Recent assaults spark national debate over Germany’s increasingly raw political climate, with some seeing echoes of its dark history.

One politician ruthlessly beaten while hanging campaign posters. Another assaulted in a public library. Yet another, pushed and spat on by suspects who were part of a group of people allegedly calling out “Heil Hitler.”

A string of violent attacks on politicians in Germany — including a brutal assault on a member of the European Parliament in Dresden — has shaken many and sparked a national debate over the increasingly raw political climate in the country, with some drawing comparisons to the kind of political violence that accompanied the rise of the Nazis.

Recent attacks on politicians are “reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history,” said Hendrik Wüst, the conservative premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, in an interview on German public television.

  • DarkThoughts
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    26 months ago

    I do. Staufenberg’s attempt to assassinate Hitler for example. Nazis killing Nazis is just a win win situation for everyone else. But I can see how Nazi sympathizers struggle to understand this.

    • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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      16 months ago

      I guess we disagree then.

      I can make an exception for Hitler during WW2, but outside of that, people should not be simply killing the people they disagree with. That’s how you get Putin’s Russia.

      • DarkThoughts
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        26 months ago

        Calling Nazis “people you disagree with” is already enough of a dogwhistle that tells us exactly what kind of person you are. And yes, if some mobster in Russia wants to eff Putin, he should go for it.

        • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          -16 months ago

          You can try to say I’m whatever you want, I don’t really care. What I’m more concerned about is living in a country with democratic values.

          Perhaps it’s being an American, where we have various freedoms, but disagreements should be handled with words and debate. If you cannot beat someone with your words, you don’t deserve to win.

          Regarding Putin, unfortunately, that would probably not make anything better. Just more chaos, and the war would continue. There’s plenty more Putins behind him, and whoever offs him is probably not a nice guy.

          • DarkThoughts
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            26 months ago

            What I’m more concerned about is living in a country with democratic values.

            Yes, very interesting choice of words.

            Perhaps it’s being an American

            Oh boy, and I’m out. Murica!

              • DarkThoughts
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                26 months ago

                Unlike you I’m not a Nazi, but I will very much make use of my constitutional right to fight Nazis.

                • @Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                  16 months ago

                  Fine and dandy. Though simply killing them because you don’t like them makes you just like them. That’s why we hate them after all, they just killed too many people.

                  Better to use words to convince.

                  • DarkThoughts
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                    26 months ago

                    Stop preaching this false narrative of “just because you don’t like them”. There’s reasons why we don’t like Nazis. I as a German know this very much better than you uneducated Muricans who think listening to far right pundits is part of some sort of balancing act for their enlightened centrism.