Charlemagne. Harrying the Nazis

Why banning Nazi symbols across Europe would be a bad idea

PRINCE CHARLES, heir to the British throne, spends a lot of time on earnest attempts to influence public policy. But he has never, so far, had the dramatic impact of his younger son, Prince Harry, whose decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy-dress party in Britain may be about to trigger Europe-wide legislation. Franco Frattini, the European Union's commissioner for justice and home affairs, declared to Italian newspapers this week that “EU action is urgent and has to forbid very clearly Nazi symbols in the European Union.”

Indeed, Mr Frattini plans to put the idea of such a ban on the agenda of the next meeting of European justice ministers, on January 27th. Since that is also the day on which 40 world leaders will be gathered at Auschwitz to commemorate the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp in 1945, the chances of the EU seizing the opportunity to make a grand gesture must be high. But legislation passed at moments of high emotion is rarely well considered - and an EU-wide ban on Nazi symbols would be no exception to this rule.

The obvious problem with any such laws is where to draw the line. Do you just ban symbols, or do you also ban such offences as “Holocaust denial”? And although almost everybody may agree that Nazism was a unique evil, a ban on Nazi symbols would undoubtedly lead to a call for other similar bans. Why not a ban on the Soviet hammer-and-sickle? Or one on fascist insignia in Spain or Italy?

The issue is particularly perplexing in Mr Frattini's native Italy. Brussels-based journalists who visited the country during the Italian presidency of the EU in 2003 were startled to find Mussolini's photograph still affixed to the wall of the Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of the Italian prime minister, alongside photos of Italy's innumerable other prime ministers - and with no suggestion that there was anything remarkable about it. An official who was asked why a fascist dictator was still accorded this honour shrugged that “he's part of our history.”

He is a part of Italy's present too. The deputy prime minister (and now foreign minister) whom the journalists were ushered in to see was none other than Gianfranco Fini, who in 1994 described Mussolini as “the greatest statesman of the 20th century”. Mr Fini has now renounced this claim. Yet rows about the fascist era keep breaking out in Italy. The latest was provoked this month during a football match in Rome. After scoring a spectacular goal, Paolo Di Canio of Lazio ran over to his team's notoriously right-wing supporters and gave them a fascist salute. In theory, this is illegal in Italy. But a degree of confusion is understandable. Just outside the Olympic stadium in which the game was being played stands a large obelisk that is emblazoned with the words “Mussolini, Duce”.

Similar controversies rage elsewhere in western Europe. In Spain, the Valley of the Fallen, a fascist mausoleum built by political prisoners, remains one of the country's biggest tourist attractions. Franco loyalists still rally there on the anniversary of the caudillo's death. The Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (whose grandfather was killed by fascists) says that it wants to cleanse public buildings of Francoist symbols. A campaign is under way to build a memorial to the victims of fascism at the Valley of the Fallen, or a museum modelled on those at Nazi concentration camps. But the government will move cautiously. The wounds of Spain's past are still sore.

The question of free speech and the past is also a live one in France. This month, Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front and one of the two run-off candidates for the French presidency in 2002, caused outrage when he suggested that the Nazi occupation of France had “not been particularly inhumane”. Mr Le Pen's critics rushed to remind him of the deportation and murder of the French Jews, and talked of such massacres as that at Oradour-sur-Glane. French prosecutors are looking into whether Mr Le Pen might be tried for the crime (in French law) of “denial of crimes against humanity”.

Back in Blighty

Now even Britain, which had long thought of itself as happily immune to such controversies, has been dragged into the debate by Prince Harry. German members of the European Parliament have led calls for the EU to adopt a law similar to Germany's own statute banning Nazi symbols. Some Germans seem to relish the unusual opportunity to take the moral high ground over Nazism. Matthias Matussek, the London correspondent for Der Spiegel (and brother of Germany's ambassador to Britain), informed his readers that, while the British were still unhealthily obsessed by the war, they had been “focusing too much on their own triumph and too little on the history of the victims. It now appears that the British have a greater problem with the past than the Germans.” You can almost taste the wishful thinking.

The argument of those Germans who want an EU-wide ban on Nazi symbols is, as Silvana Koch-Merin, a vice-president of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, expresses it, that “all of Europe suffered because of the crimes of the Nazis, therefore it would be logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe.” But such “logic” risks redefining Nazism as a European tragedy, rather than a tragedy visited on Europe by Germans. Even today, that does not quite ring true. While it was grossly insensitive for Prince Harry to wear a Nazi uniform, a similar action by a prominent young German would have been a lot more sinister and disturbing.

That is why a ban on Nazi insignia may make sense in Germany, but be an excessive restriction on free speech in Britain and most other countries. Even in the “united Europe” of today, Nazi symbols and the memories of fascism and communism resonate differently in different countries. Each country deals with them as it sees fit, which is as it should be.

Commentary feature. Why banning Nazi symbols across Europe would be a bad idea.

• Primary Source