Neo-Nazis & Disability in Germany

The following contains summaries of selected articles that appeared in German journals in 1992-93.

REVIEWED BY MARGARET TUTEUR

In 1939 I had a choice: I could leave the country of my birth and ancestry; or I would be gassed, one of 6,000,000 victims. The reason for death by gas would have been my "racial impurity." I am Jewish. And I remember that along with Jews, it was communists, gypsies, homosexuals and people with disabilities who were marched into the death camps of Hitler’s Germany.

After the smoke of the holocaust finally dissipated, a horrified world exclaimed: "Never Again!" And now, in 1993, I find in magazines news of "neo-Nazis." I fear that "Never Again" will be forgotten, and "Once Again" may become the new battle-cry, darkening the horizon for marginalized people in Europe -- and beyond.

In 1992 in Germany, according to a popular newspaper, Die Zeit (November 27, 1992), a 46-year-old man with severe disabilities, Guenther Schirmer, committed suicide. The man had speech and mobility restrictions as a result of a 1979 traffic accident.

The suicide followed attacks on Schirmer in his home town, Grossburg Wedel, near the city of Hannover. He had been spat upon, pushed around and thrown down the stairs of a subway by a group of young people. His farewell letter to his wife expressed his utter sadness and frustration at the perceived return to Hitler’s reality. "Under Hitler I certainly would have been gassed. Maybe these young people are right."

Karl Finke, a government representative for people with disabilities in Lower Saxony, has begun documenting such occurrences in Germany.

In Hannover, Birgit Poll, a woman with muscular dystrophy, was attacked by several young people in early November, 1992. She told Die Zeit that they blocked her way, kicked her wheelchair and yelled that she belonged in the gas chamber.

Ten youths in Halle-Neustadt attacked and brutalized five 14-year-olds with hearing impairments while they were waiting at a bus stop. The attackers followed the children onto the bus and, upon receiving no verbal response to their insults, beat them in front of the other passengers. Nobody interfered, not even the bus driver. Injuries sustained included lacerations to the throat and damage to the spleen. (Die Zeit, November 27, 1992.)

In Mainz a male wheelchair user, while looking at a display in a bookstore window, was accused by a nearby courting couple of "spying" on them. The younger man approached the wheelchair user with a switchblade and threatened to cut him up should he continue his "voyeuristic" activity. The thug pursued the man into the bookstore, told him that he deserved to be shit on and then spat in his face. (Die Zeit, November 27, 1992.)

Again in Hannover, following a visit to the cinema, a 50-year-old man with a developmental disability was followed and kidnapped by a leather-clad youth of about 20. The criminal police division of this community finally found the victim asleep, exhausted, dirty and injured. He had been held by his unnamed assailant in a trailer. He had bruises all over his body and his thumb had been badly burned by a lighter.

Karl Finke, who has a disability himself (a visual impairment), has been documenting these cases for some time now. But many organizations of people with disabilities look upon such incidents with scepticism; they say trends are unproven and warn about provoking hysteria.

Finke, however, feels otherwise. He feels it is important to draw society’s attention to such incidents and that this may help prevent the situation from worsening. He fears "it is possible that after the foreigners, those with disabilities will be next. Once the avalanche has started, it will be too late. After that, all one will be able to do is count the cases." He calls for better awareness, for society to adopt a stance of intolerance to the intolerant, for legal consequences for actions by any groups and individuals who practise hate.

A particularly sad twist of fate is the hatred reported between groups of German people with disabilities and foreigners with disabilities. Carlen Schmahl, a 24-year-old woman with a disability and a trainee in a sheltered workshop, has been a witness to this development. Moreover, she too has been threatened by young skinheads, and is afraid to leave her home after dark.

Reports indicate that while these violent trends are occurring all over, incidents occur more frequently in what was once East Germany. At a recent demonstration of about 600 angry townspeople on the grounds of a home for people with developmental disabilities in Sachsen Anhalt, an opinion voiced from the crowd was, "When we have rid ourselves of all of the foreigners we will still have the asylums for the mindless to devour our food...They should be gassed!"

Reminded that all that stands between people with these sentiments and life using a wheelchair is a fluke traffic accident, the response was: "Most of them are born this way; no chance for improvement there. Anything or anyone costly and not needed must be done away with!"

