Dark Germany, the Documentary

Last night on ARD (Channel One from the public-run TV options in Germany), they ran "Dark Germany" or Dunkelest Deutschland.

It was a documentary piece on what the production team referred to as 'mob-rule' coming into play within Germany.....mostly because of the immigration and refugee episode falling into the middle of German political discussions.

One could review the landscape of radicalism in Germany and note that there are three or four major groups in some organizational trend, and gaining popularity.  Behind them?  Probably several hundred minor groups making up dozens or up to a couple of hundred people in some town or region.  Most Germans will agree, there's more of a growth cycle going on in eastern Germany than anywhere else.....but there are now groups all across all of Germany.

Generally.....what the radical anti-immigration crowd would say is that their country has been hijacked and intellectual class has utilized the mass media of Germany to carry some fraudulent message of immigration being good.  The documentary Dark Germany didn't really touch on that side of the discussion....instead....talking more on the threat to German democracy itself.

The one observation I could make (I flipped it off after fifteen minutes) is that it came on after 10PM on Monday night, and on Channel One....so across all of Germany with eighty million residents....there might have only been 200,000 people watching it.  From the 18-to-30 age group?  Other than university students, it might have been a very low percentage of people from that group.  State-run ARD isn't exactly a magnet for most of German society in terms of viewership.....unless there's some soccer game on.

A return to the theme of the 1930s?  Germans often brag about the amount of education and public instruction via the news media (state-run TV) on the 1930s and extremism.  By the time a German kid turns eighteen, there's probably been at least two hundred man-hours spent by the education folks on the results of the Nazi past and why you need to avoid repeating those mistakes.  Oddly, no one ever says much of the 1920s and what drove the German public to worry about what they considered their bigger threat (communist revolution).

If you intend to get a visa and stay in Germany....among the hundred-odd hours of instruction, there's probably six to eight hours on the 1930s, extremism, and WW II.  So, all of these immigrants who get the offered chance to stay....will have to sit and review what has occurred in Germany in the past.

An American might look at the implications of the open-border situation and just suggest that there are always CONSEQUENCES when you take some position as the current CDU-CSU-SPD government has taken.  No one among the top leadership ever anticipated that 1.5 million refugees might actually walk for weeks and weeks.....to reach the German border.  And if you suggested that the 2016 levels might duplicate or exceed 1.5 million refugees....well, that would be an enormous shock to these folks.

Dark Germany as a vehicle to point at future problems?  Twelve months ago, they were doing documentary pieces pointing toward expanding refugee numbers, and no one said much.  Six months ago, they were doing documentary pieces on the swelling problems of just handling this many refugees.  I don't think Dark Germany will really be taken seriously or become some point of change in the cycle.