Berlin: graffiti in the alley

Anti-fascism demos intensify before German election

By Candice Novak

COLOGNE, Germany – Most in the crowd of German liberals, progressives and just-plain-scared residents were too young to have experienced rule under the Third Reich, but the threat of extreme-right political parties here has triggered a vehement response. The home-made banners reading “Nazis out!” and “Never again fascism,” first seem like cries from a guilt-stained German consciousness, but in this Superwahljahr (super election year), with some far-right groups gaining popularity in the voting booths and neo-Nazis strengthening in the streets, the fear is very real. Thousands of citizens here have been mobilizing. Between last month’s regional elections and the upcoming general election, the popular chant would often be heard echoing through the cobblestone streets: “Hoch! Die! Internationale Solidarität!” – “Up with the international solidarity!”

“The partial successes of the racists should be taken as a warning,” says Claus Ludwig, a Cologne city councilmember from die Linke party. “There is a layer of society alienated from the parliamentary system, frustrated by the economic crisis, which is open to racist propaganda, open to scapegoating the immigrants.”

In this economically-struggling Western state, the Pro-Köln party – running on an anti-Islam, anti-immigrant platform – holds five city council seats after receiving 5.3 percent of Cologne’s votes in the late-August regional elections. The percentages sound small, but in the representative German voting system each party, which passes the so-called, five-percent-hurdle gains city council seats.

Though the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD, the country’s largest neo-Nazi party) received less than one percent in the regional elections, it has benefited from

lookie, feelie, doi

Wahllos

Random finding on the cafe-lined streets of Aachenerstraße in Köln.

“drink, be obedient”

The scene at the Dom on a Friday afternoon. “Liebe ist für alles” above a homeless man cradling his dog and “Drink, be obedient,” scrawled on the marble walls of a near-by shop.

anti-fascism rally, Cologne

Translation: “Pro-Köln” — the anti-muslim party in Nordrhein-Westfallen — “is stupid.”

rally at the Dom, Cologne

The scene before an anti-fascism/anti-racism rally in front of Koln’s pollution-blackened gothic Dom.

garage art in Cologne

A couple of garage-grafitti examples from the Köln suburbs.

Bonn busted campaign ads

kölle, deutschland

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