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08/11/2008: "German woman sues for losing job over political beliefs"
Two young women who lost their jobs because of their association with Germany's far-right scene have formed a group to help other 'persecuted' women. It is part of a growing trend of women becoming more prominent on the extreme-right scene.
Iris Niemeyer feels angry, betrayed and persecuted. In her mid-30s, educated and articulate, Niemeyer is furious about having lost her job as a social worker because of her political beliefs. She is so appalled that she has set up a group to defend women in similar situations. Women like her -- women from Germany's far-right scene.
"We were so surprised," Fischer told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "There had been no indications that she was involved in the far-right scene -- nothing in her conversation or her work." Niemeyer immediately hired a lawyer and threatened to appeal her dismissal. The two sides eventually settled out of court and she received two months wages.
Niemeyer has since become the local chairperson of the NPD in a small region north of Münster, but she rejects the term neo-Nazi or right-wing extremist, preferring to call herself a "patriot" and "nationalist." Germany's domestic intelligence agency, however, describes the NPD has having a marked affinity with Nazi ideology and labels it "racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist." An attempt to outlaw the party failed in 2003 and it continues to get state funding, consistent with Germany's campaign finance laws.
[ If someone's beliefs, whatever they might be, actually interfered with their competency in their job, or they were prone to ranting in an offensive way, it might be reasonable for them to lose their job. Here is a case where the woman kept her thoughts to herself and got on with her job. She was sacked purely as an act of political and racial persecution. And that is something that did NOT happen in the Third Reich. ]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,570229,00.html