Jamel, The Town Controlled by Neo-Nazis

September 25, 2007 12:55 PM

Right-Wing Rot: A Village In the Hands of Neo-Nazis Houses torched, pets killed and outsiders chased away: Such is life in the Eastern German town of Jamel. For years, it has been controlled by the neo-Nazis who live there. Even the mayor says he has given up.

This story in Der Spiegel inspired a pretty enthusiastic response on StormFront.Org (neo-Nazi site in English; probably Not Safe For Work at most normal workplaces.)

Neo-Nazi Party More Popular Than Social Democrats In Saxony

posted by jason's_planet (46 comments total)

Wandel estimates that more than half of the village's three dozen residents are right-wing radicals. "

Am I reading this correctly? Is this article actually about how 18 neo-nazis are terrorizing some german one-horse town?

And just scrolling through that Stormfront thread, I think I contracted a terrible case of acne.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:08 PM on September 25, 2007

You know who else lived in a town controlled by Nazis?
posted by fandango_matt at 1:10 PM on September 25, 2007 [5 favorites]

I say we nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
posted by DreamerFi at 1:11 PM on September 25, 2007 [4 favorites]

Why not stick with what we know? DU for all!
posted by telstar at 1:24 PM on September 25, 2007

Germany needs to invent the ASBO.
posted by Artw at 1:29 PM on September 25, 2007

36 people? It's less a town and more an apartment building spread over too much space.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:30 PM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

You know who else lived in a town controlled by Nazis?

Anne Frank?

Wait. I'm doing this wrong.
posted by Avenger at 1:30 PM on September 25, 2007 [6 favorites]

Someone please assure me that telstar isn't making the false equivalency I think he's making.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:44 PM on September 25, 2007

I have no idea what he means by "DU", so I can't tell you what he's doing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:46 PM on September 25, 2007

I think he means Depleted Uranium, as in bullets, as in shooting them all. Which, as we all know, is far less harsh than an ASBO.
posted by Artw at 1:49 PM on September 25, 2007

You know who else celebrates 4/20?
posted by telstar at 2:06 PM on September 25, 2007

Wow, it's disturbing to see all the Ron Paul supporters on that neo-Nazi site.

Not surprising, really.

But disturbing.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:08 PM on September 25, 2007

I'm sure the Stormfront people would be more inclined to move if they were guaranteed the right to molest their own children.
posted by cloeburner at 2:09 PM on September 25, 2007

BitterOldPunk - I'm not really inclined to look, but... seriously?
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on September 25, 2007

Stormfront <3 Ron Paul.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:17 PM on September 25, 2007

Really.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:25 PM on September 25, 2007

"About 120 neo-Nazis raised the Reichskriegsflagge, a symbol used by Hitler's Nazi party, in front of the old farmhouse at the end of Forststrasse. They wanted to celebrate the 103rd anniversary of Hitler's birth."

Being a Nazi and using Nazi symbols are both quite illegal under German law. (And a good thing too. I'm all for freedom of speech but this is one of those rare exceptions).

Jail all 18 or so of them and call it a day.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:27 PM on September 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

If only there was some way to get the KKK and Stormfront to realize that they were actually sworn enemies. Some trifling little detail in their respective ideologies that were totally incompatible.

They could then dedicate all their time to going after one another, and the rest of us could just happily move on.
posted by quin at 2:43 PM on September 25, 2007

Stormfront also <3 ending the war in Iraq!
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:47 PM on September 25, 2007

As much as I hate nazis (particularly of the Illinois nazis), this doesnt seem so much a "Town" as a Cul-de-sac.

I was expecting this to be all "Mad Max" and it really just sounds like a bunch of dicks livin' in the woods.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:54 PM on September 25, 2007

It's going to be near impossible not to use "You know who else likes Ron Paul?" next time the subject comes up.
posted by Artw at 2:55 PM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

meant to say "Illinois variety"
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:56 PM on September 25, 2007

more than half of the village's three dozen residents are right-wing radicals.

18 Nazis. OMG. Terrrah!
posted by lalochezia at 3:01 PM on September 25, 2007

"Three dozen" under the thumb of right-wing radicals?

Poppycock. Try 300 million, then we'll talk.
posted by Curry at 3:23 PM on September 25, 2007

Well, since Nazi stands for National SOCIALIST, and Hitler was a vegetarian and gun control nut, maybe LEFT-wing would be more like it....
posted by PoopyDoop at 3:29 PM on September 25, 2007

Heh. Do people still come out with that stuff for real?
posted by Artw at 3:39 PM on September 25, 2007

If only there was some way to get the KKK and Stormfront to realize that they were actually sworn enemies. Some trifling little detail in their respective ideologies that were totally incompatible.

