Dialog International

Review: Ralf Rothmann's Im Frühling sterben

I've read several novels that deal with the last days of World War II: Uwe Timm's Die Entdeckug der Currywurst is a fairy tale about a young Wehrmacht soldier gone AWOL who finds refuge in the arms of war widow who happens to be an excellent cook. Arno Surminski's Winter Fünfundvierzig oder die Frauen von Palmnicken deals with the Holocaust in East Prussia which raged on even as defeat was certain. On the non-fiction side, historian Ian Kershaw in The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944 - 1945 attempts to understand why the fighting and killing continued even though the generals, the soldiers, and the population knew that the Allies would prevail.

Senseless fighting and killing of those final days is also at the center of Ralf Rothmann's new novel Im Frühling sterben ("To Die in the Springtime") - one of the best books of the year.  Like Surminski's Winter 1945, Im Frühling sterben is structured as a "frame novel": a son seeks to unlock the secret of his dying father's life.  In this case, the father was a coal miner who is emotionally detached from his wife and son but on his deathbed he starts to open up about the horror of his wartime experiences.

The narrative then takes us back to March 1945 as the father - seventeen year-old Walter Urban - and his best friend Fiete Caroli are working as apprentice dairy farm laborers in northern Germany, waiting for the war to end.  The Brits and Americans are on the doorstep in the West and Russians are advancing rapidly from the east; everyone knows the Third Reich is doomed. But the boys are lured by the promise of free beer to a dance at the community center where they are ambushed by SS officers and forced to "volunteer" (zwangsrekrutiert) to enlist in the Waffen SS. After a few weeks of "training" the boys are sent off to war: Walter as a driver for supply routes and Fiete to the front.

Im Frühling sterben has some of the best writing about war, perhaps surpassed only by the fiction of Gert Ledig, Novelist of War.  Rothmann has a good ear for dialogue.  Okay, I wasn't there in 1945, but the dialogue seems pitch-perfect and authentic to me. In one section, Walter is granted a three-day leave to find the grave of his father, who was had been killed on the front.  He moves through a surreal landscape of death and total devastation, the Wehrmacht and SS officers he runs across are engaged in drunken orgies, waiting for the inevitable.  

Neither Walter nor Fiete believe in the cause, but only Walter has the instinct to survive.  Fiete is an impulsive character and goes AWOL, is caught and held for execution.  In the pivotal scene in the novel. Walter approaches the commanding officer of his unit - the SS-Sturmbannfuehrer- and makes an impassioned plea for his friend's life.  But the officer is more interested in correcting Walter's grammar and orders him to be part of the firing squad for Fiete's execution:

"Aus Menschlichkeit, natürlich.  Weil du sein Freund bist, wie du sagst. Da wirst du gut zielen, damit er nicht leidet."

("For humanitarian reasons, of course.  Because, as you say, you're his friend. Then you will aim well so that he won't suffer.")

 Of course, the penalty for refusing to obey the order to execute Fiete is certain death.

There is an interesting gay subtext to Im Frühling sterben.  Walter encounters several homosexuals - euphemistically called 175er - and rebuffs their advances.  Fiete is described as a small boy with delicate, feminine features, and Walter's displays of affection toward his friend have homoerotic overtones.  Walter goes on to wed his girlfriend Elisabeth, but, as we learn from the narrator at the beginning of the novel, it was apparently a loveless marriage, although it did produce a son - the narrator. FIete was the love of his life, and Walter was forced to live the rest of his life "innocently guilty" (unschuldig schuldig) that he had been forced to kill him. The Walter we encounter at the beginning of Im Frühling sterben is emotionally dead.

Ralf Rothmann has written a powerful novel. I'm sure it will be translated into English and will find an enthusiastic audience also in the US.

