WITH a Nazi grandfather guilty of crimes against humanity, controversial German politician Beatrix von Storch knows only too well what happens when extremism runs amok.
I’m speaking to her not far from the site of the Berlin bunker where Adolf Hitler blew his brains out in 1945, leaving her relative, Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, as leader of the disintegrating Third Reich.
Simon JonesControversial German politician Beatrix von Storch has surged into second place as her nation faces snap elections[/caption]
GettyMore than one in five Germans back the AfD in a nation rocked by recent mass murders committed by migrants[/caption]
GettyA failed Afghan asylum seeker ploughed a Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich, killing a mother, 37, and her two-year-old daughter[/caption]
Gettyvon Storch’s maternal grandfather Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk alongside the Nazi high command including the Fuhrer, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring[/caption]
Today, von Storch is a senior figure in the far right Alternative for Germany party, which has surged into second place as her nation faces snap elections.
Blueblood von Storch — a distant cousin of our own King Charles — rightly points out in our exclusive interview: “One shouldn’t blame others for their ancestors.”
The lawyer, 53, has her own record on which to be judged. That includes her 2016 comments that police should be allowed to shoot at migrant women and children attempting to cross Germany’s borders.
Today, she tells me: “That was the wrong way to express it. There is no need to shoot, but there is a need to protect the border.”
Von Storch’s AfD party is snooped on by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, who deem it a suspected right-wing extremist group.
Its leader in Thuringia state, Bjorn Hocke, once described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and has twice been fined by the courts for using Nazi-era slogans.
And in November, the AfD expelled three members for suspected involvement in an alleged planned armed coup.
Mass murders
Yet more than one in five Germans backs the AfD in a nation facing economic paralysis and rocked by recent mass murders committed by migrants.
Last week, a failed Afghan asylum seeker ploughed a Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich, killing a mother, and her two-year-old daughter.
Afterwards, at the Munich Security Conference, US Vice President JD Vance called for the so-called firewall against far right parties in Germany to be smashed.
Vance then pointedly shunned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and met AfD leader Alice Weidel instead.
The AfD is polling at 20 per cent, around ten per cent behind centre right leaders the Christian Democratic Union.
Last month, the CDU temporarily broke the firewall by passing an anti-immigration motion in parliament with AfD support.
It led to 99-year-old Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg pledging to return his order of merit to the German president.
The Auschwitz survivor said: “Did they learn nothing from the Second World War? I really wonder whether I should be packing my suitcase again.”
With her own flesh and blood providing a warning from history, does von Storch believe Germany is again slipping into a period like the 1930s when the Nazis came to power?
The AfD’s Deputy Parliamentary Leader — born the Duchess of Oldenburg — insisted: “No. We should stop comparing these days with anything related to the Third Reich, because it makes the Third Reich look normal.”
Did they learn nothing from the Second World War? I really wonder whether I should be packing my suitcase again
Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg
Her maternal grandfather, Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, was Hitler’s finance minister from 1932 to 1945.
Old photos from the Reich show him enthusiastically sieg heiling alongside the Nazi high command including the Fuhrer, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring.
On April 30, 1945, with the Russians pulverising Berlin and British and US forces approaching from the West, Hitler shot himself with his Walther pistol.
His anointed successor Goebbels took his own life the next day, leaving von Krosigk as Leading Minister — effectively Chancellor — for the last three weeks of the Third Reich.
Arrested by the Allies at the end of May 1945, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for laundering goods stolen from Jewish victims and financing concentration camps.
Appearing by video link at an AfD rally last month, Donald Trump’s so-called First Friend Elon Musk suggested Germany needed to move on from its Nazi era guilt.
AFPHolocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg, 99, pledged to return his order of merit to the German president[/caption]
AFPGermany’s domestic intelligence agency deem AfD a suspected right-wing extremist group[/caption]
Simon JonesRefugee charity worker Mannfred Novak says: ‘I think of German history. The AfD makes me very worried’[/caption]
Does von Storch agree with the AfD’s new US cheerleader?
“I think I’m very clear about what went wrong in that time. My grandfather knew that he was guilty and served five years in prison,” she said. “I think I have a very, very clear view on that time because my grandfather played a main role.
“So this is why I say we should always remember what happened.
“But, as Germans, we not only have the chance, but also the right, to be proud of our country in all other terms, without forgetting what went on in the past.”
Germany’s election on February 23 is dominated by immigration and the faltering economy as the country has become the sick man of Europe.
Growth has stagnated, trains are delayed, school standards are slipping and infrastructure is crumbling.
