Protesters raised posters comparing CDU leader Friedrich Merz, Franz Von Papen, the conservative chancellor who paved the way for Hitler in 1933 Photo: Reproduction/ Facebook

It was hard to ignore the poster. Amid the crowd that filled the streets of Germany last weekend, a sign highlighted the silhouette of Friedrich Merz, leader of the Union, the coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social-Christian Union (CSU), and the polls of voting intention, along with Franz Von Papen, a German chancellor who, in 1933, paved the way for Adolf Hitler to take over the country’s power and overthrow the Weimar Republic.

The message, written in English, caused the reader to find the difference between the two and made it refer to a direct question: the story repeats itself?

In the streets of Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, thousands of protesters carried banners against the far right and denounced the connivance of the CDU with the alternative to Germany (AFD).

On Saturday and Sunday, about 300,000 people participated in protests under the motto “Wir Sind Die Brandmauer!” (“We are the barrier of fire!”) Against the advance of the far right and the role of Merz’s party in this process. In Berlin, the mobilization brought together about 200,000 people, according to the organization, while in Hamburg, approximately 50,000 occupied the streets.

Smaller protests occurred in Dresden, Leipzig and Stuttgart, always with the same claim: that Friedrich Merz adopts a clear stance against any approximation with AFD, an ultranational and xenophobic party that already appears as the second largest political force in the country in some research.

The political crisis involving Germany has its roots in the wear and tear of traditional parties, economic recession and the growth of the far right, which capitalizes popular discontent. AFD, initially marginalized, has become consolidated as a heavyweight electoral force, especially in the east of the country, where unemployment and divestment feed the feeling of abandonment.

At the same time, the CDU, the largest opposition party, faces internal dilemmas. If on the one hand there is an AFD isolation, on the other, there are sectors who consider some form of cooperation with the far right in state governments. Merz has oscillated between criticism of AFD and gestures that suggest a flexibility of the traditional barrier between conservatives and ultranationalists.

But who was Franz von Papen and what was his role in the rise of Nazifascism?

Franz von Papen was a conservative Catholic aristocrat and political political who played a central role in the destruction of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler to power. He represented the most reactionary in the German political elite: monarchist, anti -republican and deeply hostile to the labor movement.

Its trajectory is the historical proof that traditional conservatism, instead of blocking the far right, often paves its way.

After World War I and the 1918-1919 German Revolution, the Weimar Republic was born surrounded by enemies. The German right never accepted the new democratic order and fueled the “back on the back” myth – the conspiracy theory that Germany’s defeat was due to socialists, communists and Jews, not military failure.

In the early years of the Republic, upheavals from the left, such as the Spartakistic Revolt of Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, they were brutally crushed by Freikorps, paramilitary militias formed by former soldiers and funded by conservative and social democrats. However, the true threat to democracy did not come from the revolutionary left, but from the reactionary right it conspired against the regime since its birth.

In the 1920s, under the governments of Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Stresemann, Weimar had a brief period of economic stabilization and social modernization, but this was not enough to contain the resentment of the industrial bourgeoisie and the military elites, which saw the growth of communist organizations as a growing threat.

The 1929 crisis, which plunged the country in recession, dug up this latent hatred and strengthened the most extremist sectors of German politics. Amid the economic collapse, the German bourgeoisie decided it was time to bury democracy once and for all – and it was in this context that Franz Von Papen entered the scene.

In 1932, Papen was named Chancellor by President Paul Von Hindenburg, without any parliamentary base, governing emergency decrees. His government was a bridge for authoritarianism: he dissolved state parliaments, repressed workers’ movements, and revoked social measures from the Republic. Unable to stabilize the country, it was replaced by Kurt von Schleicher, but did not leave the scene. On the contrary, Papen became the great architect of Hitler’s rise to power.

In early 1933, conservative elites sought a leader who could destroy the left and at the same time be manipulated by aristocracy and industrialists. Von Papen, believing he could “tame” Hitler and use it as a puppet from the traditional right, sewed a deal for him to be named Chancellor. The condition was that only three Nazi ministers be included in the cabinet, while conservatives would maintain most high -ranking positions.