#NachDenkSeiten now a Russian propaganda outlet

 

 

 

 

Germans who want to know the official Kremlin position on current events no longer have to turn to Russian state-controlled media outlets such as Sputnik News or RT Deutsch.  They just have to log onto to "the critical Web site" NachDenkSeiten.  Over the past year, the influential Web site has regurgitated every piece of misinformation and conspiracy theory published in the Russia-controlled media, often just linking to articles or videos on the propaganda channels RT Deutsch or Sputnik News. It is ironic that the publisher of NachDenkSeiten - Albrecht Müller - is constantly attacking the mainstream media in Germany and western Europe for its reporting on Russia and Ukraine; Müller is fond of using the Nazi word Gleichschaltung (roughly "coordination") to describe Western media:

Wenn ich zum Beispiel des Abends im Heute Journal Claus Kleber über den Ukraine-Konflikt moderieren höre und sehe, wenn ich eine halbe Stunde später den Tagesthemen-Moderator Thomas Roth verfolge, dann kann ich Gleichschaltung am lebenden Objekt studieren: Der Russe ist das böse, der Westen ist das gute. Das Schema liegt fest. Und nicht nur bei diesen öffentlich-rechtlichen Sendern, sondern auch beim Gros der anderen Medien. Was nicht in dieses Schema passt, wird weggelassen. So zum Beispiel Informationen über das Engagement der USA in der Ukraine mit 5 Milliarden $ und mit Militär und die Promotion des jetzigen Ministerpräsidenten durch die USA. Das Böse in Moskau wird mit Hähme überzogen. Nicht berichtet wurde und wird vieles, was darauf hindeutet, dass die neue Konfrontation zwischen Ost und West von westlicher Seite angetrieben worden ist.

But Müller refuses to criticize Vladimir Putin's real Gleichschaltung of the media in Russia, the elimination of all newspapers, blogs, television stations, social media that dare to criticize the government, the murders of Anna Politkovskaya, Ilyas Shurpayev,Yury Shebalkin,Konstantin Borovko,Leonid Etkind and many others who dared to practice investigative journalism in  Putin's Russia - none of that interests Albrecht Müller. 

Müller has consistently celebrated Putin's illegal Anschluss of Crimea by military force, calling it a "reunification" (Wiedervereinigung), but has he has not written one word about the Gleichschaltung of the media in Crimea under Russia's control:

The Kremlin has seized control of the peninsula's media, taking Ukrainian TV channels off the air and replacing them with state-backed Russian ones. In August, Crimea's authorities raided the independent Chernomorska broadcaster, impounding its equipment and computers, and sealing off its building. Elsewhere, journalists have been pressured to toe the Kremlin's line. According to Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper, the Ukraine-based Center for Investigative Journalism recorded 85 incidents of harassment and censorship against reporters in Crimea during March 2014 alone.

Human Rights Watch has reported that the peninsula's pro-Russian paramilitary groups are implicated in the disappearance of a number of pro-Ukrainian activists. In March, Andriy Shekun and Anatoly Kovalksy were abducted from a train station in Simferopol, Crimea's capital, and held for 11 days in detention where they were beaten and shot at with low-velocity handguns (designed to cause trauma but not kill). Mr. Shekun was subjected to electric shocks on two occasions, according to the rights group.

But none of this will ever appear on "the critical Web site" NachDenkSeiten.  Instead, it is the Western media that deserves scorn for daring to report on human rights violations in Russia (see Albrecht Müller's defense of Russia's persecution of gays and lesbians).  

Fundamentally, Albrecht Müller despises Western liberal society, much preferring authoritarian countries such as Russia, China and Cuba.  Concerning his hero, Vladimir Putin, Albrecht Müller recently told a reporter that "we should be happy that we have Vladimir Putin."

Ich bin der Meinung, dass wir großes Interesse an einer Stabilität Russlands haben.Wenn ich verantwortungsbewußter deutscher Politiker wäre, dann würde ich so handeln und sagen: wir können eigentlich froh sein, dass wir Putin haben. Jemanden, der das zusammenhält, auch wenn es manchen westlichen Interessenten nicht passt.

Oh yes, "Stabilität Russlands"  - how many writers, politicians, artists, minority activists have been imprisoned, exiled, even murdered to achieve this "stability"?

Til Schweiger rages at the racist comments on his Facebook page

German celebrity star Til Schweiger learned the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished:

Schweiger, 51, best known to international audiences for his role as a Nazi hunter in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds", had on Saturday posted on Facebook a Hamburg newspaper's appeal for donations to help new asylum seekers.

"My call to Hamburg: everybody take part!!!" he wrote, drawing more than 19,000 "likes" and over 1,000 "shares" on other Facebook pages.

But within minutes the post also drew dozens of viciously racist comments with several questioning why a wealthy celebrity should urge the less fortunate to give money to charity.

