Dialog International

Gabor Steingart Mocks Americans in Wall Street Journal Piece

Last year I wrote about how Dow Jones board member Dieter von Holtzbrinck resigned his post in protest of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the venerable Wall Street Journal. Von Holtzbrinck was very much aware of the business practices of Murdoch's News Corporation, and worried that the WSJ's legacy of journalistic excellence would be destroyed:

"I cannot prove that my worries are right. I can only refer to News Corp. business practices in the past." Von Holtzbrinck wrote.

Well, von Holtzbrinck's concerns were very much justified:  since taking over the Wall Street Journal Murdoch has moved swiftly to transform America's premier business newspaper into a neoconservative rag. After firing key editorial staff, Murdoch has replaced coverage of business with right-wing political commentary:

PEJ examined the Journal's front pages from every other weekday edition between Dec. 13, 2007, and March 13, 2008, to determine if the paper’s agenda had changed, the report said.
Among its findings:
• "Business coverage dropped more than half -- falling from 30% in the months prior to the sale to 14%."
• "In the first four months of Murdoch’s ownership, the Journal has shifted its focus, opting for less business coverage and for more coverage of national politics and international issues."

In his effort to beef-up neoconservative commentary, Murdoch has found a kindred soul in Der Spiegel's Washington correspondent Gabor Steingart.  In his first op/ed contribution on May 10, Steingart mocks Americans desire to have universal health care, similar to the programs offered in Germany, France, and every other highly industrialized country:

When I begin to feel homesick for Germany, I have discovered a cheap and easy way out. I simply turn on the TV and listen to a Barack Obama stump speech.

The promised land of universal health care, secure pensions, a lot of green-collar jobs and stable bridges brings me back to my home country. My grandma, who has worked in a post office all her life, enjoys her pension without having ever observed the stock market. Everyone who travels through the countryside can see thousands of windmills, but never a collapsed bridge. And the best: My mom, my friends and everyone around them have access to first-class medical services.

After telling German readers for months that Barack Obama's candidacy was a "fairy tale", now Steingart tells the WSJ's readers that Senator Obama's programs to improve the lives of ordinary Americans are a fairy tale we can't afford.  Of course, he doesn't mention the $1 trillion price tag of the Iraq War debacle which Murdoch so fervently supports (as long as his own sons remain out of it).

Barack Obama is Murdoch's (and Steingart's) worst nightmare: A charismatic black candidate who wants to end torture, withdraw from Iraq, end the tax cuts for the wealthy and make health care accessible to all.  As the campaign progresses, watch for further hit pieces in the Wall Street Journal on Obama. No doubt many will have the byline of Gabor Steingart.

Review: After the Reich by Giles MacDonogh

Americans have a very benign view of the postwar occupation of Germany. In the conventional narrative, the US liberated the German people from Nazi tyranny, schooled them in Western-style democracy, brought them market-driven prosperity, and protected them from the evil Soviet empire.  But the historical truth is rather different, especially for the period from the Armistice in 1945 to the Berlin Airlift in 1948.  This is the period covered in Giles MacDonogh's book After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation.  With startling detail, MacDonogh tells a story of rape, ethnic cleansing, pillage, starvation and slavery that resulted in an estimated 3 million German deaths (1 million of which were POWs) after Germany surrendered. Of the two million civilians who perished, the vast majority were women, children and elderly Germans who fell victim to suicide, hunger, disease and mass murder.

The first chapters of the After the Reich are perhaps the most gruesome, since MacDonogh describes the fate of the women and girls in the Soviet occupied territories.  Hardly any - even as young as 8-years old or as old as 80 - escaped being brutally raped, sometimes as many as 25 times - 25 times a day.  This led to a wave of suicides, atrocious injuries of young girls, terrible venereal disease (when there were no antibiotics available) and pregnancies. Nor were the Russians entirely alone in their enthusiasm for rape: On April 17-18, 1945, French soldiers raped at least 600 women in the small Black Forest town of Freudenstadt, before going on to Stuttgart where they raped another 3,000 women and eight men.  American forces prohibited rape, but there were more than 600 courts-marshal involving rape charges against American soldiers.  Only the Brits come off better, since they preferred to barter cigarettes and chocolate for sex with the defeated enemy.

