The Plan to Denaturalize German Citizens

Roger Berkowitz 

Hannah Arendt writes that one of the first and most important indicators of rising totalitarianism is the decision to denaturalize citizens on racial or religious grounds. With that in mind, it is worth taking note of a recent gathering at a private hotel near Berlin in Germany. On November 25, in Potsdam, less than 5 miles from the site of the Wannsee Conference where Heinrich Himmler and leading Nazis laid out the plans for the Final Solution, two dozen Germans came together to discuss plans for expelling asylum seekers, legally residing foreigners, and “unassimilated citizens” (“nicht assimilierte Staatsbürger”). The gathering included members of the Alternativ für Deutschland, the CDU, and others, including known right-wing extremists. We know of this meeting because journalists for the website Correctiv staked out the meeting, videotaped parts of it, and infiltrated some of the discussions. Their report makes clear that the line between extremists who want to expel legitimate German citizens from minority backgrounds and mainstream political parties is ever-more-tenuous.  The article is in German, but it is worth reading.