The first African-born MP to enter the German parliament has announced he will not be standing in next year’s federal election, weeks after he revealed the hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received.
Karamba Diaby, 62, who entered the Bundestag in 2013 in a moment hailed as historic by equality campaigners, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and to make room for younger politicians.
Diaby said the racist slurs and death threats were “not the main reasons” for his decision, having frequently emphasised he would not be cowed by threats. But they are widely believed they have played a part.
He has increasingly faced racist abuse in recent years. His constituency office in Halle, Saxony Anhalt, has been an arson target, and has had bullets fired through the window. Some staff have faced blackmail attempts to stop them working for him and have been subjected to and threats, Diaby said.
No, they surely didn’t just gain a foothold again. Many processes for “denazifizierung” were just a rubber stamping of the claims of the perpetrators. It’s so ridiculous and well known that the term “Persilschein” was coined because of it. High ranking judges in the federal courts were Nazi perpetrators that even by the standards back then never should have been able to hold a job in the justice system ever again.
Places like the BND or BfV were more like SS- and other Nazi perpetrator pension schemes. Himmlers daughter, glowing Nazi for her whole life, worked for the BND as a secretary in the 60s under a false name. And they knew who she was.
Also, a big part of the student protest in the late 60s also was that many of their professors were just plain Nazis. Law commentaries like the “Palandt” or “Schönfelder” were named after Nazis and the names just changed in 2021.