The Jewish Candidate

by David Crossland

  For the Chronicle, the Islamist threat, and especially the prospect of bombs exploding in the beer tents of the Oktoberfest, which was due to start in just a few weeks, was more sexy than neo-Nazi plots. “Forget your Nazis for the time being, Frank,” said Plough. “Let’s have something about the country being shit-scared of Islamic terrorists and whether this has blown Gutman out of the water.”

  It was the only angle for now, of course. But it was galling.

  Carver’s phone vibrated. It was Renner. “Have you heard there’s a big FNP rally going down tomorrow? Tietjen will be speaking. His first appearance since our little story. It’s up north, on the coast. I heard rumours that he has remodelled himself. A brand new Tietjen. And that the FNP wants to make this a show of strength in response to the bombings. They’ve been summoning their people from all over Germany.”

  “I’m going,” said Carver. “The paper won’t be interested. But I’ve got to see what Tietjen’s up to.”

  “I’ll come,” Renner said.

  “Better if you keep digging around for old Berchtesgaden Nazis, get that trip prepared for us,” Carver said. “We’ve got to find out who Tietjen met down there. That’s our only way forward. That and the money trail.”

  “So you’re off to the lion’s den on your own?”

  “Can’t be any more dangerous than my flat at the moment,” Carver replied.

  Chapter Twenty

  Stralsund, Baltic coast, Sunday, August 26

  Carver locked his BMW three miles outside the centre of the old port of Stralsund. He couldn’t get any closer. Police blocked the streets into town in anticipation of major trouble. Thousands of neo-Nazis were streaming towards the main square, where an equal number of left-wing “anti-fascists” were gathering to stop their planned demonstration by force.

  Carver joined a column of youths marching towards the red-brick church spires of the historic Hanseatic city. They were flanked by green lines of police in riot gear on either side to prevent clashes with the “Antifas” chanting “Nazis raus!”

  Carver was startled by the different clothes styles. His notion of neo-Nazis just being skinheads clad in Doc Martens and bomber jackets was out of date. This was a far-right fashion parade. There were sweatshirts, jackets and caps emblazoned with brands such as “Masterrace,” “Viking Attack,” “Thor Steinar” and “Pit Bull.” The latter name was especially fitting, thought Carver. These lads saw themselves as underdogs, unjustly hounded by mainstream society. Neo-Nazism was an odd combination of megalomania and victimhood.

  The clothes were neatly pressed and clean. The pride they took in their appearance made it worse – they weren’t just expressing their support for a twisted, cruel, nauseating ideology. To them, Nazism was a lifestyle choice, a banal fashion statement, an adolescent quest for identity. Except that many of these guys were well into their twenties, thirties and forties.

  Carver did a double-take when he saw a group wearing black T-shirts bearing the iconic image of Che Guevara. Why the hell were neo-Nazis associating themselves with a Marxist revolutionary? It was perverse. Then the penny dropped. Of course. They were revolutionary freedom fighters too, weren’t they?

  Many of them had adopted the standard guise of left-wing anarchists, black hoods, sunshades, scarves covering their faces. And then there were the unmistakeable far-right symbols. Swastikas and the jagged SS runes were banned in Germany, but there were plenty of signs in evidence that bore a striking similarity to Nazi emblems: ancient Germanic runes and Celtic markings that were obviously neo-Nazi in sentiment but scraped past Germany’s law on “unconstitutional symbols.”

  Carver saw one man wearing a black T-shirt with a photo of marching Wehrmacht soldiers underneath the words “Nordic Walking.” Another had “Thor – God of Thunder” printed on his front and an anchor-like rune on his sleeves.

  Numbers and acronyms printed on T-shirts and tattooed on heads and arms and God knows where else were secret codes that welded these guys together. “18,” and “88” were easy – the alphabet numbers for the first letters of Adolf Hitler and Heil Hitler. The number 14 was more obscure, but Carver knew what it meant – it referred to the 14-word phrase coined by the late American neo-Nazi David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

  Carver also spotted “ZOG” – for Zionist Occupied Government – and RAHOWA – for Racial Holy War. He stopped at a roadside stand selling CDs of far-right music. Offerings included ditties by groups calling themselves “Genocide Organ,” “Hate Society,” “Race Riot,” the “Fascist Four,” and “Rest Stop Dachau.”