Then MacDonogh tells the largely untold story of the slaughter of more than 250,000 Sudeten Germans by Czech nationalists, as well as similar stories of ethnic cleansing in Poland, Silesia, and East Prussia - a predictable outcome from the Yalta Conference.  This sad chapter of postwar history deserves a great deal more study, and MacDonogh deserves much credit for bringing to the attention of American readers.

Elfriede Jelinek on Josef Fritzl

Last week there was some lively discussion around the post concerning the "Monster of Amstetten (Austria)" who fathered seven children with his own daughter.  It was only a matter of time before the Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek - the notorious Nestverschmutzerin of Austria - would weigh in on this horrible tragedy.  After all, everything she has written points to the possibility - or necessity - of something like this happening. Well, Elfriede has delivered with an essay on her Web site entitled Im Verlassenen (In the Abandoned - under Aktuelles on the site menu). The essay is a miniature masterpiece of invective against her countrymen (emphasis on men).

I can't think of any writer more difficult (impossible) to translate than Elfriede Jelinek: the myriad of puns, allusions to Rilke, Nazis and the Catholic Church, high sarcasm etc... only works in German. Besides, all quotations of her texts are strictly forbidden, as per the warning on her home page: Sämtliche         hier wiedergegebenen Texte sind urheberrechtlich geschützt und dürfen         ohne ausdrückliche Erlaubnis in keiner Form wiedergegeben oder zitiert         werden. ( "All texts here are protected by copyright and should not be reproduced or quoted in any form without permission"), However, the brave souls at Sign and Sight have translated and published a snippet, which I reproduce here:

"The performance by this grandfather-god-the-father who has constructed an idyll which he has artlessly built in the form of a female body, with its many niches and passages, where you can't look in at everything from everywhere, it is not art to use something as the female body, even if you don't have one, there are blow-up sex dolls, hollowed out apples, animals etc., but it is an art to build spaces as a woman might, and decorate them with pretty patterns, a temple, only built for the lust of the father."

Already the first sentence is classic, and sets the tone for the whole essay: Österreich         ist eine kleine Welt, in der die große ihre Probe hält. (Austria is a little world where the big world holds its rehearsals.)

Anyway, if you enjoy kind of thing and are hooked on Elfriede's dense style like I am, you can also read for free on her Web site a brand new novel she just finished:  Neid (Envy).  I will not undertake to read this anytime soon, since the novel is estimated to be 900 pages, and I can only read a few pages of Jelinek in one sitting before getting exhausted.  On the other hand, she has threatened to remove Neid from her site whenever she wants, so procrastination could be risky. Her German publisher - Rowohlt Verlag - insists the novel will never appear in a print edition.

Job-Killer McKinsey Warns of Vanishing German Middle Class

The management consulting firm McKinsey has produced a study of the strengths and weaknesses of the German economy: Deutschland 2020. The study was made available to the conservative daily Die Welt, which has reported on it extensively.  McKinsey is projecting annual growth rate in Germany for the next 12 of 1.7%, and this means the German middle class will shrink significantly:

The study, by the consulting group McKinsey, found that in 12 years, 10 million fewer people could belong to the middle class than did at the beginning of the 1990s if economic growth levels do not surpass the forecast 1.7 percent, according to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which had seen the report."The economic growth that we have experienced over the past 15 years has not been enough to reach the citizens," Frank Mattern, head of McKinsey's Germany operations, told the newspaper. "For people in the middle-income range, small growth rates are equivalent to losses."

McKinsey believes a growth rate of at least 3% p.a. is needed for the German middle class to remain at its present level.  Why the anemic economic growth in Germany?  DIe Welt reports:

Die   Antwort ist vielschichtig. Sie hat zu tun mit mangelnder Dynamik und   zunehmendem Globalisierungsdruck, mit erstarrten Strukturen auf dem   Arbeitsmarkt und mangelnder Effizienz im Bildungswesen. Vor allem aber hat   sie mit Produktivitätswachstum zu tun. (The answer is multifaceted. A lack of dynamism as well as the pressures of globalization along with rigid regulation of the employment market and lack of efficiency in education.  Above all it has to do with increased productivity.)

