In bed with a Fascist

If everything that I have read about Michael Fischer in the past two hours is correct (and I reserve the right to be corrected if the information from "Die Zeit" usw is inaccurate), he is a thoroughly nasty bit of work.

He has been a member of the Rostock National Socialists (as in Nazi, so "Fascist" is a perfectly good word to use in this context), stood for election as a direct candidate for the Neo-Fascist NPD in Rostock in 2011, is aggressively hostile to both Turks and Jews, his views on homosexuality come straight of the NSDAP playbook, and he has been known, verbally at least, to advocate for the ending of democracy in Germany by violent means if necessary. And he has a habit of turning up at demonstrations making the sort of threatening noises that people of his belief-set are expected to make.

That was yesterday, however, not today, if the comments of his girlfriend are to be believed, though others who know of him in Rostock apparently seem less than convinced.

The girlfriend is a lady called Nadja Drygalla. Until this week she was an obscure sportswoman from Rostock - a member of the German rowing team.

As readers will know I have not been following the Olympics. The chance of me watching rowing ever is about as high as me ever painting a masterpiece. So I came to this story a bit late.

Suddenly you have an obscure 23-year-old woman thrust into the public spotlight. The German team was already out of the event in which she was competing, so she could easily have gone home without any noise. As it was though, the fact that Fischer was her boyfriend led to her having a discussion with the German chef d'équipe and apparently it being considered in everyone's best interests that she did go home.

Back home, she has gone from being obscure rower and Olympian of no great standing to a national discussion point. Interviews today indicate that she does not share her boyfriend's beliefs and had already indicated to him that things had to change. Consequently he had cut his links to the extremist groups involved.

All well and good - we shall see usw!

I am prone though to utter the old wry Mandy Rice-Davies comment: "Well he would, wouldn't he"!

And you're also prone to ask why it took so long. This relationship has been running since 2009. She was at one point a trainee policewoman, who felt obliged to quit as the top brass in the local police force did not like her boyfriend's connections. Now comes this embarrassment at the Olympics. And then apparently she was looking at signing up with the German Army and that is now on hold.

And while she has commented that she contemplated ending the relationship, how far did she ever get with this? Given that she does not share his opinions which have twice ended her career ambitions, and have now given her international publicity that she could well do without ....

So what's the attraction? He is actually very charming (don't believe the character assassination stuff in the press today?)? He is exciting? He is great in bed? She is frightened what might happen if she did try to end the relationship? It leaves a lot of open questions.

I know for myself and from my own experiences that you will make sacrifices to be with somebody from whom you can get something special in a relationship. The one thing though that I would never have contemplated is going to bed with a woman who was a committed Fascist, under any circumstances! That she would stay with a guy with his outrageous beliefs for so long frankly baffles me.