In Germany, unlike every other European country (maybe except the Polish, not sure if they're doing the same with Auschwitz?), we have every generation of school children visit a Nazi Konzentrationslager once - precisely to avoid forgetting how bad it was, by showing the actual, undeniable evidence. And on top of that the Nazi dictatorship is usually an entire year's worth of history lessons in schools.
Despite the far-right being on the rise as well as everywhere in Europe, they still have a harder time here, which I think is mostly due to these two education policies.
I do not think it's working. The AfD was the second most voted party for the European parliament, despite their candidate literally defending the SS a few weeks prior.
European elections are usually used to deliver a "Denkzettel" to the currently governing party, it's the same across Europe as these elections are (wrongly) seen as consequenceless.
Federally, the AfD is around 15-18% [1], which is still way too high in my opinion, but they're far from any chance to gain relevant influence on politics. Statewide is a different beast, sadly in Eastern Germany (the equivalent of the "flyover states" in the US) they're almost at the 33% required to block major legislation [2]. I'm honestly not sure how to combat that any more, outside of a (well deserved, given e.g Höcke directly using banned NS slogans) ban on the party.
I'm honestly not sure how to combat that any more, outside of a ban on the party.
Perhaps by getting rid of these haughty, and one simply has to say: typisch-Wessi notions of the new Länder as being "flyover territory". Which is part of what drives people to vote for AfD in the first place. As if the former West Germany doesn't have its own stereotypically maligned areas as well.
Excuse me, are you saying that teaching kids about past horrors including onsite visits to places where those horrors took place, with pictures and film and everything is "brainwashing"?
He’s making the point that poor governance delivering poor outcomes will eventually by replaced by its ideological opposition, no matter how distasteful.
No, he isn't saying that. The context was "children are taught why Nazis are bad but now people are voting for Nazis" and his response was to say people were brainwashed to defend going against their interests.
He may not be saying this to imply that the Nazis would have been acting in the interests of the voters but that's what the notion that teaching children Nazis are bad is brainwashing (to allow the government parties to go against the interests of their voters) strongly suggests. Couple this with a comment history of being vocal against "economic refugees" and a German political context of the AfD heavily using migrant scares in their rhetoric and it's entirely legitimate to challenge this statement.
It's also worth mentioning that AfD politicians have not only defended the SS but also loudly complained about Holocaust remembrance and downplayed the extent and significance of the Holocaust.
Your reply completely ignores that he deliberately used the word "brainwashing" which the comment you replied to called out. Intentionally or not, your reply demonstrates a motte-and-bailey (the bailey being that teaching about the Third Reich is brainwashing, the motte being the content of your reply).
Technically, I think teaching in general is basically brainwashing/propaganda. The primary difference is that what we're teaching us socially/culturally acceptable, if not actively _wanted_. Much like the thing about paranoia only being related to what you're thinking/feeling, regardless if you're correct.
I wonder, how it is usually spinned? I'm asking as Russian and I see direct evidence of how people who grew up in the constant narrative "fascism is awful, that war was important, our grandparents are heroes" also, it seems, consumed it in easy/stupid form of "fascism is something that those weird germans do, they attacked us, and we won, so we can't be fascists ever".
I'm pretty sure there are places in Europe where the AfD equivalent doesn't get 15%.
Trip to a holocaust museum is nice and all, but it probably fails at making people understand the problem. They'll kind of nod that yeah, Nazis were bad but then happily go and blame others for their bad decisions and vote for populists with easy solutions.
Somehow half of Germany thinks Russia is OK, because they "saved Europe", hammer and sickle symbols are still not treated the same as swastikas and, of course, the main outcome of the kind of education you mention is that Germany is basically freeloading wrt defense and very unwilling to do the only reasonable thing, i.e. help prevent another genocide as it unfolds in Europe.
Hopefully something has changed in the last 2 years, but the preceding decade, spending over 100 million euros daily on Russian natural gas is hard to undo. And that's with pre-war historical minimum prices. Since you all didn't get the memo that you need to stop buying Russian stuff until NS2 got blown up, the flow of money for natural gas from Germany to Russia in 2022 and 2023 is likely several times the pre-war annual number.
And then you have people saying shit like "we have spent enough on Ukraine" or "Ukrainian refugees are coming because of our social safety net", not even from AfD politicians (I think some CDU idiot, lol). Yeah sure, but you gave 100x the money to Russia, who of course spent it on weapons because they don't give two fucks about their own people.
Being sorry about things from the last century, while failing completely to judge the situation in the present doesn't really help. Not to mention Poland still didn't get the war reparations for WW2 last I checked. They probably don't want to shake the boat too much and just hope Germany will at least stop being useless.
Despite the far-right being on the rise as well as everywhere in Europe, they still have a harder time here, which I think is mostly due to these two education policies.