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RR RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAG #0004/01 0431341
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 121341Z FEB 08
FM AMCONSUL HAMBURG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0210
INFO RUCNFRG/FRG COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHAG/AMCONSUL HAMBURG 0230

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HAMBURG 000004 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EUR/AGS AND DRL. 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV GM
SUBJECT: COMBATING RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN: AN 
UPHILL BATTLE 
 
REF: A. A) 07 LEIPZIG 018 
     ¶B. B) 07 LEIPZIG 017 
     ¶C. C) 06 HAMBURG 55 
     ¶D. D) 06 HAMBURG 54 
     ¶E. E) 06 HAMBURG 46 
 
HAMBURG 00000004  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: All of the political parties in the 
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (M-V) Parliament have worked toward a 
common goal since the right-wing extremist National Democratic 
Party's (NPD) entry into that parliament in September 2006:  to 
isolate the NPD and to implement programs to combat and prevent 
right-wing extremist attitudes.  Regional demographics and 
economic and political trends seem to be working against these 
containment efforts.  As an extreme measure, the M-V Parliament 
passed legislation on October 18, 2007 requesting that the state 
government work together with other state governments to clear 
any legal hurdles to an outright ban of the NPD.  At the same 
time, the NPD is trying to soften its image ahead of the 2009 
municipal elections by offering non-political activities and 
volunteering in communities.  This cable is part two in a 
two-part series from ConGens Leipzig and Hamburg (Ref B). END 
SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
Parliamentary Strategies to Combat the NPD 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Immediately following the M-V state election in 
September 2006, the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Social 
Democrats (SPD), the Left Party/PDS, and the Free Democratic 
Party (FDP) worked toward the common goal of making 
parliamentary life difficult for the NPD.  For one, they decided 
to respond jointly to all NPD proposals and speeches, an 
approach taken by the Saxon parliament when the NPD entered that 
parliament.  The M-V parliament voted to reorganize public 
financing regulations so that the two smallest parties, FDP and 
NPD, received less funding.  Public financing was originally 
designed to the advantage of smaller parliamentary caucuses in 
order to enable them to fund basic office functions.  Funding 
for the smaller caucuses has now been reduced by about 30 
percent so that instead of receiving approximately 700,000 euros 
per year, the NPD caucus only receives less than 500,000 euros. 
The parliament also revised committee chair assignment 
procedures according to party strength to exclude the NPD.  In 
addition, members of parliament voted to ban secret voting in 
order to avoid any voting defections from the mainstream parties 
as had occurred in the Saxon parliament.  Finally, in order to 
prevent the NPD caucus from employing right-wing extremists with 
a criminal history, all parties are now required to produce 
proof of clean criminal records upon hiring.  Within days, the 
NPD went before the M-V State Constitutional Court, claiming 
that the new parliamentary procedures were unconstitutional. 
The court, however, upheld the new procedures. 
 
¶3.  (U) The M-V political parties have invoked various rules in 
the parliamentary procedure to block NPD speeches when possible. 
  The parliament now uses all procedural and other rules at its 
disposal to disadvantage the NPD.  The Office of the M-V 
Parliament President has employed new personnel to focus on NPD 
parliamentarians' speeches, which, they believe, attempt to 
conceal anti-democratic sentiments or breeches in parliamentary 
procedure.  The parties also lifted NPD parliamentarian 
Koester's immunity so he could be tried for a violent act 
committed at a 2004 demonstration.  Further, Director of the M-V 
Parliament Armin Tebben explained that his office has worked 
hard to prevent the NPD from using the parliament's Schwerin 
castle for public events.  With agreement from the other 
parties, the President's office has closed the castle to the 
public during specific holidays, increased security, and 
cancelled the parliament's open house. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
NPD: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing? 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) At the same time, the NPD has reoriented its 
grassroots strategy to make political inroads within the 
communities.  The party's approach has included a softening of 
its image and an attempt to gain trust within communities by 
offering activities such as folk dancing and trailblazing 
courses, as well as assistance with filling out complex 
unemployment compensation forms.  In a meeting with ConGen 
representatives on July 16, 2007, Interior Minister Lorenz 
Caffier (CDU) noted that the NPD is focusing on the mid-term 
goal of winning local posts in the 2009 municipal elections. 
The NPD leadership encourages party members to volunteer in 
their communities and join non-political clubs and 
organizations.  The NPD caucus is following a populist strategy 
in parliament, making proposals to improve healthcare, ban 
genetically-modified corn, and secure retirement at 65.  Another 
strategy of the NPD is to focus on attracting more women to the 
 
HAMBURG 00000004  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
party.  Tebben told Pol/Econ Officer August 23, 2007 that 
currently the NPD has very few women, but that it appears that 
the party is trying to change this image as well.  According to 
Sociologist Michaela Koettig only about 20 percent of NPD voters 
are women. 
 
