I feel I must comment on the letter of Karina Kotz (Feb. 2) in which the writer portrayed the German right wing as representing the political “mainstream.”
If the results of the recent state elections in Brandenburg are any indication, Kotz’s assertion that the German right wing represents the mainstream is obviously incorrect. In that election, the vast majority of the voters supported the truly mainstream parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats. The right-wing parties failed even to attain 5 percent of the vote.
The overall tone of her letter was typical of the right-wing extremists who feel overwhelmed by modern society and blame it for their personal difficulties. They prefer to fantasize about a mostly fictional “golden age” during which Germany was strong. Kotz implies all of this when she writes of Germany’s “homogeneous” population that will “not bow to Western pressures” but will, instead, hold true to its 1,000-year-old “destiny and identity.” Unfortunately these fantasies are not based upon fact so much as upon Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda.