More than 4,000 bridges over motorways need “urgent” repair or rebuilding.
The Germany of the famous Audi ad proclaiming Vorsprung durch Technik — meaning “progress through technology” — is kaput.
Today, its famous motor industry is lagging behind China in the electric car revolution.
And some four in five German firms still use the fax machine, a relic from the Nineties that most British firms ditched in the last millennium.
Meanwhile, Germany has been taking in millions of migrants from the world’s war zones. During the 2015/16 migration crisis some 1.2million arrived, mainly from Syria.
‘Re-migration’
Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel famously told her people, “We can do this” as columns of the hungry and destitute arrived at their borders.
Germans, many of whom had relatives uprooted during and after WWII, clutched placards at rail stations saying, “Refugees welcome”.
Last year, around 3.48million refugees were reported to be living in Germany, with 334,000 arriving in 2023 alone. The vast majority of new arrivals settled peacefully, with around two thirds of working age refugees finding jobs.
Yet a few have despicably turned against their hosts.
In January, an Afghan who was supposed to have been deported ambushed nursery children in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, and stabbed a two-year-old and an adult to death.
Meanwhile, in December, a Saudi man drove an SUV into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, killing six.
There has also been a wave of indiscriminate stabbings, often committed by failed asylum seekers with psychiatric problems.
The AfD — formed in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party — has seen its fortunes rise as it hammered home its anti-immigration stance.
In 2016, it called for a ban on burqas, minarets, and the call to prayer using the slogan, “Islam is not a part of Germany”.
All the asylum seekers from Syria, basically everyone from Afghanistan has to go
Beatrix von Storch
Now, the far right party is calling for a policy of “re-migration”. I ask von Storch how many migrants she wants to kick out.
“All the asylum seekers from Syria, basically everyone from Afghanistan has to go,” she insisted.
“And when the peace comes in Ukraine, the Ukrainians have to leave as well. So only these three groups, that’s more than two million.
“We expect specifically those from Syria to go voluntarily. I mean, they celebrated the fall of (Bashar) Assad in our streets. So why are they still here? Please go.”
Would she deport Afghan women back to a life of servitude among the Taliban, where they are banned from singing, driving, going to parks and wearing bright clothes?
‘So worried’
“Yes, sure,” she says. “That’s a Muslim country. That’s the way they run their countries. That’s why we don’t want to have that here.”
Traumatised by war, their country reduced to rubble, many Syrians are unable to return to their homeland.
At the restaurant and gallery he runs in Berlin, Syrian Bashar Hassoun, 41, recalls the atmosphere when thousands first arrived. “It was so welcoming,” the dad-of-one says.
“People gave food, dolls to children and invited refugees into their homes.”
Bashar quickly learnt German, started an employment agency for refugees and now runs a charity helping migrants integrate. And what does he believe the current national mood is towards migrants?
“It’s changed in a very bad way,” he insists.
“I experience racism every day. I am very worried by the rise of the AfD. I built a life here and am now worried I’ll be forced to leave.”
In the gritty Berlin suburb of Lichtenberg — an area in the constituency that von Storch will contest in the election — I meet Mustafa Ciro outside a hotel housing migrants,
The teacher and dad-of-three, 45, who says he fled political repression in Turkey three months ago, revealed: “I’m so worried and anxious about the AfD. I can’t go home.”
Some 1,200 refugees are due to be housed in the hotel. One local said: “I fear the district will be overloaded.
“There aren’t even enough doctors, nurseries and schools even now.”
Nearby, AfD supporter Justin Prim, 27, an apprentice industrial mechanic, tells me the party has his vote because “too many migrants have come” to Germany.
I built a life here and am now worried I’ll be forced to leave
Bashar Hassoun
Refugee charity worker Mannfred Novak is old enough to have experienced the aftermath of the Third Reich.
While he was a baby in a Berlin cellar, his mother clutched him tight and was spared by marauding Red Army soldiers who committed mass rape in the city.
Today, the 81-year-old warns: “As an old man, I think of German history. The AfD makes me very worried. They are a big danger to Germany and Europe.”
The AfD has little chance of winning the current election. Yet if mainstream parties ignore many voters’ concerns over immigration, it could conceivably top polls four years down the line.
It’s a prospect that makes many in Berlin — a city full of ghosts from the dark past — shudder.
Simon JonesAfD supporter Justin Prim, 27, says the party has his vote because ‘too many migrants have come’ to Germany[/caption]
Simon JonesSyrian Bashar Hassoun, 41, reveals: ‘I experience racism every day. I am very worried by the rise of the AfD’[/caption]