Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Germany Is Growing More Tolerant of Extremism

Two episodes show alarming turns toward far-left and far-right ideology.

January 23, 2017 at 6:40 AM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Berlin's test.
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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The values of modern Germany -- and its ability to return to a global leadership role in recent years -- have been based on a blanket rejection of the country's totalitarian past, both Nazi and Communist. That rejection is now being tested as higher tolerance for both left-wing and right-wing extremes begins to emerge.

Two episodes have illustrated this in recent days. One is the acrimonious battle over the exit of one-time Stasi trainee Andrej Holm from the city government in Berlin as well as Humboldt University. The other is a decision by the German constitutional court against banning the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD).