Dialog International

Journalists in Germany Threatened by Trolls and Readers

I often read the reader comments on the online editions of American, UK and German news outlets.  Sometimes the comments are thoughtful, even informative, but most are simply snark and invective.  However, I find the comments on the German media sites especially vicious. In particular, any article or opinion piece dealing with NATO, the United States, Russia or the Ukraine crisis is sure to elicit the most vile and offensive comments.  To be sure, some of these comments are contributed by the Russian troll factories. But most are certainly coming from German readers who are influenced by the many conspiracy sites that dismiss the entire mainstream media in Germany as Lügenpresse - a term used by the Nazis.  A book by the fake journalist Udo Ulfkotte - Gekaufte Journalisten - in which he accuses the German press of being in the pocket of the CIA became a number one bestseller in Germany.  

The result of this poisoned atmosphere is described in detail by Götz Hamann in Die Zeit:  

Die Botschaft könnte vom "Islamischen Staat" stammen: "Man möge ihm die Hände mehrfach brechen oder gleich abhacken." Doch sie stammt nicht vom IS, sondern von einem deutschen Bürger, einem Leser. Er erging sich in Verstümmelungsfantasien, weil er sich über einen Text von Steffen Dobbert geärgert hatte. Dobbert, Redakteur bei ZEIT ONLINE, hatte über Russlands Präsidenten Wladimir Putin geschrieben.

(The message could have come from the Islamic State: "I wish someone would break his hands repeatedly, or just chop them off." But it wasn't from ISIS; it was from a German citizen, a reader.  He reveled in his fantasies of mutilation because he was angry about a piece Steffen Dobbert had written.  Dobbert, an editor of Die Zeit Online had written about Russia's president Vladimir Putin.)

Es kommt sogar vor, dass einer Journalistin mit dem Tod gedroht wird. Nachdem Ronja von Rönne in der Welt einen Essay über den organisierten Feminismus geschrieben hatte, richtete der Frankfurter Pfarrer Hans-Christoph Stoodt die Worte an sie: "Adel ist was für die Laterne. Ça ira, von Rönne." Der Theologe spielte damit auf ein französisches Revolutionslied an, das von dem Wunsch handelt, der Adel möge verrecken, sei es am Baum, sei es auf dem Schafott. Beim Cybermobbing, so der Medienwissenschaftler Burkhardt, gehe es dem Angreifer stets darum, den Betroffenen "durch öffentliche Isolation symbolisch zu töten".

(It also happens that a journalist is threatened with death.  After Ronja von Roenne wrote an essay in Die Welt about organized feminism, a priest in Frankfurt - Hans-Christoph Stoodt commented: "Aristocracy belong on the lanterns. Ca ira, von Roenne." The theologian was referring to a song from the French Revolution, which expressed the desire that the aristocracy would be wiped out - hung from a tree or the scaffold. According toe the media researcher Burkhardt, cyber-bullying has the goal of "symbolically killing"the affected party by public isolation.") 

But maybe it's not always "symbolic" killing.  Recently some journalists in Dortmund received death notices from neo-Nazis, and their private addresses were made public in the hope that they would be harassed - or worse.  '

On a personal note, I am not a journalist but I was recently "cyber-bullied" by Albrecht Müller - publisher of the anti-American conspiracy site NachDenkSeiten - when he published my name, address, telephone number and e-mail address - in clear violation of the German Privacy Law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz). So far, I haven't received any death threats - Sorry to disappoint, Herr Müller.

Oskar Lafontaine on Facebook: "Fuck the US Imperialism!"

German Left Party ("Die Linke") leader Oskar Lafontaine used the American social media Web site Facebook to blast the United States for standing in the way of Russia and its territorial ambitions in eastern Ukraine.  Here is his Facebook post:

Der US-Kriegsminister ruft die Europäer dazu auf, sich der russischen "Aggression" entgegenzustellen. Dabei hätten die Europäer allen Grund, sich der Aggression der USA entgegenzustellen. [...] Wir brauchen eine europäische Außenpolitik, die den kriegstreibenden US-Imperialismus eindämmt! Fuck the US-Imperialism!

