak with one voice you advance international solidarity with your struggle and your message is heard clearly around the world.

“Sinn Féin will continue to work to build international solidarity and continue to support the Palestinian people.”

[Read the full article in An Phoblacht here].

Ireland: As Irish Water crashes and burns, a people is risen

Water protest in Dublin

The Irish government’s unpopular public utility, Irish Water, has been dealt a body blow, after it failed two key tests within the space of a fortnight, gifting a huge victory to opposition parties and the massive anti-water charges movement.

On 15 July the government revealed that, of Ireland’s approximately 1.5 million households, only 645,000, or about 43 percent, had paid the first water bills issued by the new body.

Facing down threats of tax increases or of having water supplies cut off, and accusations from an increasingly hysterical government that those opposed to water charges were “fascists”, "ISIS" and a “sinister fringe”, more than half of Irish households have refused to pay the hated new charges.

Perhaps expecting a poor return, the government has already rammed legislation through the Dáil that will allow unpaid bills to taken from people’s wages and welfare payments.

Mary Lou McDonald TD, Deputy President of the anti-austerity republican party Sinn Féin, welcomed the low payment figures.

“This is a serious embarrassment to the government who have done their best to denounce and belittle the resistance to their introduction of water charges,” she said.

“The defiance of the Irish people tells them in no uncertain terms that water charges are unwelcome and that they will not be cowed by threats.”