The government of the eastern German state of Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania took the unusual step last month of ordering anyone setting up a children's day-care center to pledge their support for Germany's democratic constitution. The move followed a number of cases in which neo-Nazis had tried to take over the running of a kindergarten, influence teaching in nurseries or get recruited as teachers.
...Concern is also growing that in some thinly populated regions there may be enough neo-Nazi parents to secure a majority on parent boards.
...NPD spokesman Klaus Beier said on Tuesday that the party wasn't actively lobbying its members to become kindergarten and nursery teachers. "But of course it is quite natural and normal that NPD members and sympathizers should want to get involved in these areas. Kindergartens and schools should be politically neutral but unfortunately they are being instrumentalized by left-wingers," Beier told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
...Analysts doubt whether the neo-Nazi scene is pursuing a deliberate long-term indoctrination strategy. They say the debate about extremists in kindergartens is detracting from the far bigger problem of toddlers being influenced by their own far-right parents.
..."Right-wing extremism has become embedded in eastern Germany since the 1990s and has a stable voter base."
...Analysts said far-right views remain endemic in the east because decades of authoritarian rule until the fall of the Berlin Wall had made the region fertile ground for right-wing ideology. The problem was compounded by East Germany's education system, which failed to instill a sense of national responsibility for the crimes of the Nazis.
..."Many people -- normal citizens, not just youths -- view racial ideologies as common sense," Wagner said. "The view that races are embroiled in a battle for survival is widespread. It's social Darwinism. People view strangers as a potential threat that must be driven away."
[Footnote: Gabe asks: "Are you part of an anti-Jesuitical cabal? Why bring Jesuits into a comparison with Nazis? That's not very nice! (on the other hand, a comparison with Marxists may be more apropos, etc., etc....)"
I apologize to the Jesuits for the Nazi reference. I have offended against the recommendations of the Facebook group that Giorgio was promoting recently, 1 Million Strong to End Inappropriate Analogies to Nazism in Public Debate. Even as I was typing the reference, I thought I had exceeded the boundaries of good taste. My only point is that young people (age six, and younger) are particularly malleable for ideological purposes, and people have been exploiting that malleability since the dawn of the human race.]
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