Dialog International

No Room at the Inn

Here is an example of civil courage - all too rare today - that we can all applaud.  Johannes Lohmayer, manager of the Holiday Inn in Dresden (Germany), wrote a letter to the leaders of the neo-Nazi NPD.  Here is my translation of the full text; you can read the original German here:

Dresden, October 18, 2007

Re: Your Room Reservations at the Holiday Inn in Dresden

Dear Mr. Apfel, Dear Mr. Delle,

We received notification of your room reservations for November 7 on the Holiday Inn Web site and would like to convey our astonishment that you would choose to patronize a lodging establishment with a foreign-sounding name.

Since you are not welcome on our premises, and since I cannot ask our personnel to greet you and serve you with our customary hospitality, I have asked the WEb site adminstrators to cancel your reservation.  Should that not be possible legally and contractually, then I would like to inform you that all amounts that you and your associates expend on our premises will be donated immediately to the Dresden Synagogue. Consider it a small contribution to reparations for the damages that your brethren once inflicted on the synagogue, and more importantly on the former congregants.

I do hope that you are able to find the accommodations that you deserve and that we will be spared your visit. 

SIncerely,

Johannes Lohmeyer

Here's hoping that Messrs, Apfel and Delle spend the night in gutter - where they belong!

German Press Freedom: A Cautionary Tale

US law favors freedom of speech, so it is quite difficult to prove libel in a US court of law.  That has led to individuals filing actions against American writers in foreign jurisdictions, often the UK.  Probably the most famous case of libel tourism Holocaust-denier David Irving's libel trial against US scholar Deborah Lipstadt. Under British libel law, all a plaintiff has to do to claim libel is to demonstrate that the words spoken or written about him are defamatory, and the defendant has to prove the truth of the "defamatory" statement.  So in the case of the Irving trial, the defense had to prove that the Holocaust actually took place (Irving lost).

But the libel laws in Germany are evidently even worse - from the standpoint of the writer - than in the UK. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung published a long piece by the author Roman Grafe recounting his nightmarish ordeal in the German courts for publishing a factual statement in one of his books (HT: Dr.Dean). In 2004 Grafe had published a book about the trials of the East German border guards - Deutsche Gerechtigkeit. Prozesse gegen DDR-Grenzschützen und ihre Befehlsgeber - where he mentioned in half a sentence the name Sven Hüber. Today Sven Hüber is head of personnel for the German Federal Police, but in the GDR Hüber led a border patrol unit that was responsible for the fatal shooting on February 6, 1989 of Chris Gueffroy, the last person to be killed on the inner German border. Sven Hüber and his lawyers demanded the book be romoved from circulation immediately and sued for damages, since under German law Hüber had the right to anonymity. It turns out that Sven Hüber was anything but anonymous, and often sought attention from the media, but, amazingly, the court initially agreed with Hüber and demanded that Grafe and his publishers remove the book, even though he had merely made a factually correct statement about Hüber's activities in the GDR.

The German press was slow to respond to this clear assault on press freedom; evidently they feared costly legal action against them by Hüber and his vitorious legal team. Finally in 2006 a group of German writers - including Walter Kempowski, who spent 7 years in an East German prison - issued an public appeal on Grafe's behalf. One signatory - Lutz Rathenow - pointed out that "without the ability to name names history would be devoid of human beings." Finally in March 2007 the supression of Grafe's book was overturn on appeal by a higher court in Berlin.  The court found that Hüber had not, in fact, "been forced out of anonymity", since he had frequently sought publicity on television and through public speeches.

So the outcome was a happy one for Roman Grafe, but still the case raising some disturbing questions. What it Sven Hüber had not been such a visible personality? Would the court have upheld the book supression?  Does and individual have the right to anonymity when they are part of an unjust - some would say, criminal - enterprise such as the former GDR? What are the implications for invetigative reporting in Germany?

Lack of European Coverage in US Media

Blogger colleague Joerg Wolf has an excellent post up on The Moderate Voice about the declining enthusiasm for German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the US press.  The gist of the piece is that "the honeymoon is over" and Merkel is being criticized for her lack of leadership concerning Germany's role in Afghanistan and the slowing pace of economic reforms in Germany. The basis for Joerg's piece is the current issue of Newsweek, which has the chancellor on the cover and contains some interesting observations on Merkel's leadership by Joschka Fischer, Joseph Joffe and others. Joerg asks whether Americans have now become too critical of Angela Merkel, just as they were perhaps too exuberant when she became chancellor.