"There's room for 1-2 refugee families in your Swiss villa," a Facebook user named Milano Verde wrote in one of the milder entries.

The deluge of negative comments prompted a furious response from Schweiger: "Oh man, I was afraid this would happen!! You make me want to throw up! Get off my page you pitiless people! You make me sick!!!"

Hey welcome to the internet,Till.  

Later, Til blamed the deluge of hateful comments on reality television shows:

"Wir haben eine Menge Leute, die nicht nachdenken, weil sie keine Fantasie haben. Weil sie den ganzen Tag vor dem Fernseher sitzen und in irgendwelchen Reality-Show sehen, wie sich irgendwelche Leute gegenseitig beleidigen, runtermachen, dissen, und das prallt nicht an einem ab. Also ich finde, das deutsche Fernsehen trägt dazu bei, dass die Leute so abgestumpft sind.“

I don't find that convincing. Rather, the trolls are spending day and night on the multitude of conspiracy Web sites - creating a giant echo chamber of hate.

Where are the German tech start-up Unicorns?

Unicorns - venture capital-backed tech start-ups valued at $1 billion+ - are a relatively recent phenomenon.  Some, like Airbnb($10B) and Uber ($50B)- have been around for several years and have an international footprint. Others - like Slack Technologies ($2B) - have seemingly come out of nowhere and have barely generated revenue.

According to the research firm CB Insights there are 102 Unicorns with 62 based in the United States, with China quickly catching up with 11. 

The concept of Unicorns is also generating considerable interest in Europe:

Man spricht von ihnen. Manchmal hinter vorgehaltener Hand. Man fragt sich, ob sie tatsächlich das wert sind, was sie versprechen. Man wundert sich, was passiert, wenn die Erwartungen, die man in sie gesetzt hat, nicht erfüllt werden. Die Rede ist von einer ganz besonderen “Spezies” an Startups. Von jenen Unternehmen, denen man einen besonders romantischen Namen gegeben hat: “Einhörner” nennt man sie. Und zwar deswegen, weil sie so selten sind. Vor allem in Europa. Unternehmen, die mehr als eine Milliarde US-Dollar wert sind, werden so genannt.

The author of this post - an Austrian - complains that Austria has not produced a single Einhorn (Unicorn) so far. CB Insights lists two German Unicorns - Delivery Hero and Home24 - both eCommerce knock-offs of US companies incubated by Rocket Internet.  Why so few?  On paper, the conditions should be favorable to innovative tech startups in Germany and Europe in general: 

Yet if any region of the world could compete successfully with the United States in technological prowess, it would seem to be Europe. The European Union has venerable universities, a well-educated work force, affluent and technically skilled consumers and large pools of investment capital.

But Europe lags far behind the United States in terms of creating potential Unicorns. This is in part because of a deep-seated suspicion of disruptive innovations such as Google and Facebook.  The first impulse is to block their entry into Europe via the courts:

With this month’s announcement that the European Union is investigating Amazon for possible anticompetitive behavior in the sale of e-books, antitrust fervor in Europe seems to have hit fever pitch. Apple, Google and Facebook are all subjects of investigation, and Amazon is now the focus of at least three separate inquiries. Europe’s top antitrust regulator, Margrethe Vestager, wants us to believe it’s just coincidence that so many targets are American tech companies: “This just reflects that there are many strong companies in the U.S. that influence the digital market elsewhere,” she told Bloomberg this month.

The other issue is lack of venture capital and no viable exit for investors.  Germans in general avoid the stock market - and they REALLY avoid Initial Public Offering (IPOs).   While in the US both retail and institutional investors lined up to buy shares of Facebook and Twitter, there have been few takers in Germany for announced IPOs. (See In Deutschland funktionieren Börsengänge nicht:  "Anscheinend wollen einfach nur wenige Investoren sich auf unerprobte Aktien einlassen.")

The one German company that competes with US enterprise software giants globally is SAP. But to remain competitive SAP has had to acquire US companies such as Concur and SuccessFactors.  The SuccessFactors deal has allowed SAP to develop a strong presence in Cloud Computing.  Actually, SuccessFactors was started by a European - Lars Daalgard, a Dane - who, however, had to launch his company in Silicon Valley in order to be successful. 

