The Holocaust, Gaza and lessons from history: Genocide runs deep in German society!

Germany prides itself for the way the country has owned up to past atrocities of the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945 and here in particular the Holocaust, in which six million Jews but also Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, and disabled people were murdered. The Holocaust represents ultimate evil, and its teaching became mandatory from the 1970s, 1980s onwards. In this blog post, I will reflect on Germany’s and the Germans’ attempts to atone for the Holocaust in particular in relation to the country’s support for Israel, drawing also on my own experiences in the German school system.

 

Exiting the Factor: Review of Alexander Gallas’ book on strikes and class formation beyond the industrial sector.

In his major, two-volume publication Exiting the Factory: Strikes and Class Formation beyond the Industrial Sector (Bristol University Press, 2024), Alexander Gallas asks ‘what are the class effects of non-industrial strikes – or in how far do they contribute to working class formation?’ (Vol.1, P.12). He successfully demonstrates that collective action in non-industrial sectors too results in class consciousness. Work may change in certain parts of the world towards non-industrial sectors, but workers will always struggle collectively to defend themselves against capitalist exploitation. In this review, I will highlight some of the key achievements of Gallas’ publication.

 

Atonement for the Holocaust through support of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: Germany quo vadis?

The Holocaust has weighed heavily on Germany and the German population. Taught widely across almost all years in school, there is a clear sense that Germany today must take responsibility for its past and act accordingly to redeem itself. Nevertheless, while the German government and many of my fellow German citizens believe that this implies unquestioning support for the state of Israel, I will argue in this post that the main focus has to be on opposing Genocide wherever it occurs.

 

Moving towards Social Europe? The EU post-2008 crisis economic governance regime under review.

Photo by Yanni Koutsomitis

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the European Union adopted a new economic governance regime. As Jamie Jordan, Vincenzo Maccarrone and Roland Erne explain, some scholars have argued that this new regime places greater emphasis on social objectives. Drawing on a new study of labour policy interventions in Germany, Ireland, Italy and Romania between 2009 and 2019, they demonstrate that this is not the case, with EU interventions continuing to be shaped by a liberalisation agenda.

Austerity and Resistance – Greece in the Eurozone crisis.

Concerns over Greece’s ability to pay back its debt continue unabated, with another crisis meeting of Eurozone finance ministers having taken place in Brussels on Monday, 11 May. While the media focuses on Greece’s ability to meet the conditions by the European Union, in this post Jamie Jordan and I have another look at some of the key underlying dynamics of the crisis.

Transnational solidarity? The European working class in the Eurozone crisis.

European labour movements are under severe pressure as a result of the global financial and Eurozone crises, which have been used by capital to attack unions and workers’ rights. In our recently published essay in the Socialist Register 2015, Roland Erne and I assess the response of European labour movements to this attack and discuss to what extent relations of transnational solidarity have been established in this process. As Germany plays a central role in the European political economy, particular attention is placed on the role of German trade unions. In this blog post, we draw out some key points of our argument.

Amazon workers' long-running war on wages and working conditions!

Workers in Germany are currently locked into a bitter struggle with the online retailer Amazon. In this guest post, Halvor Fjermeros reports back from his trip to Germany in November last year, when he met with workers to find out the reasons for this dispute. Importantly, he makes clear that it is not only low wages, but also poor working conditions which are at the heart of workers’ grievances with Amazon.

Fragmenting labour: Temporary agency workers in German manufacturing.

The increasing reliance on temporary agency workers by large German manufacturers has changed industrial relations, reported Hajo Holst, Associate Professor at the University of Jena, to the transnational labour project at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo. Large car manufacturers, for example, have used temporary agency workers to secure short-term profits and to bypass statutory dismissal protection. Trade unions and workers, on the other hand, have increasingly come under pressure as a result.

What future for Social Democracy?

On 9 September 2013, a red-green alliance led by the social democratic Labour Party lost the Norwegian general elections. Only two weeks later, the German Social Democrats (SPD) only came a poor second with just over 25 per cent of the votes in their country’s general elections. Even if it ends up as thefor junior partner in a grand coalition, the clear winner was the centre-right Christian Democratic Party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which missed only narrowly an absolute majority in parliament. In this post, I will assess the general situation of social democratic parties in industrialised countries and speculate about their potential future role.  

Resistance to neo-liberal restructuring in Germany: the case of Stuttgart 21!

Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to be unopposed in Germany at the moment. Her incorrect story about the Eurozone crisis along the lines of "Germany did it best" rather than "Germany wins at the expense of others" puts her above criticism within the German domestic context. In this guest post, Werner Sauerborn reflects on the situation of left-wing policies and trade unions in Germany with a specific focus on the conflict around Stuttgart 21, the planned new railway station for this city in the South-West of the country. 

Renewal through strike - Erneuerung durch Streik!

Renewal through strike - this was the title of a highly important conference of left-wing trade unionists in Stuttgart/Germany from 1 to 3 March 2013. Organized by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation and supported by the second biggest German union ver.di, more than 500 trade unionists came from all over Germany and from nearly all industrial sectors to discuss the challenges of neoliberalism for the labour movement. In this guest post, Marianne Bieler and Markus Peiter provide an overview of the key discussions at this conference.

German workers and the Eurozone crisis!

Germany is widely considered to be the dominant economic power in Europe. It is Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who determines which measures should be adopted in response to the sovereign debt crisis of the Eurozone. On the back of a booming German export industry, German workers are often deemed to be part of the winners in the current financial and economic crisis. As the recent report Explodierender Reichtum, wachsende Armut (Exploding Wealth, Increasing Poverty) by the German Confederation of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB), however, makes clear, such a conclusion overlooks these workers’ concrete position within the German economy, their falling share in wealth as well as the general increase in inequality in German society.