“We hired Hitler,” a confident papen said. Shortly thereafter, Hitler would eliminate any trace of opposition within the government and put PAPEN and its allies on the sidelines of the regime they helped build.

Franz von Papen symbolically delivers power to Hitler on Potsdam Day, March 21, 1933.Von Papen believed Hitler would be a traditional right puppet. Photo: Reproduction

The alliance between conservatives and Nazis was expensive. A few months after the inauguration, the Reichstag fire served as a pretext for a state of emergency, allowing the massive persecution to communists, socialists and unionists.

Thousands were arrested, deported to concentration camps, or simply murdered by Gestapo and SA, a paramilitary division of the Hitler Party. The KPD (German Communist Party), which had a strong working base, was one of the first targets of Nazi repression.

In June 1934, the “Long Knife Night” settled the last traces of the traditional right within the regime. Franz Von Papen survived, but saw his group crushed. His error of calculation handed over Germany to Hitler’s hands and helped seal the destination of millions of people who would be exterminated in the following years.

The rise of Nazism was not an accident in history, but a process in which German conservatism acted as an active accomplice. Franz Von Papen and his allies opened the gates of power to Hitler, believing that they could use it for their own interests. In the end, they were discarded – and with them the German democracy itself.

History shows that when the traditional right flirts with fascism, it is just a matter of time until it is swallowed by it.

Friedrich Merz, ambiguity and surrender before the far right

The CDU, under the leadership of Friedrich Merz, plays a key role in the current German political crisis and is a central figure in the surrender of the traditional right against the far right.

Over the past few months, Merz and his party have oscillated between traditionally conservative rhetoric and gestures that suggest an increasing opening to the speech of AFD and its leader, Alice Weidel. If, at the beginning of his career as the opposition leader, he stated that “there would be no collaboration” with AFD, today reality proves different.

The CDU already accepts indirect alliances in the states of Turíngia and Saxony-Anhalt, where the far right has grown significantly.

At Bundestag, Merz leads CDU in a decisive vote, giving AFD his first parliamentary victory. Photo: Reproduction

A survey published by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation in March 2024, “Will the Firewall Hold? – Study on Cooperation with the Extreme Right in East German Municipalities (“Will Firewall take it? The far right in municipalities in eastern Germany, between the summer of 2019 and the end of 2023.

The study stressed that, among all the great political parties, the CDU de Merz presented the largest number of collaborations with AFD, mainly through support for motions proposed by the far right party.

These collaborations included joint voting behaviors, joint employee elections and agreements, providing an empirical basis for political actors to advocate the need for measures to mitigate the influence of far -right ideologies on local governance.

In addition, an investigation conducted by MDR Investigativ revealed that in at least 18 of the 50 local parliaments in the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Turínia, AFD substantive motions have often been approved, with the support of other parties, notably the CDU . These cases of indirect cooperation indicate an erosion of the “sanitary cord” that traditionally separated democratic parties from the far right in these regions.

The hardening of immigration policies, approved in the German Parliament last Friday (31), with decisive votes of the CDU, is one of the episodes that exemplify how Merz and his party feed the AFD agenda.

The Bundestag approved measures package hardens the conditions for asylum applicants and paves the way for deportations – an agenda that the far right has defended for years. While Merz tries to balance himself between an institutional discourse and the need to contain the loss of votes for AFD, in the February parliamentary election, the CDU ends up normalizing agendas that, a few years ago, would be unthinkable for a party traditionally linked to Christian democracy .

In addition, the recent CDU turn has generated internal divisions. While some party sectors, such as Angela Merkel’s closest wing, advocate the maintenance of a “sanitary cord” against the far right, other regional leaders already consider negotiations and pragmatic agreements with AFD. Friedrich Merz, in turn, adopts an ambiguous stance, formally rejecting any alliance, but yielding to central points of the far right agenda. Last Friday, most of the CDU in Germany Parliament returned with AFD.

The historical risk of this movement is evident: In trying to contain the advance of AFD by incorporating his speech, Merz can repeat Franz von Papen’s error, who believed he could control Hitler within traditional political structure. But, as history has already shown, when the conservative right normalizes the extreme right speech, it is just a matter of time until it is swallowed by it.

Source: vermelho.org.br



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