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The Informationsdienst gegen Rechtsextremismus (IDGR) has been a German project on the Internet set up to counter anti-Semitism, right wing extremism and Holocaust denial with information about them. Founded in 1998 by Margret Bezold-Chatwin , commonly known as Magret Chatwin, IDGR provided documents, sources and articles on these themes for first information, scholars and scientific research, somewhat like the Nizkor Project, but with a different policy. In fact, Chatwin was a contributor to nizkor too. On September 27, 2006 the editor stopped the service.
Purpose
The intention of the IDGR-authors was to describe anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and to provide reliable information about the Holocaust, its perpetrators, and its background. This included providing in-depth analyses of news reports and revisionist literature, as well as references to books or Internet pages, but not directly to right extremist pages. Unlike Nizkor, the IDGR did not give access to communication with Holocaust deniers, but rather described their biographies, evolution of thought and organisational connections.
Structure
The main part of the website was a regularly updated collection of texts dealing with different topics in the field of Nazism and extremism. One subsection of the homepage has been the "Lexicon of Right Wing Extremism", consisting of about 300 files. It contained detailed information about right-wing activists (such as Erich Priebke), organizations, (f.e. National Alliance), publications, and Holocaust deniers (f.e. Ernst Zündel, Germar Rudolf and David Irving).
Support
In 2002, the IDGR won an annual price of 5.000 Euro by the Bündnis für Demokratie und Toleranz, an initiative for supporting civil engagement against racism, extremism and antisemitism.
The IDGR also was suggested as a reliable source by Andreas Klärner, author at the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung of Jan Philip Reemtsma, in 2004. But Klärner criticised the decision of the editor not to link to sources on right wing extremist pages.
Controversies
Not only persons associated with the German New Right (Neue Rechte) and the right wing of the Christian Democratic Union accused the IDGR of trying to defame democrats by linking them with right-wing extremism for ideological reasons. Claus Wolfschlag, an author of the weekly Junge Freiheit, has criticised the IDGR as serving mainly to expose and defame personalities on the political right. He and others also view some of the IDGR's authors as left-wing extremists.
Closure
After some of the former co-authors had left the project and founded a new project called redok, Margret Chatwin closed the IDGR in September 2006. In her final statement she gave as reasons: The idea of the Internet to provide and exchange free information for everyone had been distortet and commercialised. Later, she added:
Im übrigen sei darauf hingewiesen, dass es kein wie auch immer geartetes "Nachfolgeprojekt" gibt. Tatsächlich hat sich der kleine Zirkel, der dies öffentlich behauptet, bereits vor Jahren aus eigener Entscheidung vom IDGR abgewandt, um ein gänzlich anderes Projekt zu realisieren. Mit dem IDGR hat dieses Projekt in keiner Weise zu tun, schließlich fehlt es diesem an der entscheidenden Substanz – den Inhalten, die zu etwa 90 Prozent von der einstigen Herausgeberin verfasst wurden.
Also it is to be noted that there is no follow-up-project in any way. In fact, the small circle claiming this in public has already decided on its own years ago to leave IDGR and founded a totally different project. This project has nothing to do with the IDGR, it lacks the essential substance of it - the contents which were written to about 90 percent by the former editor.
References
- Claus Wolfschlag on Magret Bezold-Chatwin
- Margret Chatwin was activ on Nizkor bevore establishing IDGR
- Bündnis für Demokratie und Toleranz: Preisträger 2002
- : Wir über uns
- Andreas Klärner: Recension about IDGR for H-Soz-Kult, 23. Januar 2004 (German)
- Junge Freiheit author's list, March 3, 2006
- Macht ihnen ihr soziales Umfeld zur Hölle, (make their social setting hell) by C.-M. Wolfschlag, February 28, 2003
- Final declaration of Margret Chatwin
Further reading
- Albrecht Kolthoff: Der Informationsdienst gegen Rechtsextremismus (IDGR). In: Stephan Braun, Daniel Hörsch (Hrsg.): Rechte Netzwerke - eine Gefahr. VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 2004, S. 231-242. ISBN 3-8100-4153-X (in German)