(The US Secretary of War (sic!) is imploring Europeans to stand in the way of Russian "aggression".  But Europe has every reason to stand in the way of aggression on the part of the United States.  We need a European foreign policy that contains the warmongering US-imperialism.  Fuck the US-imperialism!")

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Vice President of the European Parliament in Brussels, commented on Lafontaine's Facebook outburst:

„Mit diesen absurden Beschimpfungen ist Oskar Lafontaine endgültig im Lager der Verschwörungstheoretiker angekommen. Wer angesichts der schweren Völkerrechtsverletzungen durch Russland und mit dem menschlichen Leid in der Ostukraine vor Augen nichts Besseres zu tun hat, als den USA Aggression und Kriegstreiberei zu unterstellen, diskreditiert sich selbst. Lafontaine lässt sich damit bereitwillig in Putins Desinformationskampagne einspannen. Dabei vollbringt er das zweifelhafte Kunststück, sogar noch über die russische Propaganda hinauszugehen. All das zeigt, dass die Linke auch 25 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung in außenpolitischen Grundfragen nichts gelernt und nichts begriffen hat.

("With his absurd insults Oskar Lafontaine is now squarely in the camp of the conspiracy theorists. In view of the serious violations of international law by Russia and the visible human suffering in eastern Ukraine, whoever has nothing better to do than to accuse the US of aggression and war-mongering only discredits himself. Lafontaine has now willingly allowed himself to be part of Putin's campaign of disinformation.  But he's now done the remarkable thing of going beyond the Russian propaganda. This only shows that 25 years after the reunification the Left Party has learning nothing and understood nothing with respect to the fundamental questions of foreign policy.")

Happy Glock-Day, America!

I originally published this blog post in July of 2012 following the massacre of innocent people at a movie theater in Colorado by a deranged young white man with a Glock semi-automatic pistol.  This week a 21-year old white racist murdered nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.   The young man used a .45 caliber Glock semi-automatic pistol.

No doubt I will be republishing this post at regular intervals. 

While families in Colorado mourn yet another senseless mass killing, the finance department at Glock Ges.m.b.H. in Deutsch-Wagram is popping champagne corks.  These are halcyon days for Austria's Deadliest Import.  The Glock has cemented its position as the weapon of choice for mass killers - and not just in America: 

Norwegian far-Right extremist Anders Behring Breivik used a Glock 17 to kill most of the 67 people he shot dead during his massacre on the island of Utoya a year ago this Sunday.

Sweden's Peter Mangs, the man accused of being behind to more than a dozen shootings of immigrants in the city of Malmo, owned a Glock 19.

Germany's Robert Steinhäuser, who killed 17 people in the 2001 Erfurt massacre, used a Glock 17.

But only in America does this deadly mayhem lead to a spike in the sales of Glock pistols.  For the United States is the only place where any lunatic can walk into a gun store and purchase a Glock. And the more Americans are gunned downed by Glock owners, the more people want to own Glocks. 

It is no mystery why Glocks are coveted by mass kilers.  Glocks are excellent killing machines which can easily be optimized with enhanced magazine clips:

According to Paul Barrat, the author of Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, the magazine is the main attraction.

"This magazine is so large, it actually sticks out the bottom of the handle of the gun, of the grip," he told an American radio station earlier this year.

"And you can fire it very quickly, and you can get off that large number of rounds before you have to reload." The weapon is now used by two-thirds of US police departments and has featured in countless films.

Thanks to the cowardice of politicians and the power of the NRA, people can now take their Glocks practically everywhere in the US: churches, taverns, state houses,  - even airport lobbies.

Americans, there is an excellent chance that there will be a Glock in your future - or at least the bullet from one.