They could then dedicate all their time to going after one another, and the rest of us could just happily move on.

As someone on the far-left, where the above happens all the time, I'd be curious to know how often that happens with the White Supremacist right. I mean, I'm sure they cry "Race Traitor" at each other or whatever, but does the following happen?

Nazi: Well, I'm actually very serious about reconstituting important elements of the NSDAP in the period shortly after the Munich Putsch. Some of the later policies are problematic for me, specifically the processes that led to the Night of the Long Knives. I think the lack of true race unity in the Party led in the end to the incomplete extermination of the Jews and other inferiors.
KKKman: I'm more in favor of a Herrenvolk democracy concomitant with the extermination and/or slavery of inferior races. However, I deeply disagree with you about the Night of the Long Knives. They deserved that suppression. Stop trying to be a "Beautiful Soul" Nazi. Also, I think we need to do activism among rural Whites, rather than the suburbanites I've noticed American Nazis target.
Nazi: KKKman, you obviously know very little. I don't think I can beat up darkies with you anymore. Your defense of the Night of the Long Knives is appalling. Really, fuck you. It's people like you that have led to the current mongrel society. Go back to Richmond, fucker.
KKKman: Go back to Nuremberg, asshole. We don't need foreign ideologies to be racist.

Somehow I doubt that happens. A pity.
posted by Gnatcho at 3:58 PM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

Forget it, Jamel...it's Nazi-town.
posted by Smedleyman at 4:06 PM on September 25, 2007 [3 favorites]

Smedleyman wins.
posted by Artw at 4:08 PM on September 25, 2007

If you watch Ron Paul give a speech to the party faithful (as opposed to appearances he makes on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, where he seems like a twinkly-eyed, gentle elf out of a Rankin/Bass animated cartoon) on C-SPAN (about the only place you'll see it), he's dead-on red-meat right-wing in most respects, and he's doesn't shrink from demagoguery.
posted by blucevalo at 4:30 PM on September 25, 2007

Well, since Nazi stands for National SOCIALIST, and Hitler was a vegetarian and gun control nut, maybe LEFT-wing would be more like it....

Please, please tell me you're joking.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:42 PM on September 25, 2007

Please, please tell me you're joking.

And in case you're not, watch Mike Kangas artfully spend 6,000 words moving the goalposts around.
posted by Kwantsar at 5:14 PM on September 25, 2007

I suggest we send all our own neo-Nazis to that shithole.

And then nuke it from space.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:18 PM on September 25, 2007

I'm not an American, but I seriously hope Ron Paul wins, even if he is the darling of the neo-Nazi movement. In fact, especially since he's the darling of the neo-Nazi movement. It would be a just and fitting punishment for the left's incompetence at preventing neo-con warmongering for them to be subjected to a hard-right redneck paleo-con presidency. I'll be chuffed full of schadenfreude if it happens, because they deserve it. How pathetic and unsurprising that the serious, organized opposition to war ends up coming from the extreme right and not the left.

Hilary Clinton wants to bomb Iran, and Ron Paul doesn't. That's more important than whether Stormfronters approve of him. All this hand-wringing about "neo-Nazis" is hysteria anyway. What are they, 0.1% of the population? A bunch of fat costume-Nazi LARPers from the anus of white trash demographics collecting Third Reich memorabilia and seig heiling swastika flags aren't bona fide "Nazis" any more than some medieval reenactment nerd is actually a knight of the realm.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 6:31 PM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wow. Strange situation. I'm surprised the Germans haven't sent their federal police in. Armed Nazi groups seem like the sort of thing they'd like to crack down on.

And seriously, Ron Paul? Are you guys really all idiots (with the exception of Pope Guilty, who seems to understand that correlation != causation, and A => B doesn 't mean B => A) or do you have nothing better to do than to imply he's a Nazi?

blucevalo, I suspect we can agree that the "Value Voters debate" counts as the party base. The only demagoguing he did there was to stand unshrinking in front of a booing crowd and demand that habeas corpus be respected, and that the Christians remember the doctrine of just war instead of cheering for preemptive nuclear strikes and torture. "[D]ead-on red-meat right-wing" is a baseless insult, and you can't call him conservative unless you separate him from the neocons that have hijacked that term.

