Left | Pellmann solos for Red Aid: an important signal against witch hunts

Because Rote Hilfe supports prisoners socially and legally, it is framed as extremist. Photo: Imago/Hanno Bode Another poor pig who is currently being driven through the political village: her name is Red Help. The association has been supporting political prisoners and leftists who have come into conflict with criminal law since 1975. The organization in whose tradition she stood did so until the beginning of the Nazi era. In 1933, like many other leftists, their activists were kidnapped and immediately murdered or put into a concentration camp and tortured for years. Like Hans Litten, the famous lawyer who committed suicide in 1938 after five torturous years in Dachau.

And today? Elif Eralp, possible future governing mayor of Berlin, is being denounced as a kind of terrorist aide because she was a member of the Red Aid until last year, just like many other left-wing lawyers. In view of the hysterical debate about the supposedly "extremist" organization, it is a very courageous step by the co-chair of the left-wing faction in the Bundestag to publicly declare that he is joining the aid association. And Sören Pellmann says what should actually be self-evident in a constitutional state: every citizen must have the chance of appropriate legal representation in court proceedings. Red Aid ensures that “people who have little or no money can also afford it.”

On the topic: The organization of left-wing solidarity - On October 1, 1924, the Red Aid of Germany was founded. What can be learned from more than 100 years of history of left-wing solidarity work?

The author, journalist and lawyer Ronen Steinke also highlighted this constitutional aspect in the ZDF morning magazine this week and emphasized that he sees no problem with a politician's membership in the Red Aid. It's good that there are a few people with backbone who say the obvious in hysterical times when, once again, different standards apply to leftists than to others. The careers of CDU, SPD and Green politicians have not been harmed by Amigo affairs, former NSDAP membership or the fact that they used to beat up police officers. In contrast, interested actors from these parties and certain media outlets look for the slightest transgression on the left in order to keep them out of positions. Because they could actually take a little something away from some capitalists.

And yes: today, as in the Weimar Republic or in the 1970s, the lawyers who worked with the Red Aid also defended criminals and RAF members. After all, solidarity applies even if you do not approve of the alleged actions of other leftists.

By the way: Has anyone ever asked why a dubious organization like the so-called Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which has been blind in the right eye for decades and is even involved in right-wing terror via informants, is still allowed to determine who is a “left-wing extremist”?

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