  Stylized eagles adorned clothes and banners, some carrying a crossed hammer and sword in their talons instead of the swastika. Some of the symbols worn looked innocuous– for example, the discreet little grey triangles sewn on sleeves, featuring place names in Gothic writing such as Berlin or Bavaria inside them. These little patches were “Gauwinkel” or Gau Triangles. During the Third Reich, they were worn by Nazi members to denote the Gau – administrative district – they came from.

  Police from forces across northern Germany were drafted in. But Carver doubted they would be able to prevent a riot, judging by the hate-charged atmosphere between neo-Nazis and the black mass of Antifas in the distance.

  Four skinheads walking ahead of Carver wore black T-shirts that said “Six Million Satisfied Customers” on the back.

  They were close to the site of the rally, Neuer Markt square in the shadow of the gothic St Mary’s church, and Carver could hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie” thundering out from loudspeakers. Then they turned the final corner. There must have been 30,000 people packed into the square, a heaving black mass waving the Reichsflag, FNP banners and placards reading “Foreigners Out,” “Wake up Germany,” “Bring Back Our Deutsche Mark,” “Protect Our Churches.” They came from all over Europe. There were Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Austrian, even English flags. The continent’s far-right movement had converged on Stralsund to show solidarity with their German brethren.

  The Valkyries reached their crescendo and rode off. Carver found himself a spot at the edge of the crowd. The FNP’s leadership filed onto the stage, led by Tietjen, who struck up the German national anthem, of course starting with the first verse, “Deutschland Über Alles, Über Alles in der Welt,” the one the Nazis deliberately misinterpreted as a claim to world domination. That verse was no longer used in official renditions of the anthem.

  Carver could hear the “Nazis Raus” chants get closer and turned round to see hundreds of counter-demonstrators trying to push through a line of police down the street. Some skinheads were glaring in their direction.

  Tietjen stepped forward. He was wearing black jeans tucked into black Docs and an expensive looking grey shirt. He had his hands folded behind his back and stood with one leg forward as if he was on the brow of a hill surveying a battalion of Panzers rolling past. He kept shaking his blonde fringe out of his eyes with a slightly effeminate jerk of the head. He surveyed the crowd in a sweeping gaze, then looked down at his boots as if deep in concentration ahead of the Herculean task before him. He performed that ritual several times and Carver reckoned it took him about two minutes. An expectant silence descended on the square. The crowd was fascinated by the man on the stage. Carver shook his head. It was obvious what Tietjen was doing. He had studied film footage of Hitler’s speeches and was copying him.

  Finally, the FNP leader stepped closer to the microphone. “Comrades,” he said quietly. Hitler’s choreography to a T. Start gently, then get louder and louder, right up to the violent, spitting crescendo. “Comrades. Our homeland needs us.” He clenched both fists, raised them and banged them against to his chest.

  “Our nation is under attack from Muslims in our midst. German families are mourning the deaths of their loved ones, murdered while praying. Torn by nails from fiendish bombs constructed by Islamists, by men who grew up among us. Men who are bent on depriving us of our
freedom. Our values. Of all we hold dear.

  “Comrades, we must fight this cancer in our midst, we must cut it out ruthlessly, we must cleanse ourselves.”

  Tietjen took a deep breath. “Comrades! We warned that multiculturalism wouldn’t work! We warned that Germany was being overrun by Turkish sperm-cannons and their headscarf-clad offspring, by people unwilling and unable to embrace German culture, by people who have proven, again and again, that they don’t belong here! We’ve had enough!”

  The crowd broke into applause, and thousand of arms punched the air, with clenched fists or, in the case of the reckless and inebriated, with palms facing down.

