Germany's Authoritarian Moment
Thought-Crime is about to be introduced as a 'new' category of 'evil' things in Germany, courtesy of the social-democrat-led current régime
I’m preparing something a wee bit ‘bigger’, hence a few postings to set it up are in order. We’ll begin with an issue we’ve talked about frequently in these pages, which is: Germany’s—and ‘the West’s’—long sunset of liberalism, republicanism, and the rule of law.
I’ll delimit myself to two references to ‘old’ news from, believe it or not, autumn 2021:
And here’s a link to a three-part series about an open letter by a former legacy media editor who, Ole Skambraks, who broke ranks in autumn 2021 and decried the many biases in mainstream media (this is the third instalment, but I don’t want to post three links here):
With the stage thus set, let’s consider what Germany’s leading tabloid outlet, Bild, wrote three months ago when, in the wake of ‘Stupid Watergate’, Interior Minister Nancy Faes—herself deeply entangled in webs of deceit and left-wing authoritarianism—is trying to re-make Germany:
As always, translation and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines. Sigh.
Faeser ‘Falls into an Authoritarian Mindset’
By Hans-Jörg Vehlewald, Bild, 18 March 2024 [source]
To combat right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists ‘holistically and at an early stage’, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser is striking a whole new chord: demonstrators, Facebook or Telegram users, those ‘who mock the state’ shall ‘have to deal with a strong state’, according to the SPD politician.
The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang (CDU), also wants to target ‘speech and thought patterns’ that are guilty of ‘delegitimising the state’.
In addition to AfD activists and neo-Nazis [note the spin: as if these were the same], state protectors [read: state security services, orig. Staatsschützer] are also explicitly focussing on climate and coronavirus deniers who call for a boycott of state institutions or government policies. They are to be monitored more closely by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in future.
Criticism from All Sides [my header]
However, constitutional law experts such as constitutional law expert Rupert Scholz (CDU) sound the alarm in Bild am Sonntag, fearing for ‘freedom of opinion, the core right of our democratic constitutional state’.
Former FDP Interior Minister Gerhart Baum warns:
Criticism, even harsh criticism, must be possible, right up to the point where freedom is truly jeopardised. There must therefore be no general snooping on opinions.
Bundestag deputy president Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) also considers Faeser’s plans to be unconstitutional:
The fight against the “right” seems to be turning into a fight against the law. I would never have dreamed that a social democratic interior minister would herself become a danger to democracy. By delegitimising state institutions, criticism of the actions of state actors can almost arbitrarily be pushed into the realm of endangering the state.
Even [sic] in the GDR, there was ‘the criminal offence of anti-state agitation’, Kubicki explained, adding:
The Minister of the Interior apparently doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that she is falling into this authoritarian mindset. I can only say: Not with me, Mrs Faeser.
Boris Palmer, the former Green mayor of Tübingen, also expresses concerns about the vague term ‘delegitimisation’:
I experience delegitimisation of the state when the railways no longer work, permits take many years, daycare centres are closed due to a lack of staff, and people no longer dare to go out on the streets at night.
In other words, if a government defines at will which of its critics are to be categorised as a threat to the state, our Basic Law is in grave danger—and the floodgates are open to arbitrariness! [this is from Bild!]
Re-Forming the Verfassungsschutz [my header]
The fact is that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is to be reorganised according to Faeser’s plans.
Hate speech on the internet and radical expressions of opinion are coming more into focus, even if no (criminal) offence has been committed for a long time. President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Haldenwang [remember, Mr. Haldenwang is technically an ‘opposition™’ politico]:
We must not make the mistake of only focussing on violent extremism. Because it is also about verbal and mental border shifts.
In April 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution established the new phenomenon area ‘Delegitimisation of the state relevant to constitutional protection’. Initially targeting corona deniers!
Their offshoots have shifted to new topics since the end of the pandemic, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution now admits [talk about mission creep], adding:
Within the delegitimisation spectrum, a discourse began on possible new, mobilisable topics. In this context, discussions included agitation against government climate protection measures or the debate about the economic and political consequences of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution allegedly also knows how many state-threatening ‘objects’ are involved: ‘around 1,400’ nationwide, of which ‘280 people are to be classified as violence-orientated’. Not very many! [keep those numbers in mind, for if you think some 280-1,400 ‘regular’ people could bring down a gov’t, you’re very much mistaken (but may believe that 1/6 was an attempted ‘coup’].
But if necessary, one can broaden the perspective considerably, for example to journalists, such as the former Spiegel editor-in-chief and current Welt editor, Stefan Aust: he is already being attacked online as a potential ‘climate change denier’ and ‘conspiracy ideologue’ after making critical comments on German climate policy. And [state broadcaster] ARD satirist Dieter Nuhr also regularly makes fun of climate activists—is he another case for Faeser and Haldenwang?
Former Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP) explains the government’s plans: ‘The state must take decisive action against right-wing extremism. But the end does not justify all means.’
Germany needs ‘a controversial society in which the best argument is convincing in political discourse. Sniffing out opinions, as envisaged by Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser’s action plan against right-wing extremism, is fuelling the AfD’s rise and a threat to freedom of opinion’.
In contrast, Faeser is receiving support from within her own ranks. SPD parliamentary group deputy Dirk Wiese (40) told Bild:
‘Interviews are no substitute for expertise. In contrast to Kubicki and others, Nancy Faeser has clearly recognised that the greatest danger to our democracy comes from the right. Anyone who appeases and trivialises this has not heard the shot.’
Bottom Lines
We will soon come to rue the day when all good and honest people were pushed out of politics. The best rulers are perhaps those who don’t want to govern at-all.
The worst kind of rulers are, of course, those who desperately wish to govern and literally won’t stop at anything.