German public will not support NATO, but the United States will

The results of this recent survey must have made Vladimir Putin very happy indeed:

A survey published by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday showed that the majority of Germans would be against their country using military means to defend a Nato ally against Russian aggression. Despite the notion that an attack on one is an attack on all being enshrined as Clause 5 in the Nato Charter, 58 percent of Germans said they would be against helping a Nato member on the border with Russia militarily.Only 38 percent of Germans said they would agree with the triggering of clause 5 under such circumstances.

Fortunately for the people of Estonia, Latvia and Poland the majority of Americans (and Canadians) DO support NATO and Clause 5.  And the United States is prepared to show its support not just with words:

In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say.[...]It would be the most prominent of a series of moves the United States and NATO have taken to bolster forces in the region and send a clear message of resolve to allies and to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that the United States would defend the alliance’s members closest to the Russian frontier.

This move by the US was condemned by many on the Left as a "provocation"; among the critics are Sahra Wagenknecht, Putin's representative in the Bundestag, and Jakob "Appease Putin Now!" Augstein, columnist for Der Spiegel.  Still, there were a few brave souls, such as Clemens Wergin, who dared to express appreciation for the US acting against Russian aggression in the region:  

Europa hat es sich komfortabel eingerichtet mit seiner verfrühten Friedensdividende und seinem latenten Antiamerikanismus. Doch die Wahrheit ist, dass Europa ohne Amerika als Sicherheitsgarant nicht in der Lage ist, Russlands imperialen Gelüsten glaubhaft die Stirn zu bieten.

 ("Europe feels good about itself with its premature peace dividend and its latent Antiamericanism. But the reality is that without America's guaranty of security Europe would hardly be in the position to counter Russia's imperial designs.") 

American students flocking to German universities

For years students in Germany dreamed of spending a few semesters on the bucolic campuses of American colleges and universities; not many Americans would venture to German universities, due to the language challenges, the overcrowded classrooms and the difficulty in navigating the institutional bureaucracies. But now the trend is reversed, or at least equalized: approximately the same number of Americans are matriculating at German universities as German students coming to the US to study.  The main reason behind this trend is not difficult to discern: cost.  Tuition, fees and living expenses at a private college in the US can easily cost between $40,000 and $60,0000 per year.  Tuition at a university in Germany is zero, and a foreign student can get a generous stipend courtesy of the Federal Government (DAAD).

One other attraction for American students which didn't exist when I was a student in Germany:  more and more courses are being offered in English:

Attraktiver geworden ist das Studium in Deutschland sicherlich auch, weil mehr und mehr Studieninhalte auf Englisch angeboten werden. Der Hochschulkompass der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz listet 1020 Studiengänge an deutschen Hochschulen, in denen hauptsächlich auf Englisch gelehrt wird.

But there are other benefits for Americans who study in Germany.  The American professor Mark Roche has studied both the American and German systems and sees advantages for self-motivated students at German universities, where students are not nearly as pampered and spoon-fed as they are at an American liberal arts college:

Was können die Vereinigten Staaten lernen? Erstens sind Flexibilität und Unabhängigkeit des Studenten, beides Merkmale der deutschen Universitätstradition, wichtige Prinzipien des Lernens. Studenten lernen mehr, wenn sie Selbständigkeit und Initiative beweisen müssen. Deutsche Studenten hatten die Freiheit, sich geistigen Fragen gleichsam organisch zu widmen, mithin auf ganz andere Weise, als dies die Schülermentalität an den meisten amerikanischen Universitäten nahelegt. Dort werden viele Hausaufgaben verteilt, die den Studenten nicht dazu auffordern, sich in ein Thema um seiner selbst willen zu vertiefen oder aus eigenem Antrieb die weiterführenden Fragen, die sich aus dem Studium ergeben, zu verfolgen.

("What can the US learn? First that flexibility and independence - the hallmarks of the German university tradition - are guiding principles in learning. Students learn more when they have to show self-reliance and initiative. Students in Germany had the freedom to pursue intellectual issues organically, in a completely different manner than the pupil mentality that one sees at American universities.  There a lot of homework is assigned which doesn't compel the students to research a topic in depth on their own or, at their own accord look into other issues that arise from the initial research.")

