Germans fear scandal may yield their own Haider
By Alastair Macdonald
BERLIN (Reuters): For Europeans worried by the entry of Joerg Haider's far-right party into Austria's government on Thursday, Germans had a word of warning: "It could happen here."
Thinking the unthinkable, that the nationalist right could hold power in Berlin half a century after Hitler, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said the disarray of German conservatives amid a financial scandal had opened the door to "Haiderisation".
Germany has marginalised neo-Nazi and xenophobic movements since World War II and has no equivalent of Haider's Freedom Party. But the risk that the main conservative party, the opposition Christian Democrats, could break up over the scandal left by ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl could give one room to emerge.
"If the CDU split and a Haider-type charismatic personality emerged, then such a party could win 15 to 20 percent," Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa opinion research institute, said.
Basing his view on polls showing support for anti-foreigner and anti-European Union positions, he said: "A few weeks ago I could not have imagined such a party. But now we face a situation where the whole party system could be shaken up."
Schroeder, a Social Democrat, also warned the CDU's problems could spark a Haider-style movement: "If this part of the political spectrum were to be in lasting difficulty, there would be a threat of Haiderisation of this part of the spectrum."
Conscious of how Hitler exploited the fragmented-party chaos of the 1920s Weimar Republic, Germans value the stability of a two-party system and are dismayed at the disaster in the CDU.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who has helped lead the ecologist Greens Party from fringe street protest to a junior role in government, put Haider's success down to a broader crisis in moderate, pro-European conservatism across Europe.
"This comes from a crisis in Christian democracy," he told reporters, using it as a general term for the traditional right.
While figures like Kohl had rallied right-wing voters behind a united, tolerant Europe, Haider was pulling that post-war consensus apart by appealing to their nationalism, Fischer said, saying Haider's goal was to become chancellor himself.
He said he saw no immediate risk of the nationalist right gaining ground in Germany, however. Polls show no big gains for far-right parties despite a slump in ratings for the CDU.
Three notable far-right parties do exist in Germany -- the Republicans, the German People's Union (DVU) and the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), 600 of whose neo-Nazi followers marched through Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on Saturday.
The first two shared three percent of the vote in the 1998 general election while the NPD barely registered. Their best results have been at local level in formerly communist east Germany, where unemployment has fueled resentment of immigrants.
"These parties are not an attractive alternative to conservative voters," Forsa's Guellner said. The real risk to the established party system and the pro-European consensus lay in the emergence of new movements appealing to the middle class.
Guellner said a power struggle between Kohl loyalists and those who have turned against the former leader for flouting the law had greatly increased the chances of a schism on the right.
While Kohl was a devoted supporter of European union, many of his supporters are much more nationalistic, Guellner said, and could back a charismatic leader who echoed disenchantment with immigration and the financial burden of EU subsidies.
A fierce campaign against easing immigration helped the CDU to a significant regional election victory in Hesse a year ago. A radical right party could also pick up votes in the distressed eastern regions, where the ex-communist PDS is a major force.
Germans have been quick to see the parallels -- albeit superficial -- between Haider's rise and German conservatives inviting Hitler to join a coalition government in 1933.
If history did repeat itself and bring rightists into a future German cabinet, the post-war European consensus would be at risk of breaking up amid competing nationalism, some fear.
"We're not talking about British eurosceptics here, we're talking about a revival of nationalism that threatens Europe's very existence," one senior German official said of Haider.
"Germany has a special responsibility to prevent this," he added. "Imagine what people would say if someone like Haider won even five percent in Germany let alone 25 percent."