German economists strike back at Paul Krugman for #ThisIsACoup

Shortly after the Greek bailout agreement was announce, Nobel Prize winner economist Paul Krugman attacked Germany on his New York Times blog: 

The trending hashtag ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief. It is, presumably, meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept; but even so, it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for. {...] Who will ever trust Germany’s good intentions after this?

Krugman's over-the-top criticism of Germany didn't sit well with some observers in Germany. Nikolaus Piper, writing in the left-liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung, accused Krugman of launching a "Hate Campaign against Germany" (Hasskampagne gegen Deutschland).  Basically, Krugman is a "Hyper-Keynesian" extremist:

Im Grunde vertritt Krugman einen Hyper-Keynesianismus: Was immer auch passieren mag, neue Schulden, niedrigere Zinsen und höhere Staatsausgaben sind immer richtig. Sparpolitik, oder "Austerität", ist immer falsch. Wer dies anders sieht, bekommt den Zorn Krugmans zu spüren. Über die Gläubiger Griechenlands schrieb er, sie wollten aus "reiner Rachsucht" die nationale Souveränität des Landes komplett zerstören.

(Fundamentally Krugman represents Hyper-Keynsianism: no matter what happens, more debt, lower interest rates and more government spending are the correct response. Spending cuts - or "austerity"- is always the wrong response.  Whoever thinks otherwise incurs Krugman's wrath. Concerning Greece's creditors Krugman wrote that they wanted to completely destroy the country's national sovereignty out of a "pure desire for revenge".)

Writing in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine, Gerald Braunberger, sees Krugman as an "Old-Keynesian" whose ideas have been rejected by a younger generation of Keynesian economists:

Krugman, der nahezu alleine steht, fordert unablässig expansive Finanzpolitik; Sorgen vor einer zu hohen Neuverschuldung kennt er nicht. [...]Zu harten Kritikern Krugmans gehören unter anderen sogenannte Neo-Keynesianer. Auch sie sehen in einer Konjunkturkrise Handlungsbedarf, aber nicht durch expansive Finanzpolitik, sondern durch expansive Geldpolitik.

(Krugman, who stands pretty much alone, demands a continuous expansive fiscal policy; he refuses to recognize any concerns with excessive borrowing.  Some of Krugman's harshest critics are so-called Neo-Keynesians. They also advocate government intervention in an economic crisis, but instead of an expansive fiscal policy they look for an expansive monetary policy.)

But there are historical reasons behind the dispute between Paul Krugman and his German colleagues. Krzysztof Bledowski, senior economist and former IMF director:

"Bledowski argues that during the Great Depression and after World War II, Keynesian demand-side economics drove the policy debate in the United States. This policy also underlay the economic recovery of Europe through the Marshall Plan. The United States, the UK, and most other continental economies embraced activist monetary and fiscal policies to manage cyclical variations in the postwar era. In fact, this new orthodoxy spread to the rest of the world as its success became evident.

But not Germany. According to Bledowski, Germany remained an exception as it struggled to accept Keynesian concepts of countercyclical policies. Instead, the country’s economists and policymakers opted for an ordoliberal approach. According to this doctrine, the social market economy relies on heavy redistribution of income through the state but avoids activist demand management."

Germany's Other Anti-American Political Party

I've written about Germany's Left Party - Die Linke - which, under the leadership of Sahra Wagenknecht and Oskar "Fuck the American Imperialism" Lafontaine, is reliably pro-Putin and anti-American.  But now they have company on the far right with Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) after the party members elected Frauke Petry as its new leader: 

Frauke Petry, who heads a national conservative faction within the fledgling AfD, won a clear majority at a two-day party congress in the western city of Essen, which gathered about 3,500 members.Some 60 percent of delegates backed Petry, whose faction has been battling Lucke, the AfD's economic neo-liberal leader for months, and criticizes him for focusing too much on European policy. [...](Petry) drew particular applause with remarks about "massive integration problems linked to the fact that a religion like Islam conveys a vision of the state that is totally foreign to that which we know in Europe".

But the AfD does not just hate Islam, it is also anti-American and pro-Russia. The foreign policy of the AfD is determined by Alexander Gauland, who is head of the party in Brandenburg. In an essay on Germany - US relations on the Afd Web site, Gauland complains that Germany does not act like a sovereign state and is mistaken that the so-called "Shared Values" (Wertegemeinschaft) with the United States has resulted in Germany blindly following the the lead of the US. 