When productivity increases faster than economic growth, more jobs are lost or displaced.  And the new jobs require entirely new skills:

Zwar entstehen durch Produktivitätsfortschritte auch viele neue Jobs   – wie die vergangenen Monate gezeigt haben – das allerdings meist in ganz   anderen Branchen und für ganz andere Berufe als dort, wo zuvor ein Jobabbau   stattfand. „Deutschland ist es bisher anders als anderen Ländern nicht   gelungen, gleichzeitig Produktivität und Beschäftigung zu steigern“, sagt   McKinsey-Experte Boris Maurer. „Genau an diesem Punkt muss das Land in   Zukunft ansetzen, um den Wohlstand dauerhaft zu sichern. Das wiederum wird   nur über mehr Wachstum gehen.“ (Advancements in productivity create new jobs, as we have seen in recent months.  But the new jobs are in entirely new sectors and different professions from the the old jobs. "In contrast to other countries Germany has not been able to increase employment along with productivity," said McKinsey expert Boris Maurer. "This conundrum needs to be addressed if Germany wants to remain an affluent nation. And that can only happen with higher growth.")

How can German enterprises achieve these higher rates of growth?  The short answer: hire McKinsey.

What is ironic is that McKinsey has for years been destroying the German middle class with its management theories.  Whether it's "lean management" or "just-in-time inventory management", Mckinsey has been advising German firms on the latest strategies, which always result in massive reductions in the workforce. Most recently, McKinsey has been selling its services to German executives in the field of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), which has led to the export of millions of jobs to India, China, etc.

So the best strategy for preserving the German middle class is to kick McKinsey out of the country.

Obama Will Be the Nominee, Even Spiegel's Steingart Concedes

Last night Barack Obama decisively moved to clinch the nomination as Democratic candidate for president. It was a game-changer for the pundits, who finally realized that it will be Obama vs. McCain in November.  Even Der Spiegel's Gabor Steingart, one of Obama's biggest detractors in Germany, now admits the truth:

Mit ihrer Niederlage in North Carolina und dem knappen Ergebnis in Indiana ist das Rennen für sie gelaufen. Wenn nicht noch ein Wunder geschieht, ist Barack Obama der Kandidat seiner Partei. Sein Vorsprung ist knapp, aber uneinholbar.Hillary Clinton II. ist weit gegangen. Es wird Zeit, dass sie den Rückweg antritt. (With her loss in N. Caroline and the slim margin of victory in Indiana, the race is over for her. Barring a miracle, Barack Obama is his party's candidate. His lead is small but insurmountable. Hillary Clinton has come a long way. It is time that she back out.)

This is the same Gabor Steingart who has been writing for months that there was no substance to the candidacy of Barack Obama, he had too much bagage, his pastor was a crazy radical, he didn't wear a flag lapel pin, etc.  After Obama's huge Iowa caucus victory in January it was Gabor Steingart who told German readers that Obama's campaign was a fairy tale that was doomed to failure:

Kinder lieben Märchen, weil sich in dieser Erzählform das Wunderbare und die Wirklichkeit vermischen. Das vor Urzeiten Erlebte, von Generation zu Generation weitererzählt und verfremdet, wärmt die kleinen Seelen. Die Leidenschaft für das Märchenhafte bleibt auch im Alter erhalten. Eines der modernen Märchen heißt "Iowa".  (Children love fairy tales, because in this form of narrative the miraculous is mixed up with reality. Experiences of our ancestors are passed along from generation to generation and warm the spirits of small children. The passion for fairy tales lives on even for adults.  One of the modern fairy tales is "Iowa".)

But, as it turns out, it was Steingart himself who was living in a neoconservative fairy tale.  The reality is that Americans are hungry for change, and they have found an inspiriational leader in Senator Barack Obama.

