Severe Anti-Semitism Hits Youth Football in Germany

Source: Spiegel Online

They were two teams of 14-year-olds. But that didn't seem to matter. Right-wing fans rained anti-Semitic and racist insults down on a youth-league game in Eastern Germany last month. Police are investigating, but it's far from an isolated incident.

The Ascension Day holiday was to be a big day for the football community in Wurzen, a small town of 15,000 near Leipzig in former Communist-ruled East Germany. The local junior league had a match scheduled with a team from the industrial city of Chemnitz, formerly known as Karl-Marx-Stadt and located near the Czech border.

A number of fans had found their way to the stadium and by the time the whistle blew for kick-off, they were in high spirits, swilling beer and chanting supporters' songs. The usual horde of young neo-Nazi skinheads and xenophobes were in the stands, looking for trouble.

Then the taunts began. The fans struck up a welcoming chorus for the visiting junior soccer team: "We'll build a subway from Chemnitz to Auschwitz..." You "Fiji pigs," they yelled at two 14-year-olds who were subbed in. You "foreigner pigs!" They made monkey noises every time they touched the ball. They also targeted the 14-year-old goalkeeper from the visiting team: "Jewish pig, go fuck your Jewish mother," they yelled.



Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,486165,00.html

:spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank:

A lot of them, especially in the old East Germany, are poorly educated and from near-poverty levels. There is still a large discrepancy between the old West and East Germanys in pay. I'm pretty sure if you look at the stats provided at the Southern Poverty Law Center, it shows a correlation with poor, un-educated people and racism, KKK membership, White power etc.

I find it funny that there are so many who belong to these groups, who (when I see the marches here in Munich that is...) who aren't 'white' They are turkish, mixed... whatever. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

This has also been happening to Azamoah, who plays on the National team. But again, it usually is in the eastern states, where (like Poland) people and their shitty ideals die hard. (Polish nationalists are some of the most vile Nazis on the planet. Trust me.)

But again, not isolated, and a shame, regardless. Last time there was a demonstration that I can remember here, there were something like 8 nazis and over 2500 demonstrators AGAINST those idiots in Marienplatz. And, yes... usually the police have to protect those jackasses who are afraid to show their faces from the normal people who are so outraged against their idiocy.

Sorry... rant over.

(too much good german beer...)

rest of the Germany and the world, the social mores from the Third Reich did not evaporate as quickly as it did in the western sector. I would not use the word "intact" but a lot of attitudes remained unchanged as the country did not have the opportunity to grow and progress past May of 1945.

and I see the truth in that everytime there is a story about one group of poor people pitted against another group. And it even works within groups in a kind of self-oppression.

Back in my immigration lawyer days (in Canada), I had a client who was a psychiatrist from Czechoslovakia, as it then was.

We were shooting the shit in my office one day after hours, and I made some offhand disparaging remark about Solidarity.

Do you think so?? he said.

Oh no, I thought. Now I'm going to have to come up with some facts and arguments to back up my distaste for the whole lot of them, whom I just saw rather intuitively as willing right-wing puppets of the forces of evil.

Uh, yes, I said.

That's amazing! he said. Nobody here understands this! -- and launched into a lecture about the ties between Solidarity and the RC Church, etc. etc.

One of the first things the new govt did, of course, was to criminalize abortion. Kinder küche kirche.

Charming folks.

Extremist nationalism is one of the biggest afflictions of East Europe. Nationalist parties (with fascist style political views) hold a small number of seats but great political importance in the fractured parliamentary governments of the region.

My own theory for it is that is a reaction to the decades of communist control, which often-times suppressed or warped "nationalism." Governments in E. Europe would suppress the study of their nations own histories (which include historical enmity to Russia). As communism collapsed and living conditions for certain sectors of society plummeted, young men and pensioners were attracted to nationalistic politics which offered scapegoats for their problems and touched upon a reservoir of patriotic or national "re-awakening."

It is a miracle that the Soviet Union collapsed in a relatively peaceful manner (unlike the relatively more progressive and successful Yugoslavia). Nevertheless, I feel that all the problems resultant from the collapse of the Soviet empire are really starting to manifest themselves now. No empire that suppressed and artificially reordered so many nationalities and ethnic groups can ultimately collapse in a successful manner. The situations in Ukraine and Estonia are only the tip of the iceberg.

sorry the link is dead- pulled this from another website

"But according to a new study released by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, there is another problem that accompanies the migration. Since 1991, more than two-thirds of all those who have left Eastern Germany have been women. The result is that in many towns in the region, there are simply not enough to go around -- some places are missing up to 25 percent of their young women. Even worse, the young men who stay behind are often poorly educated, unemployed and frustrated -- perfect fodder for neo-Nazi groups looking for members."

it`s the same song that`s been sung in europe for centuries