Eva Herman: Germany's Sarah Palin

Eva Herman and Sarah Palin have much in common. Both are attractive, successful women who embody and advocate a robust motherhood.  Both are best-selling authors who are blissfully unaware of political realities and have broad populist support.  Both want to roll back a woman's right to abortion.

Most importantly, both Eva Herman had Sarah Palin see themselves are victims of the "left-leaning" journalistic establishment. And both were humiliated on national television: Sarah Palin's ignorance was exposed in an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, while Eva Herman was tossed off a popular talk show for making statements that were apparently sympathetic to the family policies in the Third Reich. 

Now Eva Herman is striking back at the German media with her new book Die Wahrheit und ihr Preis. Meinung, Macht und Medien ("The Price of Truth: Opinion, Power and the Media).  The book is published by the Kopp Verlag, which is known for its 9/11 truther conspiracy publications.  For those of us reluctant to shell out 20 euros for the book, the Bild-Zeitung has published a series of excerpts.  In one section Eva Herman, who was a highly successful anchorwoman on German TV, relates her unhappiness with material success and her discovery of her higher calling as a mother:

Vielen Kolleginnen meines Alters erging es ebenso. Unser Jahrgang war wohl der erste, der klar zeigte: Hier wächst eine neue Frauengeneration heran. Emanzipiert, erfolgreich, jedoch kinder- und beziehungslos, tief innen häufig frustriert, weil: zu selbstständig, zu kompromisslos, zu egoistisch.

(Many of my female colleagues were going through the same thing.  Our generation was the first to show the world: here is a new generation of women. Emancipated, successful however childless and lacking in human connection, often deeply frustrated because we were too independent, unwilling to compromise, too selfish.)

But everything changed after giving birth to a baby boy:

Plötzlich fühlte und dachte ich anders, ich wurde zu einem neuen Menschen. Ansehen und Lob waren auf einmal nicht mehr so wichtig, denn die Liebe zu meinem Kind katapultierte mein Herz direkt in den Himmel, wo kleine Engel glockenhell vom Glück des Lebens und der Liebe sangen. O ja, in diesen heiligen Sphären wollte ich mit meinem Kind sein (...), ich wollte es aus tiefem Herzen lieben dürfen und ihm die beste Mutter der Welt sein. Ich war zum ersten Mal in meinem Leben wirklich glücklich!

(Suddenly I felt different and thought differently, I was a new person. Popularity and praise were suddenly no longer so important, for the love of my child catapulted my heart directly into heaven, where little angels sang of love and happiness in life. Oh yes, I wanted nothing more than to stay in these heavenly spheres with my baby. I wanted to love from the depths of my heart and be the best mother in the world to him.  For the first time in my life I was really happy!) 

But Eva Herman has the zeal of the convert, and condemns women who might want careers - or even more egalitarian relationships with their partners:

«Die Gleichstellung der Frau, die zum Grundgerüst des Sozialismus und Kommunismus gehört, hat in den zurückliegenden Jahrzehnten zahlreiche Gesellschaften an den Rand des Zusammenbruchs geführt.»

(Women's equality - a central tenet of socialism and communism - has brought many societies to the brink of collapse in the past decades.)

Such pronouncements no doubt warm the heart of Pope Benedict XVI, but have little bearing on the day-to-day realities of most women in Germany.

And so Eve Herman is - like Sarah Palin - a paradox: a media sensation who claims to be a victim of the media.  But there is one big difference between the two:  Eva Herman did not nearly become a heartbeat away from the most powerful office on the planet.

Comments

[Hans-Peter Dollhopf]

David, if you don't have to say anything why don't you be silent at all?

You missed all the crucial points of that affair, but you yourself try to warm your audience with your deficient pet subjects.

You didn't write anything worth reading here. Verdammte Zeitverschwendung!

Peter

[David]

Reading anything by Sarah Palin or Eva Herman is a "verdammte Zeitverschwendung".

[Hans-Peter Dollhopf]

I'm sorry, David, but we in Germany, not the media but the people, think different on the Eva Herman incident. Here is another excellent book on that affair:

"Der Fall Eva Herman: Hexenjagd in den Medien", by Arne Hoffmann. And, Hoffmann is really not a Palin fan.

Wake up, kleiner Fanatiker. You carry things too far.

[Dawidek]

I am from Germany and very happy that you write so neutral on this subject - here in Germany Mrs. Herman got stalked by the Media and named "Eva Braun" (the wive of Hitler), because of her conservative views.
I do not share all of her arguments, but I think, everyone has the right to say, what he/she wants and I can not understand, that the German Media intimidate all, that has to do with conservative views or Christian Life; here in Europe it is better not to be conservative and traditional and that will struck Europe down!

Thanks for this wonderful article :-)

Dawidek
(German Citizen)

[Darth Vader]

There is one more big difference: Sarah has five kids from one guy and Eva has one child from four guys (that she was married to, not counting the relationships outside marriage).