A Nazi Legacy: Right-Wing Extremism In Postwar Germany
This clearly written study traces the development of radical right-wing movements in Germany from 1945 to the present, filling a gap in the historical literature. The author, a professor at Duquesne University, shows how the Nazi influence that permeated a small portion of postwar Germany's population led to the rise of a small but growing number of neo-Nazi groups, many of which became openly active in the 1980s. He stresses the continuation of Hitler's legacy through the evolution of militant groups such as the Nationalist Socialist Action Front and the Military Sports Group Hoffman, both of which are banned. "At present, the neo-Nazis do not present a major threat," he writes, "but they do have a history, albeit short, of using terrorism, which could propel them into a far more visible arena."
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German history teaches that malice and simplicity have their appeal, that force impresses, and that nothing in the public realm is inevitable. It also proves that democratic reconstruction is possible, even on initially uncongenial ground.
Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust--condemning the German "eliminationist" mindset toward Jews--has become an international bestseller and a datum in German-American relations. Pity, because it is a simplistic, monocausal, and unhistorical explanation of one of the most complex horrors in history. For Goldhagen, as for the Nazis, Hitler is Germany.
The Afghanistan crisis has dramatized and intensified antecedent changes and strains in the Western alliance. There was unanimous, if separate, condemnation of Soviet aggression, but there were also divergent, and often acrimoniously divergent, assessments of the causes of aggression and the nature of the challenge. The difficulties of orchestrating a common response or of at least preventing a discordant one suggest a new balance of forces within the alliance and a set of divergent interests.

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