Stupid White Men

I follow the German press coverage of the US presidential campaign and occasionally translate pieces for Watching America. For the most part, the reporting is disappointing: the journalists from the German press often parrot the reporting from the mainstream American press.  In some cases, they simply plagiarize. An example of going along with the mainstream reporting is a piece by Martin Klingst in Die Zeit: DIe Pistole liegt neben der Bibel (The gun is next to the Bible) about the white, working-class men who, we are told, will determine the outcome of the presidential election in November.

We have seen this demographic hype before.  In 2000 it was the "soccer moms" who would decide everything. By 2004 they had become terrified "security moms".  Now, we are told, white men without a college education will pick the next president.

Der männliche weiße Arbeiter, der white blue-collar worker, ist die Schlüsselfigur im amerikanischen Wahlkampf, der große Umworbene, dessen Stimme über den Präsidentschaftskandidaten der Demokraten entscheiden soll und im Herbst über den nächsten US-Präsidenten. (The white male worker - the white blue-collar worker - is the pivotal figure in the next election. He is much-courted, and his vote will decide who will be the next president in the fall.)

So Martin Klingst sets off in pursuit of the "white Joes", who love guns and Jesus but are struggling to support their families in a globalized economy.  These used to be called the "Reagan Democrats" - conservative, white union members who found Ronald Reagan's racial divisiveness appealing.  These are the same folks that Thomas Franks wrote about in his brilliant analysis of politics in Kansas - What's The Matter with Kansas? (2004).  These are the low income residents in the Red States who consistently vote against their economic self-interest due to polarizing social conservative issues cleverly packaged by the Republican Party.

Klingst finds two "white Joes" that fit the paradigm: Ed McMillan in Ohio and Jeff Kruger in South Carolina:

Jeff Kruger aus South Carolina repariert rund um die Uhr Landmaschinen, seine Frau Samantha hat drei Jobs, damit ihre fünf Kinder eine vernünftige Ausbildung erhalten. Wenn es die Zeit erlaubt, besuchen die strenggläubigen Krugers ihre protestantische Kirche dreimal die Woche. Jeffs Hobby ist die Jagd, er besitzt einen ganzen Schrank voller Gewehre und Pistolen. Früher, als alles besser war, legte er oft samstags seine Flinte auf die Ladefläche seines betagten Pick-ups und fuhr in die nahe gelegenen Berge von North Carolina. Ed McMillan besucht in seiner spärlichen Freizeit lieber einen irischen Pub. Auch er besitzt eine Pistole, »zur Selbstverteidigung«. Denn in letzter Zeit wird in der Nachbarschaft viel eingebrochen. Die Pistole liegt auf seinem Nachttisch, gleich neben der Familienbibel. (Jeff Kruger from South Carolina repairs farm equipment day and night, his wife Samantha has three jobs so that their children can get a decent education. When they have the time the devout Krugers attend their Protestant church three times during the week.  Jeff's hobby is hunting and he has a entire cabinet filled with handguns and rifles. In the past, when times were better, he used to toss his shotgun in his old pickup and drive into the surrounding mountains in North Carolina.  Ed McMillan prefers to spend what leisure time he has in an Irish pub. He also owns a handgun - for "self-defense". Because there have been a lot of break-ins in his neighborhood. The gun is on his night table, next to the family Bible.)

From the attitudes of these two men, Klingst extrapolates that Senator Obama doesn't have a chance with this demographic.  Obama is too exotic, and they don't trust a black candidate:

Die Joes, die Ed McMillan und Jeff Kruger heißen, drücken ihr Unbehagen so aus: Der schwarze Senator aus Illinois sei ihnen doch irgendwie sehr, sehr fremd. (The Joes, who have the names Ed McMillan and Jeff Kruger, express their discomfort: they think the black senator from Illinois is really very, very strange.)