L.P. Hatecraft, you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm not even going to dignify the "hard-right redneck paleo-con" namecalling with a response, other than to say you must not have watched the Candidates@Google interview where he went on at some length about protecting the individual and the minority.
posted by vsync at 7:38 PM on September 25, 2007

Ah, but what if he's secretly the Hatemonger, who IS actually Hitler? They can do a lot with plastiflesh masks these days.
posted by Artw at 8:07 PM on September 25, 2007

If you watch Ron Paul give a speech to the party faithful (as opposed to appearances he makes on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, where he seems like a twinkly-eyed, gentle elf out of a Rankin/Bass animated cartoon) on C-SPAN (about the only place you'll see it), he's dead-on red-meat right-wing in most respects, and he's doesn't shrink from demagoguery.

Links please? Want to see.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:16 PM on September 25, 2007

I'm not sure that "$NASTYGROUP loves $YOURFAVORITEPOLITICIAN" is really productive; there are some pretty unsavory people on both sides of the fence if you start cherry-picking examples. It's hardly a valid criticism of the candidate.

Just because something pisses off the asshat brigade at Stormfront doesn't mean it's a good thing to do; as TheOnlyCoolTim points out, they also seem to be supportive of bringing the troops home ASAP -- does that mean it's automatically wrong, because they support it?

Also, I always enjoy reading neo-Nazi-related threads, because it really separates the proverbial men from the boys when it comes to freedom of speech. The Stormfront people are the price we pay in the U.S. for not having a government that runs around slapping people with ASBOs or locking them up for their bizarro race-politics. It's a price I'm quite happy to pay.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:38 PM on September 25, 2007

Also, I always enjoy reading neo-Nazi-related threads, because it really separates the proverbial men from the boys when it comes to freedom of speech. The Stormfront people are the price we pay in the U.S. for not having a government that runs around slapping people with ASBOs or locking them up for their bizarro race-politics. It's a price I'm quite happy to pay.

You mean you don't consider them a threat to national security?!
posted by dreamsign at 12:30 AM on September 26, 2007

The Zundel affair has to be one of the most comically retarded fiascos I've ever read about. The idea that this "alternative historian" and secret Nazi Antarctic base UFO-theorist crackpot is some kind of threat to the free world is ludicrous.

To be honest I find the whole issue of "Holocaust denial" overwrought. It sets a bad precedent too. Bogus or exaggerated claims of genocide and mass murder do happen unfortunately, and those pushing them are usually doing so with a view to lobbying for war against the alleged perpetrators.

To take a couple of examples, during the Kosovo War claims were made (by the US State Dept) of up 500,000 civilian Kosovar Albanians killed in an "act of genocide" (which Clinton predictably compared to the Holocaust). The final death toll turned out to be <3000. Then there's all the atrocity propaganda surrounding the Iraq War, babies taken out of incubators, human shredding machines, the question of who gassed the Kurds at Halabja etc. Can you imagine if questioning these allegations was "hate speech"?

The right to be aggressively skeptical of claims of genocide (both past and present) is vital in order to avoid this kind of manipulation, and to critique past examples of it. An unfortunate by-product of this is that truthful claims of genocide such as the Holocaust will also be challenged, but that's a necessary evil - the alternative is to allow the government to decide which genocides are "official" versus which are open to debate, and anyone who trusts the government to do that without bias is a fool.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 1:26 AM on September 26, 2007

These guys in Jamel, they're not really neo-Nazis they're
Just'a good ol' boys
Never meanin' no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was bornjust some good 'ole boys.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:37 AM on September 26, 2007

Hitler's hamlet eh?

Germans must be some embarrassed by these ignorant thugs.
posted by Faustino at 1:41 AM on September 26, 2007

A tiny town with a beleaguered minority terrorized by a bunch of thugs? Isn't this the setup for every third episode of the A-Team.

Surely Faceman is busting Murdock out of the crazy house and Hannibal is spiking B.A.'s milk for the flight to Germany even as we read this. Doubtless there is an attractive single fraulein with a cute-n-spunky boy. Cause, darn it, this was her daddy's land, er, Vaterland!
posted by straight at 10:44 AM on September 26, 2007

I'm not sure theres actually any A-Team episodes that deviate from that plot in any way.
posted by Artw at 10:57 AM on September 26, 2007

Yeah and I looks like there will be plenty handy out-buildings for BA to build an anti-Nazi tank out of an old tractor and a bit of scrap metal... to burst out firing cabbages at the stormtroopers. I just love it when a plan comes together.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:49 PM on September 26, 2007

Ah... the cabbage firing gun. Pretty much the ultimate A-Team moment.
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on September 26, 2007