Is
National Guilt Making Germany More Vulnerable To Terrorism?
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
December 23, 2016
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 From the moment it
became clear that the mass killings at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz
Christmas market on Monday were the actions of a Muslim terrorist, accusing
fingers have pointed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And not without
good reason. Beyond Merkel's "open door" to Syrian refugees has been the
government's general sloppiness when it comes to counter-terrorism.
Germany has seen several small-scale attacks in recent years. Other plots have failed,
not because the authorities were so effective, but largely because the
perpetrators were so incompetent. In one case, an attack was stopped only
because one plotter thought better of the idea and turned himself in.
But the issue is bigger than Merkel. It encompasses the entire spirit of
Germany after World War II, and the shadows of its guilt. This has never
been clearer than it is now – after the Berlin attack – because unlike
terrorist attacks in Brussels and in Paris, this one was entirely
predictable and even more preventable. It simply should not have happened.
Throughout the European Union, guilt about the Holocaust has colored
government approaches to Muslim immigrants since the rush of guest workers
arrived in the 1970s. Concern about "tolerance" and religious
rights have repeatedly led to oversensitivity among lawmakers and to a
tendency for Europe's leaders and many of its people to simply look away.
Honor violence was ignored for decades until former Dutch
Parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali forced it into the limelight in the years just after
9/11. So were anti-Western sermons given by Arab-funded imams in Europe's
mosques. But nowhere, rightfully, has the guilt been quite as heavy on a
country's soul as it has been in Germany.
Which may explain what the Wall Street Journal describes as "a cascade of mishaps before and
since the [Christmas market] attack" that "suggest Germany isn't
geared up for countering the terrorist threat."
Everything that needed to be known about Anis Amri, the Tunisian-born
suspect in the attack was known well before he plowed his truck into the
outdoor festivities on Dec. 19, killing 12 people and injuring 48.
Authorities watched him for months, though the Daily Beast reports he "managed to slip off their radar"
sometime around September. He served time in Italy for arson. He had a
history of drug trafficking. He had been convicted
in absentia of robbery in his home country of Tunisia. He had known
connections to an extremist imam. Germany even rejected his asylum claim,
though he managed to escape deportation.
And yet he was still free, roaming the streets of Germany.
Then there was the target of his attack. The U.S. State Department issued a travel alert for Europe last month, warning of
possible terrorist attacks at "holiday festival, events, and outdoor
markets." And a child is suspected of attempting to bomb another German Christmas market two
weeks prior to the Berlin attack. Yet no barriers were erected to protect
the market. There appear to have been no checkpoints, and no heightened
security at the event.
For the right person, it was the right place. Amri, shot and killed by police in Milan, Italy early Friday,
was the right person.
This isn't just a "cascade of mishaps." Much of Germany's
failure to quash Muslim youth radicalization and to defend against
terrorist attacks comes from its approach to national security and
surveillance. Post-Holocaust Germany has placed tight restrictions on
intelligence-gathering, particularly when it comes to privacy concerns.
"Skepticism towards surveillance runs deep in Germany because of
the excesses of the Nazi Gestapo and East German Stasi secret police,"
Reuters reports. In addition, a Law Library of
Congress analysis notes that, "intelligence agencies are
not authorized to use force or other types of police powers to
gather information."
And yet, says Reuters, "Intelligence agencies say there are signs
that Islamic State may have planted fighters among the hundreds of
thousands of migrants who arrived in the country in uncontrolled fashion
last year."
In June, however, Germany announced long-overdue plans to loosen some of
those limitations, making it easier for officials to track radicalized
teens – a move that followed a series of attacks by 15- and 16-year-olds.
Germany's past also shapes its migrant policy today. Merkel and her
supporters point to the fact that many Germans were migrants after the war,
and they speak of the lessons learned during the Shoah.
"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the
Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust,"
Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said last year. "This is taught in German schools
for good reason, it must never be forgotten. .... We know that
responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our
own."
Opening the doors to religious minorities escaping war and autocracy is
a form of repentance. So, too, is a hands-off approach to religious figures
who preach violent or misogynistic doctrines that violate our own. Such
approaches may ease German consciences, but they too often go awry. What,
after all, are jihadist attacks like the one at the Breitscheidplatz market
if not "crimes against humanity"? Germany is right not to forget
its past. But in trying to set it right, the country has just gone
tragically very wrong.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in
the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New
York and the Netherlands.
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