Trouble is, most Americans didn't get to see that issue of Newsweek.  I subscribe to the weekly and the issue I received does not even mention Angela Merkel.  Evidently only the European edition reported the story.  In fact, my copy of Newsweek didn't contain one story about Europe.  The coverage of Europe in the US press is pathetic and is getting worse.

How can transatlantic relations improve when the vast majority of Americans are woefully ignorant of European politics and culture?

 

Triumph of Neo-Liberalism: The German Table Movement

For years The Wall Street Journal has ridiculed Germany for its social welfare system, pointing to the slow growth and high unemployment as the direct consequences. According to the WSJ editors, the path to "American-style" prosperity is tax cuts for the wealthy and an a wholesale jettison of expensive social programs. Germany has been systematically dismantling the Sozialstaat of the postwar era, and now the Wall Street Journal reports on its front page on the new reality: New Trend in Germany: Handouts for the Poor (subsciption required):

WUPPERTAL, Germany -- Men with shoulders hunched against the rain line
up at the back of a van, where volunteers dole out bowls of stew and
chunks of bread. Once served, the men take shelter under shop awnings
to eat. Few speak.The scene could date from the Great Depression, but it takes place
every evening in this bustling industrial city in Western Germany

Like others sipping their soup, Hans Martin says he comes here for a
simple reason: "Hartz IV." That is the 2005 welfare law that slashed
benefits for Germans who have been out of work for over a year. Mr.
Martin, a 54-year-old former warehouse worker with heart trouble and
numerous missing teeth, says he can't find work. His monthly benefit
checks cover him for only about 20 days, he says. Toward the end of
each month, he comes to the soup van to avoid going to bed hungry.
"I'm lucky, I don't drink," he says. "Others here do and they run out
of money on day 10."

The article goes on to descibe the volunteer "Table Movement" (Tafel-Bewegung) which has been filling the void with soup kitchens across Germany.  But still, it rankles that the destitute in Germany aren't quite as miserable as their American counterparts:

In all of Germany, around 14 million people, or 17% of the population,
live below the poverty line, which today corresponds to a monthly
income of about $1,280 for a person living alone. Such poverty is far
less acute than the destitution found in slums of developing countries
or even in those of some U.S. cities. And in contrast to millions of
poor Americans, all Germans have health insurance.

How long before Germany has an "American-style" health care system?

One Who Made a Difference

The Boston Globe published the obituary today of Randall Caroline Forsberg. She was 64 years old and at the time of her death on Friday was the executive director of the Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, a Cambridge-based think tank.

So far, the news of her death has received no notice in the international press, yet she launched a movement that had a profound impact on international relations in the 1980s.  As a graduate student at MIT in 1980, Randall Forsberg started the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign at a time when the Reagan administration was threatening nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  The grass roots movement quickly caught the imagination of the American people:

"The Freeze campaign made remarkable progress.  Holding its first national conference in March 1981, the Freeze began organizing all across the country.  On June 12, 1982, when peace groups sponsored an antinuclear demonstration in New York City around the theme of “Freeze the Arms Race—Fund Human Needs,” it escalated into the biggest U.S. political demonstration thus far, with nearly a million participants.  That fall, Freeze referenda appeared on the ballot across the nation.  In this largest referendum on a single issue in U.S. history (covering about a third of the electorate), the Freeze emerged victorious in nine out of ten states and in all but three localities. Five different polls taken during 1983 found average support for the Freeze at 72% and opposition at 20%.  Hundreds of national organizations endorsed the Freeze, as did more than 370 city councils and one or both houses of 23 state legislatures.This popular uprising had a major impact upon government officials.  Horrified by the Freeze campaign, the Reaganites did their best to discredit and destroy it."

Soon Randy Forsberg's work caught the attention ot the new Party Secretary in Moscow:

The Freeze also hit paydirt in the Soviet Union.  Taking office as Soviet party secretary in March 1985, Gorbachev was profoundly influenced by the worldwide antinuclear campaign.  His "new thinking" about war and peace, Gorbachev declared, "absorbed the . . . demands . . . of  . . . antiwar organizations."  At international disarmament conferences, he set aside time to confer with leaders of SANE and the Freeze.

The success of the Nuclear Freeze movement led President Reagan to change course dramatically with respect to the nuclear arms race.  For the first time since the beginning of the Cold War the US and the Soviet Union agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals. For an excellent history of this period and an account of Randall Forsberg's work, I recommend James Carroll's book House of War.

