Germany pioneered electric bikes in the 1890s yet, in a kind of history twist often attempted by regressives, a polluting relic of 1980s Soviet engineering has become suddenly symbolic in Germany’s contemporary culture wars.

Thinking people increasingly embrace simple, inexpensive electric two-wheeled transportation. The present Nazi party (AfD) has reacted by promoting primitive old polluting two-stroke DDR-made Simson engines as symbolic of political resistance.

Whereas German electric bikes represent actual heritage of simple and sustainable technology, the AfD have been appropriating foreign-led Communist-made oil-burning mopeds as symbols of the Nazi German cultural identity. The appropriation comes mainly because of the fact these engines would never meet modern emissions standards, and thus force a discussion about destruction of reasoned authority.

Back in the day, I myself used to wrench on a dirty Italian 1980s moped, boring out the tiny cylinder for 1 or 2 extra HP. The technology basically was known to be shit even back then, pardon my French, and nobody in their right mind would fire that up today. Related: don’t smoke cigarettes, and don’t put strawberry jam on pasta (like the Simson, it was a DDR thing). The engines release up to 30% of their fuel unburned directly into the air, mix oil with fuel creating significantly more pollutants than four-stroke engines, and were banned by basically everyone with a brain cell because of obvious extreme pollution levels. To be fair, a 1990s update released the SR50/4 (Simson 50cc with 4-cylinders), but the AfD hate such sensibility. Seriously, the worse something is the more it serves their disruptive agenda of being the people who oppose laws and order (always in violent opposition).

Nazi Germany in fact was defined by a crippling over-dependence on horses (aside from areas where they stole technology from the British). Nearly 80% of the Nazi military used horses in WWII and lacked any real or reliable access to fuel. They were the least modernized (spoiler alert, Hitler had lost the war by 1942 yet kept fighting only to commit genocide and then suicide). So the AfD really should be trying to mount up hairy steeds to spread thick smelly manure in political protest against oil burning… but again the AfD aren’t people who even understand their own history.

They messily spin chaotic symbols of nostalgia nonsense, by assaulting meaning and logic, to appropriate power unjustly wherever stupid ideas take hold. Germans were pioneering electric vehicles including bikes in the late 1800s, which makes the AfD’s “traditional” stance against tech even more historically ignorant, if you get my drift about Nazis repeatedly being the wrong horse to bet on.

What makes sloppy self-contradictory and self-harming symbol appropriation so particularly poignant (again, their hero Hitler predictably lost and committed suicide only because his own generals failed to assassinate him first) is that it also goes against everything the moped’s original designer stood for. As his grandson reveals[1]:

What does the Simson designer actually think about his moped being exploited by right-wing groups? Clauss Dietel designed the Simson models S50 and S51.

Unfortunately, BuzzFeed News Germany can no longer ask him, as he passed away in 2022. His grandson Bruno Dietel did not want to comment on the topic when we approached him.

In a post on X/Twitter, he writes that the moped’s design was based on the so-called ‘open principle,’ a ‘solidary, ecological, democratic design concept.’ Simson is being ‘wrongfully misused and annexed as a symbol.’ ‘My grandfather experienced the Nazi era in Saxony and in his final years was very concerned about the resurgence of totalitarianism. What’s happening in the Simson context would have deeply outraged him.’

Outrage? Well that’s exactly what the Nazi clown show (AfD) wants.

It’s why they have splashed a distinctively Nazi red “swoosh” symbol for provocative contrast to Germany’s “thoughtful” Reichstag blue… emphasizing change akin to an angry toddler who knocks over a paint can.

Also, I swear that logo wasn’t designed intentionally to look like a giant red horse penis attached to a swastika man. Pure coincidence.

The Simson case represents a broader pattern where any sense of progress becomes entangled with identity politics by those who hate the idea of change (as it disrupts their perceived inheritance of privilege). While electric motors offer easy and obvious solutions to mobility needs, they’ve become caught in false outrage of cultural crossfire. The AfD’s distaste for modern German engineering, to instead embrace Soviet-era mopeds, is less about transportation policy and more about opposition on principle. Does the moped do harm? Do people hate it for good reason and want to make it illegal for the benefit of society? The AfD, as if driven by old KGB methods in the Cold War, foment angry opposition campaigns just for the sake of being in opposition.

This binary conflict mentality underscores a crucial challenge in basic transit planning: how to honor even shit cultural perceptions and sentiments while embracing necessary technology progress to respect human life. The answer might lie in the very principles Clauss Dietel originally employed — the “open principle” of democratic, ecological design that looks forward while contemplating whatever good may have passed.

[1] “Höcke und die AfD feiern ostdeutsche Kultmarke – die reagiert empört: „Missbrauch““, Frankfurter Rundschau, 12.11.2024. (https://www.fr.de/panorama/simson-moped-ostdeutschland-bjoern-hoecke-afd-kultmarke-partei-rechtsextrem-fans-zr-93283765.html)