The Ghost of Germany Past Stalks the Country : Elections: Voters fear that an honest day’s work no longer assures a decent standard of living. They think right-wing parties will rescue them.

Eighteen months after German unification, the specter of right-wing extremism reappears. In two state elections last Sunday, right-wing parties attracted up to 11% of the vote.

One of the parties, the Republican, briefly made headlines after election victories three years ago. But parliamentary incompetence, as well as unification, caused interest in the nationalist-oriented Republicans to plummet.

Interest may not die so quickly this time. With the proliferation of neo-Nazi and skinhead violence in Germany, some voters view right-wing political parties as an acceptable buffer between mainstream conservative parties and neo-Nazis. The Republicans, led by a former member of the Waffen SS, and the German National Union, headed by Germany’s major publisher of rightist literature, were thus able to mobilize a pool of voters dissatisfied with the economy and the escalating costs of unification.

The parties’ simple solutions--throw out foreigners and beef up law and order--were eagerly embraced by voters anxious about long-term unemployment, inflation and rising crime rates. Bonn politicians fear the momentum of their victory could catapult a right-wing party into the German Parliament for the first time since World War II.

The right-wing’s growing popularity, especially among those under age 25, is also a generational conflict. Germany’s newest crop of voters have no direct personal links to the Third Reich. Many resent that German history prevents them from expressing their patriotism. We had nothing to do with Adolf Hitler’s crimes, they contend, and we see no reason why we cannot wave our flag at soccer games, as proudly as the French or Dutch, without being insulted as Nazis.

Patriotic slogans are also appealing to many of the predominantly young ethnic Germans, 3 million of whom emigrated to Germany from Eastern Europe during the last five years. After years of persecution as a minority under communist regimes, many moved to Germany to preserve their German identity from forced cultural assimilation.

In addition, a growing numbers of workers worry about an irreversible erosion in their standard of living, in part due to the enormous costs of unification. There has been an explosion of social problems--juvenile delinquency, violent crimes, drug addiction, poverty and homelessness--on a scale previously unknown in postwar Germany. Unemployment has dropped to levels under 7%, but the fear of joblessness is deeply ingrained.

In the midst of such uncertainties, many perceive the hundreds of thousands of political-asylum seekers and ethnic German refugees annually pouring into Germany as competition for increasingly scarce well-paid jobs, social services and affordable housing. The rapid changeover to a multiethnic society has stirred deep fears of a loss of German identity.

Germans are a people who prize security. They join a company with the intention of staying put for their working career. Civil servants are virtually tenured for life. Nearly everyone is assured of basic social services.

Many right-wing voters were signaling fears that an honest day’s work no longer assures a decent standard of living. Since the opening of the Iron Curtain, and the beginning of German unification, the Bonn government seems ever less able to guarantee a basic level of security. Germany has committed tens of billions of dollars to the reconstruction of Eastern Europe. It seems likely that hundreds of billions will be needed to transform the eastern part of Germany into a modern economic region.

To finance these huge outlays, Bonn has taken on unprecedented levels of public debt. The result: numerous tax hikes. But it seems unlikely higher taxes alone will bring in the needed revenue, so drastic budget cuts, including slashes in social services, are likely.

Meanwhile, inflation is running above 4%, an unnervingly high level for Germans who have not forgotten the runaway inflation of the ‘20s. The traditionally high savings levels of Germans is hurt by inflation. Furthermore, with the approach of the European monetary union, the future of the nationally beloved deutsche mark is at stake.

Just when tax hikes and inflation are eroding buying power, rents have exploded in Germany, doubling and even tripling within the past five years. Affordable housing for middle-class earners, and reasonable store rents for small businesses, have virtually vanished.

Employers have answered workers’ wage demands with threats to move their plants abroad, which has further undermined the confidence of German workers in a secure future. As in the United States, automation and high-tech have already cost tens of thousands of blue-collar workers their jobs since the ‘70s.

During recent wage negotiations, Daimler-Benz chief Edzuard Reuter threatened to start moving part of the company’s production abroad, claiming that, in an era when South Korean workers can match the production quality of German workers, he no longer views the “Made in Germany” logo as an essential element of a Mercedes. The Republican Party scored extremely well in the industrial suburbs of Stuttgart, home to large numbers of Mercedes employees, and companies that depend on Daimler-Benz business.

But the resurgence of the German right comes after an unprecedented period of democracy and political stability. And Germany’s political and economic systems are not near collapse.

Germany’s search for nationhood in the new Europe and the economic problems caused by rebuilding its eastern territory are unlikely to be solved quickly. During this transition, racist violence will probably continue. And right-wing parties will continue to attract followers.

Although the right-wing parties are poorly organized and staffed, splintered by rivalries and lacking in political substance, they offer an ineffable pride in being German to insecure voters. These parties may not be a threat to democracy, but their racist and nationalist slogans can disrupt the social peace in a country groping to cope with German and European unification.