User:MichaelParkTaylor/National Democratic Party of Germany

The Green Movement
The National Democratic party or has recent supported the green movement. This is one of many strategies to gain supporters. Historically the opposing party the German Greens group have fully supported the green movement in Germany. German Greens group was a successful European ecological group that began in 1980. Kate Connolly who is a correspondent for The Guardian wrote the article: German far-right extremists tap into green movement for support. In the article Connolly explains the opposition between these two political groups pertaining to the green movement. The Artaman league is an essential in understanding the green movement history. This was a farming movement that was based off  “blood and soil” ruralism ideology adopted from the Nazis. This farming movement affected the Mecklenburg region of Germany during the 19th century. Settlers at this time took advantage of the cheap cost of land in these rural communities. These settlers were in support of the Artaman league and continued to reinforce the ideology.

The NDP’s plans is to take the ecological movement back from the German Greens group. Connolly spoke to different farmers, organizations, and employees of the government to represent the different perspectives of the ecological movement. Hans-Gunter Laimer a farmer who ran for election for the NPD mentions his frustration that the German Greens groups has dominated the organic farming market for too long. He has also been linked to other German groups specifically Umwelt and Aktiv. Both political parties are concerned with the ways they are in opposition from one another. The NPD supporters of the green movement are in favor of local produce. However, they are against GMOS, pesticides, and intensive livestock. Organizations involved in the farming industry have lost consumers because they are not able to state what political views of the farmers products to the consumer. For example, BioPark is an organic cultivation organization with a vetting process to certify organic farmers. The vetting process is strictly based on cultivation methods and not on political affiliations. BioPark has lost costumers because left-leaning supporters worry buying local organic produce is supporting the far-right extremist.

The department of rural enlightenment has supported the importance of distinguishing between these two political parties. The department created a brochure called "Nature Conservation Versus Right-wing Extremist". The brochure was created in order to help consumers distinguish from the far-right extremists. Other representatives from the government have spoken on this divided. For example Connolly mentions the representative of the Centre for Democratic culture in Mecklenburg who choose to stay anonymous in order to protect them-self. The representative stated the goal of the NDP is to build bridges between citizens. The NDP is strategic in the way they are going about this in subtle quite manner. The end result the NDP is trying to active is to reinforce the division between the two political parties so that when NDP no longer becomes associated with politics.