While I don’t want to romanticise our Cold War polities, much of what now passes for ‘politics™’, ‘science™’, or ‘journalism™’ was much more closely regulated, so to speak, by informal or unwritten ‘rules’.
Around the time the USSR vanished, the floodgates opened: in (former West) Germany, Chancellor Kohl and his consigliere Wolfgang Schäuble subverted the constitution’s intent (about convening a new, all-German constitutional convention upon ‘re-unification’), which constitutes a ‘serious™ crime’ these days.
Moreover, we note that Mr. Schäuble, although a convicted felon (he accepted illegal campaign contributions) in cahoots with former chancellor Kohl (who knew, but never disclosed publicly, where these bribes came from), orchestrated the emergence of the EU, the Euro, and, of course, Angela Merkel’s eventual rise. Needless to say, in legal terms, it takes but two individuals to constitute a ‘conspiracy to commit a crime’. Instead, these people are lionised for their accomplishments.
In this sense, Ms. Faeser, Mr. Haldenwang, and their ilk are the undertakers of Germany and Europe.
Epilogue
These days, I’m ever more drawn to reconsidering a few fictional texts of yesteryear. We read them when I was in the final years of my Gymnasium training (senior high school), and one of the better ones was written by none other than Friedrich Schiller—from whose Don Carlos (1787) I shall herewith quote a few lines from Edward Hartwick’s nice 2003 translation:
KING [Philip II of Spain]
I have no quarrel with this century.
Look around you in my realm. My subjects
flourish here in never clouded peace.
It is that kind of peace I want for Flanders.POSA
Peace of a churchyard! You hope to finish
what you have begun— hope to arrest the spring
that marked the current change of Christendom,
the spring that is rejuvenating the face
of this old earth. You want to stop— all by
yourself— the wheel of progress rolling with
full speed through Europe by throwing human
bodies in its way. You won’t succeed.
Already thousands fled your Kingdom, poor
but free. And those who have escaped were
your most worthy citizens. With open arms
receives Elizabeth of England your
refugees. Barren lies Granada, its fields
abandoned. And jubilant does Europe watch
its enemy bleeding away from self-inflicted wounds(The King is moved; Posa moves closer to him.)
You want to sow for all eternity
and plant the seeds of death. You’ve built
a structure of ingratitude. In vain you’ve
fought the hard campaign with nature. In vain
you’ve sacrificed your life for purposes
destructive. Man is much more than what you
think of him. He will wake up from his extended
slumber, and he will claim his right. And you
name, Sire, will be remembered along with
Nero’s and Busiris’. And that is hurting
me, for you deserve much better. You were good.KING
Can you be certain— after all you’ve said?
POSA
Yes, Sire, I repeat it. You were good. And now
be great. Return to us what you have taken.
The world is looking up. Among a thousand kings
be one! (He comes still closer to the King.)Oh, if the eloquence of all those millions
who’re taking part in this great moment could
give my lips greater persuasion. Give up
this adoration that’s defying nature.
Set an example for all things great and good.
Never before had one mortal so much
to put to such a glorious use. All the
kings of Europe pay homage to the Spanish
name. Be the first among them. One pen stroke
of your hand will re-create the earth.
Give us spiritual freedom!(He falls to his knees before the King.)
KING (turning away from him)
What strange fantasies! (Turning to him) Do get up—
POSA (gets up)
Look around you, Sire, in God’s magnificent
creation. It’s based on freedom and how rich
it is because of freedom. Of all
His creatures not a single one is not
born free. Your creation— how poor and small!
The trembling of a leaf can scare the master
of all Christendom. But you can still restore
the greatness of your throne. Your subjects be
once more what they were meant to be: the purpose
of the Crown, bound by no other duty
than by their brothers’ equal rights. And when
you have returned the dignity to man,
when you have made your realm the happiest
on earth, then, Sire, will it be your right
to subjugate the world!KING (after a brief pause)
I’ve let you finish, as it’s obvious to me
that, from your point of view, the world looks vastly
different than to most men. Because of this,
I won’t apply to you the same standard
of judgment as to others. Because of
your restraint not to confide these thoughts to
anyone— until this moment— I will
forget what I have heard. And as a man
older in years, not as your King, do I
dismiss these views of an impetuous
young man. But this fire that burns within you
must be purified and put to better use
before it will consume you. And so
beware my inquisition— it would distress me—
Empire is very good at utilizing their BS dialectic. They drop something which is often generally reviled, considered dangerous and unacceptable, but they use this as a hook upon which they build their alternative thought frameworks. Here is a simple example of a hook - hate speech. There was a time, not too long ago, when we took the freedom of speech very seriously and understood that the principle applies to all speech (perhaps less so in German speaking countries where certain speech had been outlawed). Without the freedom for the kind of speech which we find objectionable the freedom of speech loses its essential quality. Now introduce the toxic concept of “hate speech” and start censoring what they define as “hate speech” (an elastic concept). Soon they graduate to “misinformation”, “disinformation”…; the very concept of freedom of thought and speech evaporates over time. The persistent gradual push in a desired direction(s) over time overwhelms us and destroys us. We seem to have no anti-dote to this. Any resistance is painted and labeled in the most undesirable light. Any criticism of Israel becomes Anti-Semitism, and who wishes to be Anti-Semite (or racist, bigot,…)? They are systematically disarming us. I feel that what you are describing is an integral part of this process. Relentless attack on foundational principles works! Here in the US, the younger people seem much more receptive to the idea of limiting speech, or trading our most cherished rights for elusive nonsense of defending our “democracy”, our “freedoms”, in a constant fight against extremists, terrorists and pathogens.
De-legitimise the state?
So Germany is making EU-membership and working for an "ever closer union" a crime then?