Dr. Maximilian Krah is one of the most prominent figures in Germany’s conservative party, the Alternative für Deutschland. He spoke to Asia Times in response to allegations that the AfD presents a threat to German Jews. The interview with Asia Times Deputy Editor David P. Goldman was conducted in German and lightly edited.
Asia Times: Dr. Krah, the president of the Central Council of German Jews, Josef Schuster, had this to say on November 29: “If a party like the Alternative für Deutschland were to have responsibility for governing Germany, one would have to ask in all seriousness whether Jewish life in Germany were still possible. I have looked at every post on the AfD website concerning Jews and the State of Israel, and without exception they defend Israel’s right to exist and denounce antisemitism in Germany. How do you explain this discrepancy?
Krah: I believe that Schuster is simply stuck in a world that no longer exists. There is no doubt that, historically speaking, antisemitism was prevalent on the right, while today it is at home on the left. That was true in Germany. We see that in Hungary, too. The old Hungarian right was antisemitic, but that was a long time ago. Today’s Viktor Orban is no longer antisemitic, and we see the same thing all over the world.
This has a great deal to do with Israel. In 1967, Israel faced enemies who were all armed by Moscow. Israel was the last hope of the Free World in the Middle East back then. Intelligent conservatives in the USA and Western Europe realized that it is completely pointless to continue to think of Jews as communists, because they were in fact the only ones fighting communists, and things have been changing since then. I believe that Schuster is an honorable man, but he is also very out of date, and has not yet grasped that antisemitism has migrated from the right to the left. He talks as though we were still living in the 1960s. He has wandered from right to left and he speaks as if we were going to live another 60 years. That is regrettable, but I can’t change it. Nobody takes him seriously anymore because people know without a doubt that what he is saying is wrong.
AT: When I look at the European political landscape, I note that Viktor Orban is Israel’s best friend in Europe. When Netanyahu was indicted by the International Criminal Court, Orban immediately invited him to Budapest as a guest of the Hungarian state. Geert Wilders, the leader of Holland’s Freedom Party, went so far as to characterize the European right-wing parties as “European Zionists.” Is there any residue of antisemitism remaining on the European right?
Krah: There’s always something, and I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire to exclude that possibility. But at the level of party leaders and the policy makers there is no antisemitism at all. The reality has changed completely, and for that reason no one holds onto this century-old madness..
The left has embraced antisemitism, for two reasons. First, Israel is now a strong ally of the United States, and it is a market economy rather than a socialist project: It is anything but socialism, where everyone is supposed to live in a kibbutz. The second issue, of course, is the left’s strong support for immigration. For them, the immigrant is a fetish. They want as much immigration as possible, above all from the Middle East and North Africa. These are Muslims who are very hostile to Israel and, therefore, often very anti-Semitic. The left gets tied up in the immigration question, and refuses to address the problem of immigrant antisemitism. For these reasons antisemitism is at home on the left, while none of the leading figures on the right has been affected.
AT: There are urgent concerns today among European Jews for their physical safety. There have been antisemitic demonstrations, attacks on synagogues and assaults against individual Jews. Where does this come from? Have their been any attacks than can be ascribed to the right wing of German politics?
Krah: All of these attacks come from immigrants or from left-wing radical terrorist groups allied with them, but there is not a single attack on Jewish institutions that came from the right. There was a lone perpetrator in Halle who wanted to attack a synagogue. He was not a right-winger but an isolated individual who had a computer full of crazy ideas but was in no way connected to the AfD or to any right-wing movement. There is not a single attack that is in any way associated with organizations on the political right. And that applies not just in Germany, but across all of Europe. We do not protect synagogues or other Jewish institutions from the political right. We protect them from al-Qaeda, from Islamist violence and from left-wing extremists.
AT: Could you say more about the European political leaders who want more immigrants from the Near East?
Krah: As of now, we are talking about all the politicians who opened the border, for example Angela Merkel, who is a Christian Democrat, that is, from the political center. The only ones who want to close the border are the right. But the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Liberals [Free Democratic Party] and the Christian Democrats all support open borders, and open borders in Europe means immigration rom Afghanistan, from Syria, from Algeria and from sub-Saharan Africa – that is, from countries that are shaped by Islam, and therefore have problems with the State of Israel and with Jews in general. Only the right wants to close the borders. All the others want to keep them open — some very wide open, others a bit less — but they all agree on this, and for this reason it is quite clear that they all are responsible for the increase in anti-Semitism.
AT: The AfD, of course, opposes this.
Krah: There is a study out of Denmark about where immigration is economically useful or harmful. immigration from Afghanistan and Syria does not help either economically or culturally. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t individual success stories among these migrants, but in the big picture it is damaging economically as well as culturally. It is particularly bad for the sitiuation of European Jews, who have come under increasing threat.
AT: There is an organization of Jewish members of the AFD. Tell us about this.
Krah: It’s is a small group of Jews who are not left-wingers. But in Germany, most Jews are on the left or in the center. That’s understandable for historical reasons; there are very few German Jews left. Many of the Jews living in Germany todays immigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 90s.
AT: You are a committed Christian. The “civilizational” parties of Europe who see Christianity as a pillar of Europe’s character are for the most part well-disposed towards Jews. Can you say something from a personal standpoint about the Jewish contribution to European civilization?
Krah: There is a renowned German-Jewish symbiosis. That has something to do with the fact that both the Germans and the Jews had the idea that social advancement was achieved through education. How did one become part of the middle class in Germany? The German’ socialization mechanism was the university. Unfortunately, our universities no longer do this, but classically speaking, the Germans achieved success through education and that is exactly what we have in common with the Jews. In the 19th century, the Jews had no power and no influence, but what they had was a high intelligence. If you look at the universities of the German Empire, 20% of the professors were Jewish, although the Jewish population was 2% of the total. I believe that over 50% of the Nobel Prizes that we received were awarded [to Jews]. That was our golden age of German-Jewish symbiosis. That was was then destroyed by the Nazis and that also destroyed the Germans intellectually That is an undisputed fact. If you look at the time of the founder of the empire, Bismarck, his favorite poet was Heinrich Heine. The Nazis tore down Heine’s monuments and banned the recitation of his poems.
The perfection of the classical style in German music was achieved by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who also brought Bach back into public awareness. And, again, the Nazis ripped down the Mendelssohn monument in Leipzig. We can say that there was no German culture without a Jewish contribution. And I would add that the language of the European Jews, namely Yiddish, is a German dialect.
Judaism was a cultural force in Europe more than a religious one. Jews like Mendelssohn-Bartholdy ,Heinrich Heine or Einstein were Reform Jews who had come out of the ghettos and contributed to the social, political and cultural life of Germany and Europe. No they are are no longer there. So Europe is now intellectually uninteresting. It lacks the curiosity, the impulse to learn that the Jews contributed.
This interchange between Europe and the Jews was of the highest importance. I regret that Mr. Schuster wants to defend the status quo, rather than becoming involved in the process of change that is coming to Europe. Schuster enjoys the privileges that he has been accorded from the Federal Republic of Germany. But apart from the fact that he is against antisemitism, where is the intellectual input from the Central Council of Jews? There is none. Where is the intellectual curiosity, the creativity, that Jews brought to Germany? What orientation does he have toward the future? This is a pity. The political right in Europe will have to look for interaction with Jews in Israel and the United States, because in Germany, we regrettably are at an impasse.
