"Ausbürgern" (stripping of citizenship): Stalinist and Nazi methods of social control reinvented by Swiss right-wing populists

Osservatore Profano, in a recent blog (From gender discrimination to gender war), reported on a gang rape of a 13 year old school girl in Switzerland, as an example for aggressive behaviour in male adolescents. Now, as media reports on the sociological background of the involved gang have shown, a majority of them are Swiss citizen of East European origin and appear to be poorly integrated. The Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei SVP) of the Canton of Zurich, in an newspaper ad published today, demands the stripping of the Swiss citizenship forcitizen of foreign origin who show criminal behaviour, as one of several political measures to stop adolescent violence. According to SVP, "adolescent violence has a name - it is synonymous to criminality by foreigners".
Criminal behaviour by poorly integrated foreigners from countries with atavistic moral codes left over from pre-industrial, pre-modern times is a real problem of growing importance, not only in Switzerland. Improving methods for integration of foreigners has been a central subject recently, in political discussions throughout our country, on the local level as well as on the level of federal legislation and authorities.
But while naming the problem, analyzing the underlying mechanisms and preparing and implementing measures (prevention, criminal investigation, prosecution, regular trials and execution of penalties) are desirable and necessary, the idea to strip individuals with aberrant and/or criminal behaviour of their citizenship is a totalitarian method used e.g. by the staunchly stalinist authorities of the German Democratic Republic(RDA). During nearly 40 years, it was current practice in the RDA to strip artists who did not comply to the rules imposed by the regime of their citizenship. One of the most prominent victims of the RDA's tradition of dumping unruly citizens was German singer and poet Wolf Biermann.
Far from being an invention of the post-war communist regime in Berlin-East, stripping of citizenship had been used as a method of systematic reprisal by both the Soviets and the Nazis regime during the Thirties To strip a person of her citizenship was part of the preparatory scheme of the Holocaust.
Among the expatriates from Nazi Germany stripped of their citizenship: author Bertolt Brecht, theater director Erwin Piscator and Thomas Mann's children Erika and Klaus.

Dumping unwanted citizens may be an economic way to get rid of social problems, according to the old proverb that says: "Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn" - "Out of sight, out of mind". This may be useful for a demented single person in serious difficulty, but it is an inappropriate method for a modern state. Dumping citizens is comparable to dumping toxic waste on African shores (see earlier blog post by Osservatore Profano).