The real accomplishments of the Nuclear Freeze movement in the 1980s during the Reagan administraion were later reversed by President Clinton. And under President George W. Bush military action and the threat of military action have become the dominant instruments of American foreign policy. The activities of Dr. Forsberg and people like her are ridiculed. We are closer now to a nuclear conflict - this time with Iran - than we have been for nearly two decades. We will miss Randall Forsberg's quiet voice of reason. Her message lives on, and the planet cannot afford not to heed it.

"There is only one circumstance that justifies the use of force: If someone is attacking you, you have a moral obligation to defend yourself. Applying that rule would lead to a surprising conclusion. If all countries upheld the ethic that the only just war - the only legally, morally acceptable use of force - was for defence, then there would be no war. We wouldn't need military defence. People would use non-violent means of correcting injustices - with protest, with civilian resistance. Paradoxically, if you use armed force only to defend yourself, and if you believe this, what you end up with is a world in which you don't need it."  -Randall Forsberg

            

German Uni Wins Solar Decathalon

Congratulations to the Technische Universität Darmstadt for winning First Prize in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathalon, beating out major US universities. The DOE Web site announced the award as follows:

"This team from Germany came to the Solar Decathlon hoping to have an impact on people, and it's safe to say that this happened. Darmstadt won the Architecture, Lighting, and Engineering contests. The Architecture Jury said the house pushed the envelope on all levels and is the type of house they came to the Decathlon hoping to see. The Lighting Jury loved the way this house glows at night. The Engineering Jury gave this team an innovation score that was as high as you could go, and said nobody did the integration of the PV system any better. Darmstadt was one of seven teams to score a perfect 100 points in the Energy Balance contest. All week, long lines of people waited to get into this house."

Some great photographs of the house - interior and exterior - can be seen here.  I especially like the night photo. The Digital Journal notes Germany's leadership in solar power innovation:

Germany may be one of Europe's least sunny countries.

But when it comes to solar power, the country has been out in front - giving financial incentives to residents who generate their own power, producing some of the world's most sought-after solar cells, and now, designing the best solar house in an international university competition sponsored by the US government.

The team from the Technical University of Darmstadt Friday took the top award of the Solar Decathlon, which this year drew projects from 20 universities in the US, Spain, Germany, Puerto Rico and Canada.

The goal was to build a house that would produce more energy than it could use, and the results were displayed on the National Mall, overlooked by the US Capitol dome and flanked by some of the world's most famous museums.

The Nobel Peace Prize and its Detractors

Mark Pitzke at Der Spiegel has a good rundown of the conservative reaction to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore:

Steve Doocy has a question for his viewers. "What do Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and that crazy Jimmy Carter all have in common?" crows the morning host of the American cable channel Fox News. His co-hosts look at him eagerly, half-emptied coffee cups in reach. Doocy waits a beat before answering his own question with a smug yet nauseated smile. "The Nobel Peace Prize."

Leading the attacks on Gore is the conservative weekly National Review. The global warming denier Steven Hayward laments the damage done to this "once-prestigious award" by giving it to Al Gore.  Hayward predicts "Gore’s Peace Prize will take its place alongside Le Duc Tho’s 1973 award as a Nobel embarrassment." Ironically, 1972 was the last year that conservatives had something to cheer about in the Nobel Peace Prize award, for the committee also awarded it to the notorious war criminal Heny Kissinger. Of course, the National Review was especially vicious in its attacks on Jimmy Carter, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. And blogger Brad DeLong takes us down memory lane with a National Review essay that essentially accuses Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King of domestic terrorism:

the doings of such high-minded, self-righteous “children of light” as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates in the leadership of the “civil rights” movement. If you are looking for those ultimately responsible for the murder, arson, and looting in Los Angeles, look to them: they are the guilty ones, these apostles of “non-violence.”

But the National Review doesn't reserve its venom just for American Nobel Prize winners. Managing editor Jay Nordlinger went after Willy Brandt , the"West German naif (at best)" in a 2005 piece. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Willy Brandt in 1971 for his "Ostpolitik" earned him the derision of the reactionary press in Germany, especially from his nemesis, Bild-Zeitung editor Peter Boenisch (See Heinrich Böll's book Bild-Bonn-Boenisch).  Amazingly, the Bild-Zeitung again smeared Willy Brandt again in 2005 with a column by Hugo Müller-Vogg "So kam Willy Brandt an den Nobelpreis" and managed also to cast aspersions on the Nobel Peace Prize award in 1935 to Carl von Ossietzky (see account in the Netzeitung).  Ossietzky was a in a Nazi concentration camp when he was notified of the Prize; his captors refused to allow him to travel to Stockholm to receive the award. The official reaction of the Nazis was swift and predicatble:

"Die Verleihung des Nobelpreises an einen notorischen Landesverräter ist eine derart unverschämte Herausforderung und Beleidigung des neuen Deutschland, dass darauf eine entsprechend deutliche Antwort erfolgen wird" (The awarding of the Nobel Pize to a notorious traitor is such a provocation and an insult to the New Germany that a clear response is called for.)

