Left-wing extremist Lina E.has been found guilty in a German court of leading a series of violent attacks on neo-Nazis. The sprawling trial has sparked controversy and fears of extremism driven by leftist ideology.

The male defendants were greeted on Wednesday with a huge round of applause, many of them waving and smiling to friends and relatives in the courtroom. They also then screened their faces from photographers with folders, one of which had the message "Free All Antifas" taped (in English) on its cover. When Lina E. herself was brought in a few minutes later, the applause was even louder and longer, with virtually the whole of the gallery that wasn't press standing up.

Hell yeah

  • AcidSmiley [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Saxony and Thuringia were part of the DDR actually. Which while it did have a nazi problem, never had a nazi problem that got to the point were people felt they needed to scout out key figures from organized nazi gangs and break their bones with hammers. That degree of fascist organization and militance somehow, mysteriously only developed after the wall came down.

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      There were some in the late GDR, but they kept their heads low to not get in trouble with the government. As soon as the Market reforms started and the social structures of the German Democratic Republic were made to collapse, these fash gangs started bloating in size.

      The 90s are known as the "Baseball Bat Years" for that reason, due to the random violence by Nazi skinheads and the like, especially against known leftists, foreigners from former pro-Soviet states like Vietnam, Eastern European migrant workers, etc.

      Those scum that used to shave their heads bald and seek out people to beat up are in some cases respected members of the community and politicians for the locally popular Alternative für Deutschland, which is the vanguard of reaction in the country and is dominant in some areas of Saxony, Thüringen, Brandenburg, etc.

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Bonus context: West German libs think that the east has more nazis because the DDR did not indoctrinate people with liberalism and now they just can't help but love aUtHoRiTaRiAnS. :centrist:

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          It's almost as if people who have been fucked by liberalism are turning to the only politically acceptable alternative to liberalism.

          • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            They did turn back to the Left first... and the PDS (successor of the GDR's SED and predecessor of the LINKE) ended up doing a bunch of coalitions as junior partner to the SPD and help them out in neoliberal agendas without actually challenging the symptoms and lost most credibility over time.

            The Left party is a mess (I should know, I'm somehow still a member) but the East German state branches are so much worse.