Germany could also benefit from these American students as well as students of other nationalities to contribute their creativity and different perspectives to the workforce once they complete their studies. Unfortunately, very few German companies hire foreign students, so most end up leaving Germany which generously paid for their education. 

A school teacher in Berlin speaks out about pervasive anti-Semitism

Hannah Kushnir teaches high school in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf section of Berlin. She writes in Der Tagesspiegel about her experience as a Jew in Germany today. Her observations are instructive and rather depressing.

As a student Frau Kushnir tended to keep quiet about the fact that she was a Jew:

Von selbst habe ich mein Jüdischsein schon seit dem Gymnasium nicht mehr thematisiert. Zu lehrreich war mir der Geschichtsunterricht bei Herrn S., dessen Teil der Abiturvorbereitung darin bestand, uns einzutrichtern, Israel sei unrechtmäßig errichtet worden. Zu lehrreich auch die Kommentare: „Ach, du bist Jüdin? Das sieht man ja gar nicht so“ oder, genau entgegengesetzt: „Du bist Jüdin? Stimmt, das sieht man aber!“

("I never wanted to make a big deal about the fact that I was Jewish. The history lessons taught by Herr S. as preparation for the Abitur were instructive when he kept hammering home that the founding of Israel was unjust. The commentary of my classmates was also instructive: "What. you're Jewish? You don't look it at all." or "You're Jewish? Oh yes, I can tell!")

Now she is teaching in a school where a large proportion of the students come from immigrant families, or families with low educational attainment.  It is not good to recognized as a Jew.  Frau Kushnir relates what happened when another Jewish teacher made a mistake at school one day:

Meine Kollegin vergaß eines Tages, dass sie noch ihren Davidsstern um den Hals trug. Fataler Fehler. Seither fallen permanent antijüdische und antiisraelische Sprüche im Unterricht. Auf der Straße wird ihr „Du Jude, verrecke“ hinterhergerufen.

Thema Israel oder Judentum im Ethik- oder Geschichtsunterricht? Besser nicht, da startet gleich eine kleine Intifada im Klassenraum. Da ist einer Christ? „Du Hund!“ Beliebtestes Schimpfwort auf dem Schulhof und im Unterricht? „Du Jude!“ Das ist ja inzwischen an vielen anderen Schulen auch so.

("One day my colleague forgot that she was wearing a Star of David necklace. Fatal mistake. Since then one hears anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli comments in the classroom. On the street they shout at her "Die, Jew". Better not bring up the topic of Jews or Israel when teaching ethics or history or else you'll start an Intifada in the classroom.  He's a Christian! "You dog1." But the most popular insult on the playground or in class?  "You Jew!" And that is not uncommon at many schools in the meantime." )

But what really disturbs Frau Kushnir is the indifference to this behavior.on the part of the other teachers and the school administration:

Ich frage mich: Hören nur meine Kollegin und ich das? Wo ist das Empfinden der „Anständigen“ (Zitat Angela Merkel), der anderen Lehrer, die auf die Verfassung der Bundesrepublik geschworen haben, wo das Empfinden der deutschen Schüler? Und was sagte die Schulleitung, der von diesen Vorgängen berichtet wurde? Sie sagte tatsächlich: „Nun seien Sie mal nicht so empfindlich!“

("I ask myself, "Is it just me and my colleague that are hearing these things? Where is the sensibility of the "decent ones" (quoting Angela Merkel), of the other teachers, who have sworn to uphold the constitution of the Federal Republic?  What about the sensibility of the other students?  And what did the principal say when informed about these incidents?  These were her exact words: "Just don't be so sensitive!".)

Well, to me it's a big deal when you hear shouts of "Du Jude, verrecke!" on the streets of Berlin today.

