To the Round Tables!
Gerald Häfner with perspectives on the democratic crisis in Germany. Interview by Wolfgang Held.
Wolfgang Held: What did you think of the election results in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg?1
Gerald Häfner: I saw them as a reflection of a dramatic development that needs to be understood. On a personal level, they were very concerning. It’s worrying to see the kinds of thinking, speaking, and behaving that more and more people are supporting. When more and more people give voice to powers that barely understand any kind of differentiation or factual arguments, when they no longer make judgments about an individual’s behavior in a certain situation but rather about whole groups and collectives, then this tells me something has dramatically changed in Germany. The mood’s become aggressive, hostile, and gloomy. Public discourse is opening to a dangerous group-think. The “other side” is seen in such a negative light that all feelings of humanity recede. Intolerance is on the rise. This scares me.
Is this a kind of new type of phenomenon?
More like a relapse. In my youth, I still heard: “It wouldn’t have happened under Hitler!” or “Someone like you should be gassed!”—probably, because of my long hair. I considered this mood of threats as a remnant of a previous dark time. I was confident it would soon be left behind. And, in fact, we did become more civilized; we learned to be open-minded and interested in each other, even to listen more and question our own points of view. It’s always a remarkable thing in history when something seems to regress. When something returns that’s already reared its ugly head and manifested all its terrible consequences, it’s twice as scary. We see this everywhere, even outside Europe.
This is probably the fear of losing one’s middle-class life. What causes indignation today?
There are many reasons. The structural change in the public sphere is one. With this: the filter bubble, the programmed rewarding of extremes, the abyss between worldviews, the loss of trust, the disappearance of conversation. Perhaps, even more serious is fear. Anyone who radically questions the status quo reaps indignation, anger, and defensiveness. Today, it’s not a rebellious generation that’s doing all this, but life, politics, and the economy itself. The world has become unsettling, indeed threatening. This leads to insecurity among an ever-increasing proportion of the population.
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read moreTranslation Joshua Kelberman
Image Demonstration in front of the town hall in Plauen on October 30, 1989. Bundesarchiv [Federal archive]. Photo: Wolfgang Thieme, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE