Recently, there has been a major confrontation in the American blogosphere with Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs on the one and Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch as well as Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs on the other side, regarding the repetition of the „Anti-Islamization-congress“, hosted by the small far right group pro-Köln, which announced Spencer and Geller as speakers at their meeting.

Without any doubt, it was due to Johnson’s accurate and highly appreciated research and coverage about pro-Köln (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), that Spencer and Geller finally retracted their written agreements to attend the conference – it is ridiculous that both are still defending pro-Köln, when it would be the perfect moment to apologize to Johnson and cut off all ties to right-wing extremist, fascistic or racist groups.
Apart from that, some other things have to be clarified. Besides the fact that pro Köln’s own positions as well as their connections to Germany’s Neonazi-scene are repulsive and unacceptable, it is important to keep their actual political relevance at the back of one’s mind: today, they hold five seats at Cologne’s city council (due to their 4,7% of voters) and lack a real political basis, since they have just a few hundred, not really active members.
There is a strong enmity towards pro-Köln and similar groups in Germany’s „civil society“, which would not be bad at all, if this enmity would not be constitutive for a slightly different form of the specific German national collective, the Volksgemeinschaft.
After the military defeat, National Socialism, due to its unimaginable atrocities, is widely discredited within the German political landscape, openly referring to the ideas of NS is not just forbidden by law, but a cultural taboo and breaking it will result in political isolation. Nonetheless, constitutive elements of the Volksgemeinschaft are still very present in the post-nazi state, but have run through transformation-processes.
One of the main pillars in Germany’s foreign-policy is a nasty hostility towards America, which is deep-rooted in German culture. This anti-Americanism was – at least in official foreign-policy – less aggressive in West Germany, where the NATO was the only security in the era of the Cold War. This was also the case with Israel, to which the diplomatical ties were something like the precondition for Germany’s re-entrance into the community of civilized nations.
Though, anti-Semitism, while officially a taboo, was very virulent in German society, especially among the so called 68er-Bewegung, who transformed the traditional resentment into modern anti-Zionism, calling Israel (and the USA alike) the new Nazi-state, thus liberating themselves of the own past and projecting the resentment on the state of the survivors as well as on the military victor over Nazi-Germany. Henceforth, the Palestinians have been „adopted“ as the victims of the victims and Germans from everywhere of the political spectrum are participating in critizising Israel. Of course, everyone of these good Germans, who have learned from their past, would reject the accusation of anti-Semitism indignantly – since they are all against Neonazis and rightwing-extremists, even demonstrating against pro-Köln and thereby courageously preventing a new Machtergreifung.

Slogan of an anti-Israel demonstration in Duisburg. 65% of Germans hallucinate Israel as the biggest danger for world peace.

It is no coincidence, that many Germans have a special sympathy for Islam and jihadist-rackets, as it is the perfect religion to oppose everything they hate: individuality, freedom, capitalism. That’s why, a critique of Islam as an ideology is seldom to be found in Germany, even more, since rightwing-extremists as pro-Köln and likewise creeps declare themselves as „Islam-critics“, which is an outrageous lie: those who can’t distinguish between Osama bin Laden and ordinary Muslims, and endorses a mass-deportation of islamic population, are not good for being a pundit, since they do not care at all about victims of islamic socialization, which are predominantly Muslims – especially women, dissidents and homosexuals – themselves.

That said, one should take a look at David Vickrey’s article about the aforementioned confrontation of LGF and Jihadwatch/AtlasShrugs.
The sources he is thanking for their contribution, are Dietmar Näher’s blog Politisch Korrekt and Dagmar Schatz, known in the blogosphere under her pen name „Big Berta“. Näher’s website is basically a watchblog for Politically Incorrect, dealing with the numerous errors and often racist undertone in their coverage. But unlike PI, Näher’s blog is blatantly anti-Israel, impliedly comparing Israel with Nazi-Germany, defending the Palestinian „right to resist“ and, when being critizised, returning to an equidistant position, blaming Israel and the Palestinians likewise, while at the attached forum, his followers are openly promoting the destruction of Israel.
The other source, Dagmar Schatz, who is a Muslim-convert and medic at the Bundeswehr, is not only a friend of Dietmar Näher and regular user at his forum, but also a regulary contributor for one of the most vicious anti-Semitic hate-sites among the German left: at Duckhome, you can learn that Barack Obama is planning to raid Iran, that he is a tool of the Zionist-lobby, that Israel will soon stop to exist and that the Jews should stop lamenting about the Holocaust and blackmailing the German Goverment.

Pro-Israel demonstration in Berlin during the Gaza war with some hundred people. Even at those rare events, the invited speakers questioned the legitimacy of Israel’s reaction.

To prove that Israel and the Jews are truly evil, Duckhome-owner Jochen Hoff is linking and citing from an American website: TBRNews.com, a Holocaust-denial website, which is an offset of The Barnes Review, named for Harry Elmar Barnes.
In the comment-section, various people are critizising Hoff for linking to a site that denies the Holocaust, but Hoff is replying, that those people (TBRNews) have simply a „different opinion on certain things“, other than those that „the System“ allows. Dagmar Schatz, who is so proud of demonstrating against pro-Köln, is defending Hoff without saying a single word of critic that he is defending Holocaust-deniers.
The example of Näher – who is member of the Green Party – and Schatz gives an impression, what German political reality looks like.
If you need a more visual one, take a look at the recommend blog Zombietime, where you can find an excellent article about demonstrations – among them the ones in Germany – during the Gaza war. You may also want to watch this video, where a small group of youths, waving Israeli flags and chanting „Long live Israel!“ has to be protected by several cops.
As a conclusion: there are simply no political parties in Germany, which one should consider to support, especially not rightwing-extremists like pro-Köln. But it is also absolutely false to rely on those, who purport to be pro-Köln’s opponents, while only reproducing German continuousness.