Und da Deutschland heute ein souveräner Staat ist, wird es auch künftig von Amerika abweichende Entscheidungen treffen müssen. Das hat mit Aufkündigung der Wertegemeinschaft nichts zu tun, es hat allein mit der unterschiedlichen Beurteilung von Interessen zu tun. Wir verlassen nicht den Wertehimmel des Westens, wenn wir eine Politik ablehnen, die dazu führen könnte, dass deutsche Soldaten plötzlich an der Waffenstillstandslinie von Panmunion zwischen Nord- und Südkorea gebraucht werden.

 Gauland is also a big fan of Vladmir Putin and Russia,  In an interview with Die Stimme Russlands ("Voice of Russia"), Gauland praises Putin for preserving the traditions of Czar and for annexing Crimea.  His views on Russia earned him an invitation to meet with Russia's ambassador toe Germany.  The base of the AfD is vehemently opposed the EU economic sanctions on Russia and would like for Germany to leave NATO.

It remains to be seen whether Frauke Petry can transform the AfD to a mainstream populist party to the right of the CDU.  Or whether it devolves into an inconsequential right-wing extremist party aligned with the (neo-Nazi) NPD.  Right now, the chances for success appear to be slim.  A number of the moderates - including the AfD founder Bernd Lucke have left the party. 

Flashback: George Washington Revered By German-American Bund

Today is Independence Day in the United States, a day when we honor America's Founding Fathers. It is interesting to look back in history to see how America's iconic figures have been appropriated for causes that are directly opposed to our country's democratic tradition.

The German-American Bund was a pro-Nazi movement comprised primarily of ethnic Germans living in the United States who were fanatical supporters of National Socialism in Germany and wanted to import Nazi ideals to the United States.  At its height of popularity in 1939 the German-American Bund had over 50,000 adherents with a nationwide network of 'Gaus' and training camps.  The Bund was loyal to Adolf Hitler, naturally, but also celebrated George Washington as one of its heroes.  The Bund organized its national meetings to coincide with Washington's birthday, and the largest event, which was attended by more than 20,000 members, took place in New York's Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. The centerpiece of the event was a 30-foot tall image of George Washington (see photo above).  At the event, George Washington was honored as "America's first Fascist" - as well as a leading anti-Semite:

In fact, George Washington's  alleged anti-Semitism celebrated by the German-American Bund was based on false quotes. Washington welcomed Jews to America, and in his Good Will Address to the Hebrew congregation of Newport Washington promised the immigrants freedom from all bigotry and discrimination.

In his book Hitler & America (see my review) the historian Klaus Fischer wrote that Hitler's confidants wisely advised him to steer clear of the German-American Bund. Hitler's true American friends were the isolationists in the Republican Party.

Fake journalist Udo Ulfkotte publishes new anti-Islam book

Fake journalist Udo Ulkotte has done it again. He has come out with yet another book replete with conspiracy theories, lies and deliberate distortions - this time "proving" that journalists, politicians and Muslim immigrants are conspiring to "Islamicize" Germany.  It is destined to become a best-seller.

Fortunately, Stefan Winterbauer at Meedia has read the book so that you and I don't have to: 

Man sollte sich also lösen von dem, was die Ulfkottes sagen und meinen. Aber man muss sich mit “Mekka Deutschland” trotzdem beschäftigen. Weil, wenn man den Bestellungen auf Amazon glaubt, wieder viele Leute dieses Buch kaufen und lesen werden. Und weil das, was Ulfkotte da schreibt wirklich gefährlich und hetzerisch ist. Ulfkotte vergiftet mit seinen Veröffentlichungen das öffentliche Klima, er spielt bewusst mit Ressentiments und Vorurteilen, er zündelt.

(One needs to distance oneself from whatever the Ulfkottes say and believe. However, we still do need to deal with "Mekka Deutschland".  Because, if the sales figures on Amazon are to be believed once again many people will buy and read this book. And because what Ulfkotte writes is really dangerous and inflammatory. Ulfkotte poisons the public opinion with his books, he deliberately plays with our fears and prejudices - he's a rabble-rouser.")

In his review, Winterbauer examines a number of the "facts" Ulfkotte uses in the book to support his basic premise and exposes them as lies and distortions.  Maybe with Mekka Deutschland Ulfkotte is hoping to revitalize the moribund Pegida demonstrations.