  “We have endured the wrath of the world for over 60 years. We have repaid our debts over and over again. We have beaten ourselves with the cudgel of guilt, we have stretched out our hand of friendship to all the peoples of this world, and what have we got to show for it?”

  He roared the question so loudly that a painful screeching of the speaker system echoed around the square. Even the anti-fascists down the street had fallen silent.

  Tietjen had jettisoned the moderate populism with which he had tried to woo middle-class voters. He was tearing off his shattered mask and showing himself as the dyed-in-the-wool Nazi he was.

  Thunder rolled in the distance with such precise timing that Carver thought it was a recording, played by some grinning bald soundman behind the stage. But no, a storm was indeed approaching. The Gods were either being sarcastic or doing their bit to make him seem like some Wagnerian Siegfried. “It’s time for us Germans to stand up again!” Tietjen cried. “To reclaim our streets, our squares, our towns and villages! Wake up Germany! We have been kept down for too long! We can be proud of who we are!”

  Lightning in the distance accompanied guttural yells of “Deutschland!” from the crowd.

  A few moments of silence followed as the would-be Führer once again inspected his footwear. “Dear Friends, I’m angry,” he declared.

  Again, a long pause.

  “I’m angry when I see the crime statistics that show more than a third of all violent crimes, of all robberies, murders and rapes are committed by foreigners! I’m angry when I see mosques built in our cities, with minarets as tall us our beautiful church spires, for hate preachers to tell Muslim fanatics to go out and murder our children! WE know what to do about it! WE are the only ones with the courage to sort the problem out once and for all!” More applause. Tietjen was shouting himself hoarse.

  “I’m angry!”

  He was turning this into a Martin Luther King refrain. The man was drawing on the speaking styles of the world’s greatest mass murderer and the greatest civil rights campaigner. Carver half expected him to adopt Churchill’s drawl next.

  “I’m angry that Germans are becoming alienated in an anonymous society devoid of values! Globalisation is forcing us to mix with other races. To abandon our folklore and culture! Do we want to throw our culture overboard? Do we want to stop being German?”

  “Neeiiin!” came a deep roar from the crowd.

  A rough sea wind drove furious storm clouds over Stralsund, and the first fat drops were starting to splat on thousands of shaven heads. The “Nazis Raus” chants from left-wing counter-demonstrators were very close now.

  “Friends, I’m angry! That the ordinary, hard-working, thrifty German taxpayer has to bail out lazy Greeks, Italians and Portuguese to save a currency we never wanted. We want the German mark back! We’ve had enough of helping out sponging southerners! If that’s what Europe’s about, you can keep it!”

  “But the SPD candidate, Herr Judman, er sorry, Herr Gutman” – Tietjen gave a thin smile and paused, looking around to make sure that even the most intellectually challenged listener got the joke – “is harping on about embracing our dear immigrants! I say what for? So they can stab us in the back? No, comrades, that won’t wash with upstanding German citizens.” Tietjen was wagging his finger. “We shall campaign on behalf of the people of Germany for the repatriation of all foreigners who have no meaningful employment!”

  Tietjen stood with his heels together, as if to attention, his left arm stretched down by his side and his right arm, with a clenched fist, moving up and down at the elbow to stress every point.

  Carver looked around. Most of the other reporters and camera crews had left. They had the footage they needed and obviously didn’t want to get their cameras wet.

  The town was bathed in a purple grey gloom, pierced occasionally by rays of stormlight. A clap of thunder ripped through the square like a bomb exploding. Tietjen flinched for a second. Rain cascaded onto the crowd. Dozens started fleeing for shelter. More thunder, and a serious bolt of lightning. Tietjen went on. “We are the protest party against capitalist exploitation! We will scrap benefit handouts to non-Germans and layabouts! We will wash away this system!”

  There was a sound of running boots and tinkling glass at the back of the crowd. A group of hooded left-wing militants broke through the police cordon and hurled beer bottles. The Nazis responded in kind. Carver could see two skinheads near him hacking away at the ground to loosen cobblestones for the imminent battle.