Günter Grass vs. Heinrich Böll: The Beate Klarsfeld Affair

 I've been silent thus far about the passing of Günter Grass earlier this year.  I love his early works: Die Blechtrommel is on my list of the 10 greatest German novels. I admire Grass as a novelist; as a public figure - not so much.  I met him once at the Goethe Institute in Boston where he gave a reading from his novel Der Butt. After he finished reading he took some questions from the audience. The young woman I was with asked a question in unsteady German about the author's depiction of women in his novels. Grass ridiculed the young woman for asking the question and proceeded to make disparaging comments about "feminists" in general - much to the delight of his adoring fans who roared with laughter.  My friend was totally humiliated and from that moment I had little patience for Grass and his constant moralizing, his fake persona as the "Conscience of Post-War Germany." 

So I guess I was one of the few who wasn't shocked when Günter Grass revealed in 2006 that he had been a member of the notorious Waffen-SS in his youth. For half a century he had concealed this basic fact about his life while he lectured the German nation about facing up to its Nazi past. When, in 2012, he came out with that awful poem attacking the state of Israel, unleashing a firestorm of anti-Semitisim in Germany, whatever moral authority he thought he still had was gone. 

What motivates me to write this is the fact that last month Beate and Serge Klarsfeld - "the Nazi Hunters - received Germany's highest honor - The Order of Merit (das Bundesverdienstkreuz) for their lifetime work of seeking justice for the victims of the Holocaust.  The Web site Publikative.org reminds us of a controversy that took place in 1968 between Germany's best-known writers at the time, Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll,

Beate Klarsfeld is probably best-remembered in Germany for something she did in 1968.  Klarsfeld was outraged that Kurt Geog Kiesinger - a former member of the Nazi Party - had become Chancellor of Germany and decided she needed to draw the attention of the world to Kiesinger's Nazi past:

The first attack on Kurt Georg Kiesinger backfired: Beate Klarsfeld published an article in France in 1967 in which she denounced the Nazi past of the then German chancellor. It had no noticeable effect - except that her employer, the Franco-German youth organization, summarily fired her. The second attempt also fell flat: When Klarsfeld shouted down Kiesinger from the public gallery of parliament in April 1968, ushers rushed in and led her out.

Spectacular actions were needed, the then 29-year-old Klarsfeld decided. At the CDU party congress in West Berlin, half a year later, she made her grand entrance: Just as Kiesinger prepared to begin his keynote address, she climbed onto the stage and slapped the chancellor in the face, shouting "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!"

 The next day Heinrich Böll sent the young woman 50 red roses in gratitude for her brave act.  But Böll's gesture did not sit well with Günter Grass, the former Waffen-SS member and "Moral Conscience of the German Nation."  In a speech which was later published in Die Zeit, Grass publicly chastised his colleague:

„Da kam eine junge Frau aus Paris gereist und ohrfeigte den Bundeskanzler öffentlich. Nein, es bestehe kein Anlass, Beate Klarsfeld rote Rosen zu schicken.”

("A young woman traveled from Paris and slapped the chancellor in public. No, there isn't and reason to send 50 red roses to Beate Klarsfeld.")

Heinrich Böll was quick to respond to Grass's criticism:

In recht schulmeisterlicher Weise hat Günter Grass in einer Rede, die die ZEIT abdruckte (…), festgestellt, es habe kein „Anlaß bestanden, Beate Klarsfeld Rosen zu schicken“. Nun, mir erscheint diese Feststellung ziemlich anmaßend, peinlich und, da öffentlich getan, ganz und gar fehl am Platze. Ich frage mich mit der mir zustehenden Bescheidenheit, ob es Günter Grass zusteht, festzustellen, ob und wann ich Anlass habe, einer Dame Blumen zu schicken. Ich hatte Anlaß und bin bereit, den Anlaß allen Schulmeistern unter meinen Kollegen öffentlich kundzutun. Ich war diese Blumen Beate Klarsfeld schuldig. Meiner ´Generation´ wegen, den Toten und den Überlebenden,

(Like a stern schoolmaster, Günter Grass pointed out in a speech that was printed in Die Zeit that there was no reason for sending roses to Beate Klarsfeld. Well, I find this comment rather arrogant, embarrassing, and, since it was done in public, highly inappropriate.  With some modesty I ask what business it is of Günter Grass if I have any reason for sending flowers to a lady. I did have a reason, and I'm prepared to openly announce my reason to all my schoolmaster colleagues.  I owed these flowers to Beate Klarsfeld - because of my generation, those who died and those who survived.)

