Germany: Young fascists growing up among us

A. Röpke and A. SpeitDie Tageszeitung

The new ban on a Nazi youth group is long overdue, said A. Röpke and A. Speit, but hardly sufficient. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble this week finally got around to outlawing the Homeland-Faithful German Youth, or HDJ, which teaches kids as young as 7 to despise Jews and foreigners and to value “the purity” of the so-called German race. “We’re putting an end to the nauseating activities of the HDJ,” Schäuble declared. “We will do everything in our power to protect our children and youth from these pied pipers.”

Fine, but what about the children already damaged? Leftist politicians have been agitating to outlaw the HDJ since the late 1990s, and in that time hundreds of children were indoctrinated. Moreover, the extreme Right remains committed to creating a “parallel education structure” to teach their children “to hate.” These kids could eventually form a “brownshirt elite” that could “threaten the community.” Banning one youth group won’t eradicate the problem.