The Nazis failed in their efforts to get Ossietzky to renounce the prize.  Instead, Ossietzky died in the camp, his commitment to peace intact.

The Blonde She-Warriors of the Extreme Right

Earlier I wrote about Eva Braun Herman's nostalgic idealization of women in Nazi Germany. For opening her mouth she lost her job on German network TV, but that hasn't stopped her from appearing on talk shows.  In fact, she is now seen as a martyr for the extreme right in Germany.  Eva has been embraced by the neo-Nazi woman's organization - Ring Nationaler Frauen. "Bravo, Eva!" is the headline on the Web site of the fascist NPD. "Eva is paving the way for "national" women in Germany" says the head of the woman's organization - where "national" is a code word for aryan,

"Der Mut, den Frau Herman aufgebracht hat, um auf die positive Einstellung zu Kindern, Mutterschaft, Familie und Werten wie Zusammenhalt in früheren Zeiten hinzuweisen, und dabei bestimmte Jahre aus Ehrlichkeit nicht auszuklammern, ist bewundernswert!", so Stella Palau weiter.

We know exactly which "bestimmte Jahre" (certain years) Frau Palau is referring to.

Eva Herman wants women to withdraw from the workforce in order to stay home and produce babies. Her (childless) blonde American sister on the right - Ann Coulter - goes one step further and would deny women the right to vote.

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."

While Coulter's views on the women's right to vote can be seen as fitting in an albeit extreme verson of Das Eva-Prinzip, Coulter's comments on Jews leaves Eva Herman far behind and put her squarely in the Brown Camp with the Ring Nationaler Frauen, except that rather than eliminating Jews, Coulter would merely eliminate Judaism.  Jews, she says, must become perfected - that is, Christianized:

NEW YORK Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they needed to "perfect" themselves into -- Christians.

It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn't mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded "anti-Semitic."

Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament."

I don't believe there is much that Ann Coulter says concerning women and Jews that Stella Palau wouldn't agree with. If I get a chance I'll translate her comments into German and send them to the editors of the NPD Web site. So soon we will be seeing the headline posted: "Bravo, Ann!"

El-Masri: Justice Denied

When the Supreme Court of the United States is stacked with right-wing ideologues the results are to be expected.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case.

The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on the grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets.

The Supreme Court’s refusal, without comment, to take the case was not surprising, given that a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit was unanimous. Nevertheless, today’s announcement prompted immediate expressions of dismay, and it could exacerbate tensions between the United States and Germany.

I hope this refusal by the Supreme Court does "exacerbate the tensions between the US and Germany." Until the United States renounces torture and ends forever the practice of "etraordinary rendition", it deserves the condemnation of the EU as a violater of basic human rights.

The German Anti-Islam Movement

The growing intolerance of Islam in Germany has caught the attention of the editors at The American Muslim (HT BigBerta).  Unlike in the US - where the neocon establishment in Washington leads the anti-Muslim charge - German Islamophobia is spread primarily through fundamentalist "Christian" organizations:

"Radical Christians are mobilising against Islam. “The groups may be small,” says Andreas Renz, in charge of interreligious dialogue at the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich, “but they exert an enormous amount of pressure with letters to newspapers, with telephone calls to the archdiocese and with their activities at public meetings. They create an atmosphere of insecurity and they do plenty of damage.”

While the two big churches in Germany, the Catholic and the Lutheran-reformed, aim to teach about Islam objectively, and while many communities are active in interreligious dialogue, fundamentalist Christians see Islam as the new threat to Europe. Andreas Renz believes they represent a broad spectrum, which stretches from the far right to the very centre of society. "

Appropriately, the editors of The American Muslim single out the German hate-blog Politically Incorrect as an important resource for the Islamophobic movment, for the site combines its hate with a right-wing glorification of war.

Although these right-wing populist opponents of Islam deny that they have anything to do with right-wing extremism, their websites include uncensored views which pander to the lowest possible instincts. The site http://www.politicallyincorrect.de is run by Stefan Herre, a Catholic primary school teacher from Bergisch-Gladbach near Cologne. The site has had over four million visitors. It includes an internet shop in which you can buy buttons and mugs with the slogan “Islamophobic – and proud of it.”

Also mentioned are the activities of the Evangelical Alliance in Germany.  More on this group and its leader Hartmut Steeb in a later post.