  A green water cannon truck came revving down the street at speed – as if anyone would mind getting wet at this point.

  Tietjen was determined not to be robbed of his climax. He launched into a shrill scream to make himself heard above the rain, the shouts and the smashing glass. “In a few days, the German voter will finally give us the historic chance to take our struggle into the Reichstag! In a few days, the next phase begins in our mission to smash the system that is shackling our people! To reawaken our beloved fatherland!”

  The German national anthem blared out of the loudspeakers. Tietjen, soaked to the skin now, stood alone on the stage with his hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the clouds, a Teutonic messiah dispatched by a wrathful Odin to lead the Nordic races back to greatness.

  Carver pulled up the hood of his black kagool and looked round. He wondered who he was more likely to be mistaken for – neo-Nazi or Antifa. In the hammering rain they all looked the same. Tietjen finally turned on his heels and marched off.

  The wind tore a German flag from the stage and tossed it through the air like a paper bag. The rain was torrential now. Stralsund was a chaos of thunder, police sirens and tinkling glass. Through the sheets of rain Carver could make out dozens of black figures running towards him. Bottles started landing nearby and he ran into a side street. He noticed his mistake too late. He was wedged between a mass of Antifas ahead of him and neo-Nazis behind. The police had lost control. He ducked to avoid a cobblestone. An empty beer bottle hit him in the back. He ran forward and spotted a gap between two derelict buildings further up the street. He made a 50-yard sprint and managed to reach it seconds before the approaching Antifas swept past it. A hooded figure had the same idea and was sheltering by the crumbling wall of a house held up by scaffolding. He was taking photos in the pouring rain. A fellow journalist? A couple of demonstrators, one armed with an iron bar, started walking towards him. The photographer was facing the other way and hadn’t realized the danger. Carver grabbed him by the arm. “Watch out!” The figure turned round and looked up at him angrily. “What the hell?” Carver exclaimed. It was Ludmilla. Suddenly the two Antifas turned away and ran back up the street. A line of police with riot shields was heading towards them, helmet visors down, beating their riot shields. “Let’s get out of here!” Carver shouted. She nodded. They looked round. The gap between the two houses was littered with bricks and cement sacks. They picked their way through it and reached a patch of wasteland. A low wall led to another street. It was deserted. They could smell burning and saw a thick plume of smoke rising from the direction of the market square.

  “What are you doing here?” said Carver.

  “Same as you! My job,” Ludmilla replied. “Then it got unpleasant.”

  “I’m going to find my car,” Frank said. “Can I give you a lift?”

  S
he nodded.

  They hurried down side streets, at one point flashing their press passes to avoid being arrested by a squad of riot police. Finally, they reached his BMW.

  “The streets will be clogged up with coaches soon,” said Carver, starting up the engine. Ludmilla had pulled back the hood of her soaking anorak and wiped a strand of wet hair out of her face. “Sea air becomes you,” he remarked. Ludmilla gave a short laugh. “I like excitement, that’s my secret.” As they left the outskirts of Stralsund, a convoy of fire engines and police vans screamed past them towards the town centre, their headlights streaking blurrily across the windscreen. Carver’s wipers were on full but were struggling to keep up with the rain. A traffic alert came on the radio. The motorway to Berlin south of Stralsund was blocked after a 50-car pile-up.

  Carver didn’t fancy spending the whole night driving to Berlin on back roads in a storm, only to face thugs waiting for him in his hall. A sign to the island of Rügen came up. “Ludmilla, I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s worth trying to get back to Berlin tonight by car. I can drive you to a train station.”

  “Oh,” Ludmilla said. “Where are you going?”

  “I think I’ll head over to Rügen. It’s a pretty island just across the bridge from here. I’ll sit out the storm and head back tomorrow.” He paused. “Of course you’re most welcome to come, you know, if you’ve got nothing on in Berlin.”

  The turning to Rügen was coming up. “What’s on Rügen?” she said.