So who was the true "Moral Conscience of the German Nation" -Günter Grass or Heinrich Böll?

Read Jochen Bittner's New York Times Op/Ed piece: Günter Grass’s Germany, and Mine

Inside Putin's Troll Factory

Anyone who regularly reads the Web sites of the mainstream German media outlets cannot help but be struck by the huge number of pro-Russian commenters.  Putin certainly has his fans in Germany, but sometimes the grammar or odd word choice arouses suspicion that not all of these commenters are German. 

The respected weekly Die Zeit has been hit hard by these "troll" commenters and recently pointed to Kremlin as the source of the anti-West vitriol in the reader forums:

Allerdings verdichten sich die Hinweise, dass der Kreml im Kampf um die öffentliche Meinung aufgerüstet hat. Soziale Netzwerke und Kommentarleisten wichtiger Medien sind im Visier der russischen Propaganda-Maschine. Vor allem in Deutschland, England und den USA hat eine Debatte über manipulierte Kommentare begonnen, doch so vielfältig die Verdachtsmomente sind, so dürftig sind die Beweise.

(Certainly there are indications that the Kremlin has been arming itself for the battle for public opinion. The Russian propaganda machine has set its sights on social media sites and reader commentary sections of important media properties. The debate concerning the manipulation of comments - especially in Germany, England, and the US -  has already begun. But despite the high degree of suspicion, concrete proof is difficult to come by.)

Well, now we have plenty of concrete evidence (Beweise).  The New York Times Magazine is publishing a fascinating piece by Adrian Chen, a journalist and writer, who managed to penetrate the Internet Research Agency, a vast disinformation operation financed and run by the Kremlin.  The "Agency" hires thousands of well-educated Russian young people who are paid generously to "troll" social media sites and reader forums in Russia, Europe and the United States to wreak havoc. 

One of these paid trolls - a young woman named Ludmila Savchuk, described in detail her work at one of the agency sites in St. Petersburg:

Every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same, Savchuk told me. The first thing employees did upon arriving at their desks was to switch on an Internet proxy service, which hid their I.P. addresses from the places they posted; those digital addresses can sometimes be used to reveal the real identity of the poster. Savchuk would be given a list of the opinions she was responsible for promulgating that day. Workers received a constant stream of “technical tasks” — point-by-point exegeses of the themes they were to address, all pegged to the latest news. Ukraine was always a major topic, because of the civil war there between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian Army; Savchuk and her co-workers would post comments that disparaged the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, and highlighted Ukrainian Army atrocities. Russian domestic affairs were also a major topic. Last year, after a financial crisis hit Russia and the ruble collapsed, the professional trolls left optimistic posts about the pace of recovery. Savchuk also says that in March, after the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was murdered, she and her entire team were moved to the department that left comments on the websites of Russian news outlets and ordered to suggest that the opposition itself had set up the murder.

And the St.Petersburg Agency operation - huge as it is - is just the tip the iceberg:

Savchuk’s revelations about the agency have fascinated Russia not because they are shocking but because they confirm what everyone has long suspected: The Russian Internet is awash in trolls. “This troll business becomes more popular year by year,” says Platon Mamatov, who says that he ran his own troll farm in the Ural Mountains from 2008 to 2013. During that time he employed from 20 to 40 people, mostly students and young mothers, to carry out online tasks for Kremlin contacts and local and regional authorities from Putin’s United Russia party. Mamatov says there are scores of operations like his around the country, working for government authorities at every level. Because the industry is secretive, with its funds funneled through a maze of innocuous-sounding contracts and shell businesses, it is difficult to estimate exactly how many people are at work trolling today. But Mamatov claims “there are thousands — I’m not sure about how many, but yes, really, thousands.”

It is interesting to read the readers' comments to Adrian Chen's article. "The Agency" is hard at work.

Read the entire article.