¶5.  (U) Notably, at the same time NPD caucus members are 
continuing to attend subculture events throughout Germany. 
Tebben called this tactic of publicly supporting more mainstream 
and populist proposals while in closed events advancing National 
Socialist ideas, the NPD's "Doppelstrategie" (a 
"double-strategy").  Pol/Econ's contacts believe that the 
potential for NPD gains in the municipal elections is high, 
especially in the eastern part of the state, where an 
unemployment rate in some areas is as high as 35 percent and the 
emigration of many educated women have left behind a frustrated 
and uneducated young male population.  Tebben also highlighted 
that the NPD aims to make the right-wing extremist movement into 
a youth movement.  Already, NPD members of parliament tend to be 
younger than the average.  Despite having the highest economic 
growth rate in Germany in the first half of 2007, M-V also has 
the highest unemployment rate at 15.1 percent for the entire 
state.  Between 2000 and 2006, M-V's population decreased by 5.3 
percent.  Of the 4,467 young people between 20 and 25 who left 
M-V in 2006, 52 percent were young women.  Notably, in 2006 
there were about eight percent more men than women among 21 to 
30 year olds. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
National NPD Ban a Solution? 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Aside from the parliamentary measures to isolate the NPD 
mentioned above, on October 18, 2007 the M-V Parliament, with 
full support of the SPD/CDU coalition and the Left/PDS, passed 
legislation requesting that the state government work together 
with other state governments to clear any legal hurdles to an 
outright ban of the NPD.  In 2003 the Federal Constitutional 
Court ruled that an NPD ban is unconstitutional due to the 
infiltration of Office for the Protection of the Constitution 
(OPC) informers into the party's leadership.  The court decided 
that it could not ban a party whose policies may have been 
shaped in part by government agents.  Interior Minister Caffier 
has set up a working group to gather information on NPD 
anti-democratic activities and to establish the legal 
prerequisites for a ban.  On November 14, 2007 the parliament 
passed a constitutional amendment declaring that all public acts 
must serve the peace and discouraging extremism and racism in 
the community.  On November 15, 2007 Caffier announced new 
regulations designed to make it more difficult for right- and 
left-wing extremist groups to use public buildings. 
 
¶7.  (U) The October 26-28, 2007 SPD national party convention in 
Hamburg also took up the issue of right-wing extremism and 
delegates sent a strong signal that the NPD should be banned. 
On October 31, 2007 interior ministers from the SPD-led 
governments of Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Berlin, 
Sachsen-Anhalt, and Rheinland-Pfalz met in Hannover to 
coordinate their efforts to ban the NPD.  CDU interior 
ministers, except Caffier, however, rejected any pursuit of an 
NPD ban reasoning that if the effort failed again, this would 
only strengthen the NPD. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
Programs that Counter the NPD's Influence 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶8.  (U) The national and state governments have recognized the 
need to combat the NPD and right-wing extremist influence in 
general through various programs aimed at the youth.  The 
national government provides three sources of funding to combat 
right-extremism in M-V.  The National Ministry for Family, 
Seniors, Women, and Youth finances local initiatives through its 
program "Youth for Diversity, Democracy, and Tolerance."  The 
Labor Ministry supports two programs: Xenos (also funded through 
EU Social Funds) aims to promote tolerance between young German 
and immigrant adults as they enter the labor market, and "Social 
City" encourages communities to work together to improve living 
conditions and increase opportunity for all members.  At the 
state level, significant efforts have also been made to combat 
and prevent right-wing extremist attitudes since the NPD entered 
the parliament.   Most prominently, the M-V Ministry for Social 
Affairs and Health opened five "Regional Centers for Democratic 
Culture" in September in areas where right-wing extremism is 
prevalent, replacing previous national CIVITAS funding.  The 
centers work with local actors to channel available funding from 
various sources and develop programming. 
 
¶9.  (U) The state government has also worked to consolidate 
political education activities at the Ministry of Education, 
 
HAMBURG 00000004  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
Science and Culture to facilitate links between schools, 
teachers, and political education institutions.  In July 2007, 
the Ministry organized a trip for 25 teachers to Yad Vashem 
Holocaust Memorial in Israel to study German-Israeli relations 
and the Holocaust.  Starting with the 2007/08 school year, the 
Ministry also implemented new political education initiatives in 
schools, including placing a "Coordinator for Democracy 
Education" at each of M-V's four school "administrative units" 
and providing 120,000 Euros in funding for class trips to 
memorial sites from the Nazi and Communist German dictatorships. 
 In addition, the Interior Ministry financed 25 anti-right-wing 
extremism projects in the amount of 164,000 Euros through the 
"State Office for Criminal Prevention" in 2007 and is 
participating in a nationwide survey of youth researching the 
origins of right-extremist attitudes.  Moreover, the Justice 
Ministry announced on August 1, 2007 that it would work together 
with Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt in the Bundesrat to seek 
tougher sentences for hate crimes nationwide, replacing 
probation sentences with jail time when possible.  The Ministry 
is also developing a project to send public prosecutors and 
judges to schools to discuss extremism and democracy. 
 
¶10.  (U) State projects at various ministries to counter 
right-wing extremism are currently loosely coordinated through 
an "Interministerial Working Group," which began work in spring 
¶2007.  The efficiency of this coordination method has yet to be 
proven and our contacts voiced moderate to strong criticism, 
saying the funds and initiatives were too spread out to be 
effective. 
 
------------- 
Comment 
------------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Despite the NPD's high profile antics, such as 
demonstratively remaining seated during a minute of silence in 
honor of the victims of the Nazi regime on January 30, the M-V 
parliament has rather successfully minimized the NPD's 
effectiveness during its sessions.  Tebben nevertheless 
identified M-V as the NPD's center of power, noting that they 
use their parliamentary offices as a national base.  State 
Commissioner for the STASI Records Joern Mothes identified the 
growth of right-wing extremism in M-V as the fault of the 
established political parties.  He stated that they are not 
providing incentives to young people to become politically 
active and are having problems attracting a new generation of 
politicians.  Mothes asserted that the old East German system 
punished self-initiative and now communities are unprepared to 
deal with the continuing legacy.  While many of the preventative 
programs are well-funded and have dedicated leadership, all of 
the members of the "Interministerial Working Group" with whom 
ConGen Hamburg spoke were doubtful that their work could be well 
coordinated.  With its aging population, high unemployment, and 
exodus of educated youth, M-V will continue to face the growing 
challenge of the NPD and right-wing extremism.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶12.  (U) The message has been coordinated with Embassy Berlin 
and ConGen Leipzig. 
JOHNSON