A 28-year-old member of an independent living initiative in Kassel, Otmar Miles-Paul wanted to rent a garden plot to plant some vegetables and flowers along with two friends last year. He has a visual disability, as does one of the two friends, and the third uses a wheelchair. They were refused the rental, ostensibly because "they would not be able to maintain the property properly." This being unacceptable, the three collected signatures on a petition. Consequently, a plot was given to them. The result: a broken gate and flying bottles. Eventually, their cabin was burned down.

Miles-Paul, like many people with disabilities, is pushing for an anti-discrimination law. Many are becoming more and more nervous and fearful for their lives, especially in light of a recent judgement, the "Flensburg ruling," which can only serve to worsen an already negative attitude toward people with disabilities -- especially against the backdrop of the aforementioned cases. In the settlement, the court awarded DM 350 (ca. $270 CDN) to a family of four in a case against their travel agent. Apparently the travel agent had neglected to allow for the fact that they might be exposed to the "unsightly" view of people with disabilities at mealtimes during a trip to Turkey. The family was unable to eat their meals in the hotel free from the unavoidable view of people with disabilities in close quarters. This produced "revulsion and was a constant and unnatural and invasive reminder of the potential of human suffering. Such experiences do not belong to a typical and much-anticipated vacation. They are usually and wherever possible avoided by the average traveller." The Die Zeit article finishes: "So speaks a despicable judge in the name of our nation."

People with disabilities are now starting to organize themselves and fight back. They are holding demonstrations and meetings where they are counselled on how to react in case of an attack. Not surprisingly, some wheelchair users now arm themselves with mace guns or electric shock stun guns. A growing demand exists in various organizations for self defence training for people with disabilities.

In spite of the increase in attacks, many organizations for people with disabilities are afraid to speak out in the form of public debates. This, they fear, would only serve to draw more attention to themselves and cause a further increase in attacks (Spiegel, May, 1993), threatening their hard-won gains in integration. And the public recounting of individual incidents might result in copycat attacks, warns Mainz psychologist Walter Maria Schubert.

Government and public debates now revolve around the high costs of care, especially during the current recession, for people with special needs -- which, ironically, include those with war injuries from Hitler’s Germany. One Ph.D. thesis blatantly outlines the costs to the government: "For each unborn person with a disability, the government could save an average DM 3.7 million (ca. $2.84 million CDN), taking into account institutional care, special schooling, etc. By extension, 100,000 ’genetically impaired’ (and therefore ’preventable’) people with disabilities translate into a cost of DM 730 billion to the state." This attitude does not instil great feelings of confidence within the community of people with disabilities.

In January 1993, representatives from 120 associations for people with disabilities, along with 10,000 individual petitioners, supported proposed changes to Germany’s constitution put forward by an equal rights group. "No one should be discriminated against because of any physical, developmental or psychological disability." These changes were deemed necessary after more than 30 years of appeals and campaigns with no noticeable advancements for the rights of the people with disabilities.

Most horrifying to this group is the tendency to devalue the lives of people with disabilities in such scenarios as euthanasia for those terminally ill persons unable to act for themselves, or an increase in the time allowed during which an abortion can be performed if the fetus is considered to have any possible disability. [Under current German laws, the time allowed for an abortion is very brief.] (Frankfurter Rundschau, January, 1993.)

Lately, organizations for people with disabilities speak about recent changes. Common decency is a matter of course for any society. But as life becomes harder, many individuals care only for themselves and sink below a normal level of awareness of fellow citizens. Attacks on foreigners or persons with disabilities are not important as long as they do not affect themselves.

As the UN-declared Decade of the Disabled drew to an end in 1992, the attitude toward people with disabilities had deteriorated significantly in many people’s minds. Though many were disappointed, some improvements had been made in the areas of accessibility to public buildings and public transportation.

A priest in a community of those with hearing impairments reports of gestures towards members of his community that have consisted of sticking out tongues, cutting the throat, "mooning" and jostling. He finds that aggression is not more frequent but is more visible these days.

Things are changing. But are they improving?

(Margaret Tuteur is a freelance writer living in Toronto.)