Increasing Tension Within German Society And Its Media Coverage: A Case Study
By Melanie Peters
22 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org
The Distortion of Right-Wing and Left-Wing Violence in German Media
Since the beginning of this year, Germany has found itself in a public dispute dealing with the sexual harassments in Cologne on New Year's Eve and the refugee crisis. The positive image of German politics during the crisis is slightly fading within the country and questions about the possible consequences of the refugee wave have increasingly been discussed by the German media. Many voices demand border-closings, while others dispute the root of the problem. However, as usual, the media covers one topic extensively while excluding others. For a couple of years, dominating subjects such as TTIP, the crisis in Ukraine, as well as the financial crisis in Greece have slowly been muted in the national media. As soon as there is a new concern, the other is technically ignored and the new one becomes an intensification of an irrational fear within society. Even though the tensions caused by the refugee crisis in Germany are widely covered in the national media and there are many concerns of society being discussed, one aspect is left out or even avoided at times.
The attacks in Cologne have been discussed extensively and the debate is still continuing. Critical voices have grown louder and some are ending in a hysterical firestorm. Integration, the refugee crisis, and Merkel's politics form an everyday part of the German media coverage of the events. Politicians discuss the criminality of migrants, asylum policy, and the problems we might be facing. They criticize the hysterical mood among groups such as PEGIDA, but even enhance the hysteria around migration by discussing it without drawing any conclusions or giving solutions. However, the general mood in Germany, also among Germans, grows quite tense. It started in Cologne, when fascists attacked refugees in reprisal for the events on New Year's Eve, and reached its peak when the islamophobic movement LEGIDA had its anniversary in Leipzig on January 11 this year.
On January 11, a couple of thousand people made it to the demonstration and hundreds to the protest against LEGIDA. Whenever LEGIDA protests, Leipzig inhabitants can tell it right away just by walking through Leipzig downtown: the presence of the police is immense, cars standing in long queues, and police officers patrolling the streets, preparing for the evening. Who are these people joining the LEGIDA protests? I do not know any of them personally, but I do follow their discussions on the internet, since the movement organizes itself through social media platforms. While thousands of people demonstrated in the city center, a mob around 250 fascists were on their way to Connewitz, a part of Leipzig known for its counterculture. Shortly after 7 pm on January 11, a close friend of mine texted me, asking if I was okay. At this point, I could tell that something went wrong with the LEGIDA demonstration that night. A few minutes later, the fascist mob went through the street I live in, technically destroying everything that was in their way. Before that, they destroyed the windows and inventory of most of the shops in Wolfgang-Heinze-Straße, not far from my apartment. More than one hundred of the neo-Nazis got arrested that night.
Incidents such as this have become more common, especially in times of movements such as PEGIDA and the growing support of the right-wing party AFD. Since the media coverage of PEGIDA, LEGIDA, and the AFD is rather negative and very critical, it might seem awkward to claim that German media exaggerate the impact of left-wing violence. So let's have a look at the coverage of recent events in the media. At this point, I would like to take a step back. When neo-Nazis demonstrated in December in the southern part of Leipzig (close to Connewitz), leftists attacked neo-Nazis and police officers, also setting tram stops on fire, and the public outcry was quite big. It was covered in the media nationwide, showing pictures of police men standing in front of burning trash bins or images of hundreds of masked figures walking down the streets. The media and many officials labeled these acts as “street terror.” The so-called street terror is also represented as something completely out of control and shown as threat for people, something the media and officials did not do to that extent when it comes to the attacks in January.
Surprisingly, with the fascist attacks in January it is the other way round. First of all, a more detailed media coverage was limited to the local media. The German news program Tagesthemen aired a 20 to 30-second clip showing pieces of broken glass in front of some stores and demolished bars and shops. The only information the viewers got was that hooligans attacked Leipzig Connewitz. On a newscast of the biggest local broadcaster MDR the spokesperson of Leipzig's police, Andreas Loepki, claimed that these attacks happened most likely because of the rivalry between two local soccer clubs. Even at this point, I thought that this statement was quite ridiculous. It did not take long to find out that most of the perpetrators had close connections to the neo-Nazi scene in Eastern Germany. The events were completely blurred and understated. Many twitter pages run by fascist groups even announced the attacks beforehand, afterward claiming that those who feed or support the left, deserve to be punished. Another quite popular image shows the attackers arrested by the police, sitting on the floor. While the lefty “terror” is shown as something completely out of control, the right-wing terrorism is depicted as something under control and tamed. Explicit violence is missed in the picture the media tries to portray. And it was no different from the events in December, I can tell it because I was there. Additionally, the media tries to mute not only these tensions withing society but also the increasing violence against refugees. Offenses and attacks on refugee hostels, which counted almost 800 last year, excluding attacks this year in which people made use of grenades, are also just mentioned briefly and not discussed in depth. To the media, the attacks are just numbers and there is barely a background story to any of these attacks.
So why are the left-wing attacks widely discussed and the right-wing basically ignored in nationwide media, even though there have been hundreds of deaths because of fascist attacks since the 1990s, while there has not been one reported death caused by leftists since the activities of the Red Army Fraction in the 70s and early 80s? Do Germans have a general tendency to ignore right—wing attacks on refugees or leftists? I personally do not think that this is the root of the problem, but that there are multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that society seems to be overwhelmed with too many issues concerning the negative mood within the country. In 2008, it was the financial crisis everyone was talking about. In 2013, it was the dispute about Snowden and the National Security Agency. Since 2015, it has been the refugee crisis and the extensive media coverage will most likely continue for a long time. In this case, the media cannot simply focus on another topic for the situation is too conflict-laden within Germany. And to avoid further tensions, there is only one option left: shut out certain topics that scare society even more. But still, is that all there is to it?
First of all, violence from the right is usually less organized than left-wing violence. For many years, racially motivated violence has been characterized by attacks on migrants or people of another descent. Usually, a couple of perpetrators spot their victims and attack them. Attacks that are planned on a large scale are extremely rare when it comes to violence from the right-wing spectrum. I honestly think that it is quite disturbing for society to experience this highly organized level of right-wing violence (as happened in Connewitz). The last time attacks on this scale took place in Leipzig was during a period of history that most of us do not want to come back to. It is utterly correct to negate a close connection to Night of Broken Glass in 1938 (as some people actually did), since the attacks were organized by the state back then. Still, the motivation for the violence remains the same: Fascists attack shops and stores simply because this group of society does not share their ideological views or target people based on their looks or origins.
I strongly oppose both kinds of violence and the way they try to make a political statement. The increasing propensity towards violence on both sides concerns me. Still, fascists show a higher willingness to attack people. And even though leftists willfully damage property most of the time, the increasing violence against police officers and governmental institutions is also alarming. I have no doubts that other attacks and clashes between both political camps will follow soon. The question remains how long the media and officials will be able to disregard these problems that are growing within German society, especially the increasing propensity towards violence on the political right. It has come close to killing people and I hope that officials will finally take stronger action against extremists, instead of playing down these tensions in the media.
Melanie Peters is a 25-years old and a second year graduate student of American Studies in Germany. Her research interests include environmental and foreign policy, popular culture, and cultural studies.