This type of "analysis" is really quite silly.  Senator Obama won the primary in Jeff's state quite handily, attracting many white voters.  In Virginia, often cited as a Red State, Obama won the majority of white voters in the Democratic primary. In my state - Maine, one of the poorest, whitest (99% Caucasian) states in the US - Obama won the caucus by a wide margin.  I don't doubt that there a number of racists who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance, but the Reagan Democrats no longer exist as a major voting block.  The US has become too diverse, the economic shocks from globalization have been too great, and life has become too precarious for many Americans. They are ready to vote for real change. The idea that there is huge demographic of uneducated, low-income white males who will vote against change as block in November doesn't correspond to today's realities.

A New Critical Edition of Mein Kampf?

Under an antiquated law, it is illegal to print Mein Kampf in Germany.  After the war, the Allied Forces granted the copyright of the book to the Bavarian Finance Ministry, which has prevented the printing of the book.  Now, of course, this looks silly, since any German kid can download the entire Mein Kampf in multiple languages on his home computer. 

Now The Documentation Center at the former Nazi party grounds in Nuremberg has appealed to the State of Bavaria for permission to print an annotated edition of Hitler's book. The Munich Institute of Contemporary History would likely be commissioned to publish the volume, which could take several years to complete. Time is of the essence, since the copyright expires in 2015, after which anyone - including right-wing extremist organizations - could print the book.  Thus far, Bavarian state minister Guenther Beckstein has signaled he will NOT grant permission for a new critical edition of Mein Kampf.  It is just too dangerous in view of the resurgent neo-Nazi groups, especially in the eastern German states.

Beckstein's attitude doesn't sit well with Matthias Brodkorb, a blogger writing on the anti-Nazi blog Störungsmelder:  "Ich möchte nicht durch Günther Beckstein vor Adolf Hitler beschützt werden." (I don't want Guenther Beckstein to protect me from Adolf Hitler.) In his blog post, Brodkorb tells the story of how a student at his high school brought in a leather-bound edition of Mein Kampf (probably something his grandparents had on their bookshelves). The students were thrilled with appearance of this taboo object in their classroom.

Was würde eigentlich passieren, wenn Sie Hitler im Buchhandel kaufen könnten? Tja, dann wäre es vorbei mit diesem Reiz des ja nur angeblich Verbotenen. (What would happen if they could buy Hitler in any bookstore? Well, then the thrill of the "forbidden" would vanish.)

Even though Beckstein is wrong in his attempt to suppress Mein Kampf, I can find some sympathy for his point of view.  The events on May 1 in Hamburg show that neo-Nazi violence is a real threat. The neo-Nazi Web site Altermedia is jubilant about the "civil war-like conditions" in Hamburg, has photos of neo-Nazis attacking journalists.  Would these thugs be influenced one way or another by a critical edition of Mein Kampf? Sadly, no.  There are plenty of outlets for unfiltered fascist propaganda.

Review: Robert Neumann's Die Kinder von Wien

My last post on the story from Austria of Josef F. who kept his own daughter hidden in his cellar along with the children he fathered with her has inspired me to write about the novel DIe Kinder von Wien (The Children of Vienna) about six children living in a bombed-out cellar in postwar Vienna.

The good people at Eichborn Verlag in Frankfurt have reissued this important document of the postwar era and were kind enough to send me a review copy. DIe Kinder von Wien is actually Robert Neumann's own 1974 translation of the original book in English: The Children of Vienna was published by Neumann in London in 1946.  I have been unsuccessful in locating a copy of the original English novel, but hopefully this reissue by Eichborn and renewed interest in Neumann will lead to a new edition.

It was Heinrich Böll who created the genre of Trümmerliteratur (literally Rubble Literature) - literature about the shattered lives and shattered illusions in the immediate postwar period, as Germany lay in ruins.  Die Kinder von Wien is a true example of Rubble Literature: the entire novel takes place in a ruined cellar, its entrance blocked by pile of rubble from the firebombing of Vienna.  But the novel is also one of the few contemporary works of fiction to deal directly with the occupation: American and Soviet military personnel make appearances. (The best Occupation Novel in German is Wolfgang Koeppen's  Tauben im Gras  which deals with the American occupation of Munich).