Echoes of Weimar
It is important that the German student riots over the Easter weekend should be kept in perspective. But they cannot be viewed with- out some alarm. The extremist student left may be numerically small, but it is growing rapidly in size and political influence; and with an avowed philosophy of violence even a small movement can make a large impact. At the very least it is likely to provoke the use of violence against it (indeed, it actively wants to, in order to prove its point that liberal parliamentary democracy is a sham) and to drive increasing numbers of Germans into the arms of the neo-nazi NPD.
The leaders of the two big parties are only too conscious of this—which in turn leads, in a vicious circle, to the rigidities, concealments and compromises against which the extremes are reacting. Aware of their country's history, and the unpleasant echoes of the last days of Weimar that the new extremist manifestations reawaken, they fear that any change can be only for the worse— and so they resist all change. No longer united by the threat from without, they fear the threat to Germany from division within —and so seek to submerge it in woolly con- sensus and the avoidance of discussion of all controversial issues.
This would, in any event, be a situation of the utmost peril to democracy and liberalism in Germany. While prosperity lasts the 'sys- tem' may continue to enjoy majority support, but the NPD is already winning new adherents among the farmers as a result of the mild agricultural recession and any general pause in the German economic miracle could pro- duce social and political strains that the still young Federal Republic could not survive. But the threat has been made infinitely more serious by the formation at the end of 1966 (for the best of motives) of the 'big coalition' government of the two main parties, which at one blow killed the possibility of genuine parliamentary opposition or even dialogue, and left the extra-parliamentary extremist groups a monopoly of dissent.
The next German elections are due in eighteen months' time, and both big parties are determined that from then on they will split. But this may well be too late. To a con- siderable extent—certainly so far as it is able —the big coalition has served its purpose. It must be hoped that it will now serve the cause of parliamentary democracy in Ger- many by dissolving itself. So long as the forces of dissent are allowed to remain out- side Parliament, and outside the responsible parties, the menace to Germany from within will increase.
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