Inspections have been ordered at every German army barracks, after Nazi-era memorabilia was found at two of them. The move follows a growing scandal over far-right extremism within the army, with an officer accused of plotting an attack disguised as a Syrian refugee.

Germans are Nazis because de-Nazification never really happened and high ranking members of the fascist government continued to occupy key rolls in government and industry long after the military’s collapse in 1945. Nazis were used as a bullwark against Soviet Communists in the 50s and 60s. Then they became pivotal as expendable Cold War mercenary units during the 70s and 80s, in Latin America and West Africa. Finally, the xenophobic rhetoric of the AfD has been instrumental in radicalizing Germans against Southern Europeans during the '00s European economic downturn and against war refugees following the invasion of Iraq and the bombings across North Africa, Syria/Lebanon, the border wars with Turkyie, and now the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

Nazism isn’t an inherited trait, it is a tool of social control. German private media and business continue to see Nazism as a means of pitting the German working class against itself, its neighbors, and geopolitical its rivals. So Nazism continues to thrive within the German state, long after the tanks that rampaged across Europe in the 30s and 40s had ground to a halt.